Woman boss 'tormented by sexist, racist emails'

A successful businesswoman claims male directors on the board which bought out her company degraded her by sending explicit emails and staring at her breasts.

Kate Bleasdale, who founded a medical staff agency now known as Match Group, said her complaints to the new company chairman, Sir Tim Chessells, were ignored and she was subsequently sacked for no reason.

Sir Tim, a former chairman of the Legal Aid Board, was a "bully" who paid a lower-ranking employee than Mrs Bleasdale more than her £180,000 salary, she said.

She is claiming unfair dismissal and sex discrimination in a case that could win her hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mrs Bleasdale, 41, rose from being a nurse in her twenties to running Sinclair Montrose Healthcare in her thirties. But when in 1999 she stayed on as boss of the Wandsworth-based company, re-named Match Group, she claimed she was subjected to a campaign of abuse by the new board.

She claimed Nick Martin, one of the directors, sent her "sexist, racist and sexual emails on a regular basis": "They ranged from racist jibes to pictures of naked men, jokes about women shopping and men drinking. I was sent a picture of a foetus, foul language and many other offensive subjects."

In her statement to the employment tribunal at Croydon, she said: "It was clear that Nick Martin and the others saw female colleagues as sex objects.

"I remember one occasion where Rob Moores (a director) and Tim Chessells were in the boardroom and I came in. It was hot and I was wearing a dark silk T-shirt and trousers.

"Both Tim and Rob stared at my breasts and then looked me up and down. It was blatant and degrading.

"It was inappropriate behaviour and summarised their attitude to a woman in the boardroom."

Sir Tim is contesting the case.