THE first of four former Salisbury district council employees, sacked in July after going public with accusations of workplace bullying and harassment, has lost her case for unfair dismissal.

Bundy Riley, former Environment and Agenda 21 officer, was told by a Southampton employment tribunal last Friday that the council had been entitled to conclude her conduct was inappropriate and the decision to dismiss had been an appropriate course of action.

Mrs Riley, who lives in Damerham, was initially suspended for reading a statement making the allegations at a meeting of the resources and scrutiny committee earlier this year.

She claimed she had been subjected to bullying in the workplace over a period of time and that neither council policies nor management actions had proved adequate in dealing with the problem.

The matter came to a head in March, when Mrs Riley said she was given the choice of returning to work in the unit where she had been bullied, or risk losing her job.

She told the tribunal her public disclosure had been a last-ditch attempt to resolve the situation and draw attention to a wider "culture of bullying" within the council.

But chairman David Teagle said her actions were not reasonable and the decision to sack her had been fair.

He said: "It seems to us that, at the time of the meeting, no final decision had yet been taken by the council as to how to resolve Mrs Riley's concerns.

"The council was wanting to bring matters to a conclusion and they had made a management decision that if the employment was to continue, then it was to do so in the unit where she had been based - a decision they were entitled to make.

"It's also clear that there was a commitment not just to requiring her to go back but to providing a structured and mediated approach.

"We understand that the applicant had no confidence this was going to work, but in any event the matter had not been finally resolved."

Speaking after the tribunal, Mrs Riley said: "In their view, it wasn't a public interest disclosure and there were more management issues to go on with.

"But I had been told I had exhausted all the procedures and I knew very well I couldn't walk back through the doors of my unit.

"Nothing had changed - I was still being bullied from a distance."

She added: "I had hoped that justice would have been done but you will very, very rarely win against the system.

"At the end of the day, what led four officers to put their jobs on the line and speak out at a public meeting?

"I loved my job, it was so interesting and so important - the decision to stand up and speak out wasn't taken lightly."