Female worker who was 'bound and gagged' by colleagues loses harassment case

A fisheries officer who claimed she was “bound and gagged” by colleagues has lost her bullying and harassment case.

DeeAnn Fitzpatrick, 49, said she was targeted to keep quiet after complaining of a racist and misogynistic culture at Marine Scotland.

She said she was taped to a chair and gagged by colleagues in 2010 – with a photo of the alleged bullying emerging.

But it was not considered as it was said to have occurred more than three years before the complaint was brought.

A colleague allegedly told her: “This is what you get when you speak out against the boys,” a tribunal heard.

Ms Fitzpatrick, from Canada, also said she was mocked over a miscarriage and was the victim of threatening behaviour and racist language at the government body’s Scrabster office in Caithness.

The tribunal instead focused on her claim that she had received abusive cards on her birthday and also Valentine’s Day between 2015 and 2017.

She claimed it was part of a long campaign of harassment – with one message calling her an “old troll”.

Another woman warned her about trying to “climb the ladder of success,” she told the tribunal.

Two men who were named in the complaint denied sending their former colleague the cards.

Ms Fitzpatrick said the abuse she received affected her self-esteem to the point where she considered ending her own life.

But she has now been informed by the employment tribunal that it will not be upholding the complaint.

Ms Fitzpatrick had told the hearing: "It’s actually made me become a recluse - I stay at home, I have gone more into myself. With everything going on, I contacted Dignitas in Switzerland. I had enough.”

“We were horrified. We were sickened. We worry about what this has done to her DeeAnn's sister-in-law Sherry Fitzpatrick said about the 2010 picture.