Sellafield 'whistleblower' fights £40,000 costs demand

A consultant who lost a whistleblowing claim against Sellafield is fighting a demand to pay £40,000 costs.

Alison McDermott lost an employment tribunal against her dismissal from the Cumbrian nuclear site and was ordered to pay costs, but a second judge found aspects of her case "troubling".

A new tribunal is now deciding whether her claim had been "unreasonable".

Lawyers for Sellafield said Ms McDermott made "baseless" claims and the case cost taxpayers £330,000.

Ms McDermott, from near Ilkley, West Yorkshire, worked as a human resources (HR) and diversity consultant at the Cumbrian coastal site for several months in 2018.

She said she was terminated after raising concerns of bullying behaviour, but an employment tribunal in 2021 found against her and she was ordered to pay £20,000 costs to both Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) against whom she made unfair dismissal claims.

She appealed, and while a judge said there were no grounds for a new tribunal, there were criticisms of the way her case had been handled by the tribunal and the award of costs was deemed "unsafe".

At a fresh costs hearing in Leeds on Thursday, Deshpal Panesar KC, representing Sellafield, said it was "quite right" allegations should be raised and probed by a tribunal, but that was "not an excuse for the deployment of multiple demonstrable lies", which he claimed Ms McDermott had done.

He said she made "baseless claims of the most damaging sort, representing an existential threat to the careers of multiple public servants, based on multiple untruths", including her allegations there was "fabrication of evidence", which she later withdrew.

"Those actions clearly amount to unreasonable conduct," Mr Panesar said.

He said the tribunal involved 15 witnesses over 13 days, but Sellafield was seeking £20,000 from Ms McDermott, less than 6% of the costs, as that was a "proportionate response", Mr Panesar said.

Rachael Levene, representing the NDA, said Ms McDermott had "acted unreasonably" by rejecting a "generous" £160,000 settlement offered to her before the tribunal, as she had "unreasonable expectations and demands".

"She ought to have appreciated the clear risks in this case," Ms Levene said, and added that at the time the offer was made, Ms McDermott was "equipped" with enough information to know her claim against the NDA "was not going to be achievable" but still went ahead at "great public expense".

'Offends decency'

Representing herself, Ms McDermott said the pursuance of costs had been a "threat hanging over" her and caused "unremitting stress" and "negatively exacerbated mental health" problems.

She said she was a highly respected consultant, who had been praised for previous work at Sellafield, although she had "never worked in an organisation with such entrenched issues".

Ms McDermott said she wrote a report highlighting "serious issues" in Sellafield's HR "leadership" and days later, her contract was terminated.

"I was brought in to do a job and I did my job," Ms McDermott said. "I felt a deep moral obligation to the people I was speaking to who were telling me how scared and stressed they were by the culture at Sellafield."

She said she was told she was let go for financial reasons, but found out concerns had been raised about the standard of work, with allegations she was "vexatious".

Ms McDermott said bosses "lied" to her and did not give her a chance to respond to the allegations, which "offends every fair sense of decency" and "natural justice".

She said she was treated in a "really shabby way", was "deeply distressed" and suffered professional harm with a "deceit perpetrated against" her.

'Purist desire'

Ms McDermott said she had been "reasonable" to go to a tribunal and was "exercising [her] lawful right to raise concerns", and added her "underlying concerns were justified".

She said she did not accept the £160,000 as compensation had "never been a key part of this dispute", and she wanted to air her concerns in court and "address the allegations" made about her which had had "such a damning impact on [her] ability to work" and "vindicate" her reputation.

Ms McDermott said she also feared she would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but she was "deeply concerned about what was happening at Sellafield" and was "motivated by the purist desire to do right by the public" and speak out.

She said her being "pursued to the nth degree" for costs was having a "chilling impact" on other workers at Sellafield, who may now fear speaking out over issues at "the most dangerous nuclear site in western Europe".

"Whistleblowing protections are crucial," she said, and added that a costs order was "manifestly not in the public interest".

Employment judge Stuart Robertson said when deciding whether to award costs, he and his two fellow panellists had to "decide whether [Ms McDermott] behaved unreasonably", as alleged by Sellafield and the NDA.

A decision will be announced at a later date.

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