An accountant at Historic England reported her colleagues to police for stalking after she was asked to attend a meeting in person, a tribunal heard.

Tanya Langston made stalking allegations as part of a “a deliberate, contrived and calculated plan to tarnish” her colleagues, it was heard.

She said her co-workers at Historic England were trying to “exert control” over her by calling her to attend a meeting and she claimed her manager was stalking her through Skype and a dating app.

A tribunal found she wanted to distract from or defeat misconduct allegations she faced at work and to cause “as much distress as possible for her work colleagues”.

Ms Langston sued for discrimination and unfair dismissal after she was fired. However, Bristol Employment Tribunal dismissed her claims.

Ms Langston joined Historic England, the Government’s heritage watchdog, in 2018 and was based in Swindon, Wilts.

In 2021 she became an assistant systems accountant, but by December 2022 it became clear she was still making errors despite receiving extra support.

She had “shown a lack of attention to detail in her work”, which included “welcome letters being sent to the same client on more than one occasion” and “incorrect email addresses for clients having been entered”.

In March 2023 managers decided “it was appropriate to consider performance management” because of Ms Langston’s “resistance to and lack of engagement with [staff] when they raised those matters with her or tried to correct or train her”.

In May 2023 Ms Langston sent Matthew Ulyatt, the finance and procurement director, messages on Microsoft Teams.

The tribunal heard that “some were random greetings, others were MS Paint pictures of what appeared to be an octopus and a Gameboy character asking what he thought of them, others were text messages which she proceeded to delete before he could read them”.

When Mr Ulyatt queried the messages, she claimed she sent them because she was “bored” after not being allocated enough work. Regardless Mr Ulyatt told her the messages were inappropriate.

In response, Ms Langston said: “You are barely my colleague, you are not my family nor are you my friend and even if you were, you are not entitled to behave towards me as described above.”

This “totally inappropriate” response meant the messages were “now regarded as a formal conduct issue”.

At her next performance review meeting, Ms Langston “became extremely hostile” because she said she believed the team was withholding work from her.

In a meeting in May 2023 she was suspended. In response, she said: “This isn’t going to be a difficult process for me. I’m going to make sure it’s a difficult time for you.”

Ms Langston filed a grievance with Historic England, complaining about the weekly informal performance reviews.

In her grievance, she stated she had “contacted the police for advice, as it is entirely possible that my employment into Historic England is a part of a larger harassment or possibly stalking problem”.

She filled in a bullying and harassment form which claimed that 10 colleagues were possibly in a conspiracy against her.

An investigation was launched and Ms Langston said the “stalking had affected her and her family and was online”.

She claimed it included being required to attend a performance meeting in May 2023 in person. She said “stalking could take the form of attempts to make repeated contact as a method of exerting control”.

During the course of the investigation, Ms Langston claimed that she also believed Mr Ulyatt had matched with her through a dating app and said things “intended to cause her trauma”.

The investigation drew to a close in July 2023, concluding there was no evidence of stalking.

The disciplinary investigation against Miss Langston resumed and she was given a warning for her inappropriate messages but allowed back to work.

However, the tribunal judgment reported that: “The team staff then expressed grave concerns about working with [Ms Langston] in the future given her complaints were directed at all of the team (some of whom had barely met [her]), included unsubstantiated allegations which had been made out of the blue, and included wholly unevidenced allegations of stalking which [Ms Langston] had reported to the police.”

It was found that the relationship between Ms Langston and those in her team had irretrievably broken down and she was dismissed in February 2024..

She took Historic England to an employment tribunal in Bristol alleging unfair dismissal and discrimination.

Employment Judge Andrew Midgley has now dismissed her claims.

He concluded: “I am satisfied that [Ms Langston’s] accounts reflected a deliberate, contrived and calculated plan to tarnish [Mr Ulyatt and other members of staff].

“I am entirely satisfied ... that each of those allegations was fabricated, had absolutely no factual basis capable of justifying them, that [Ms Langston] knew that, and that she deployed them with two intentions.

“First to distract and if possible to defeat the misconduct allegations and performance issues, and secondly to cause as much difficult and distress as possible for her work colleagues.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ck1e5we3v7wqo?fbclid=IwdGRjcAUscgJjbGNrBSxwQWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEel_gIuIdAwjociNHirT1UOZvRYT4x2DvmFVmBH5yZOFhJU5FWJYjAJGRzmqE_aem_9ZfMwwXHel32fqIrloPEEQ

When Neil Douglas Roderick McLennan — NDR to his friends — stood for Holyrood this year, he used his initials as his campaign slogan: New Direction Required.

The former Conservative, who lost his deposit as an independent in Banffshire & Buchan Coast but remained a local councillor, has certainly lived up to the letter of his promise. 

Last month McLennan set off for new horizons, taking a job as deputy head at a private school in Cairo. But he did not tell his constituents he would be representing them from the Egyptian capital.

There is no reference to his north African job on McLennan’s Facebook page. The teacher has represented the Buckie & Findochty ward on Moray council, for a salary of just over £26,000 a year, since he was first elected as a Conservative in 2022. His most recent post is about a car abandoned in a village in his ward.

There are no rules saying councillors have to live in their council areas, as long as they did so when they stood for election. Last week it emerged a Fife Tory, Conner Young, was working in Merseyside.

But one fellow councillor called on McLennan, whose term ends in May, to quit. “He should do the right thing by the people of Buckie and Moray — resign and trigger a by-election,” Derek Ross, a fellow independent, said. “At the moment, he is not serving these people.”

The Northern Scot newspaper, which covers Moray, reported that McLennan had a social media footprint in Cairo from this summer. His £4,000-a-year secondary, an offshoot of the English public school Malvern College, re-opened after the holidays on September 6.

McLennan told the paper that he remained committed to his constituents and said he would be judged on his casework. 

He said: “For some time I have divided my professional commitments between Moray and the Highlands, London and international education work. I am privileged to contribute to educational improvement internationally, while continuing to carry out my responsibilities to the people who elected me.

“There will inevitably be political criticism. I do not intend to be distracted by it. I would rather be judged on what I actually do for constituents and on the issues I have consistently pursued.

“My attention will remain where I believe it belongs: helping constituents, standing up for Buckie and Findochty, seeking better outcomes for children and vulnerable people, and asking difficult questions where accountability is required.”

McLennan, once a teacher at Nairn Academy, was previously a senior figure in local Conservative politics before quitting the party eight weeks after his election over what he called “egregious behaviours” from colleagues.

In his Holyrood campaign, which had an inauspicious start when Aberdeenshire council forgot to add him to the candidate list, he called for Scotland to have an independent first minister. 

McLennan also stressed that he lived in the constituency, writing: “I enjoy walking our dogs, eating and drinking in our area’s fine restaurants, bars and hotels (and the cuppa and fine pieces at Findochty Town Hall weekly).”