Bullying, poor management and excessive workloads drove an ex-council employee to suffer a mental breakdown, a Judge has ruled.

Stephen Whiteside, a landscape designer, was driven to despair due to “a catalogue of breaches” by Croydon Council's planning department.

He won his case against Croydon Council last week for breach of contract after suffering a breakdown due to stressful working conditions.

Judge Anthony Thornton QC, at the High Court, heard the planning department was so badly mismanaged that during late 2004, all three senior managers in urban design had stress-related breakdowns or illness.

Mr Whiteside, 56, worked for the council’s planning department from 1989. He suffered a breakdown in May 1999 and was signed off work until August 1999.

Despite this, when he returned to work, nothing improved and continuing mismanagement lead to him suffering another breakdown in October 2004. He was unable to return to work and was forced to resign in March 2006.

Just before he suffered his breakdown, Mr Whiteside told Human Resources he “could not take any more and was near to breaking point” and did not want to go off sick and let people down but he was “close to the edge”.

In handing down his decision, Judge Thornton said: “The unacceptable stressful conditions that Mr Whiteside was subjected to for at least two years prior to his recurrent illness were all caused by a catalogue of breaches by London Borough of Croydon of this duty.

“The evidence is overwhelming that Mr Whiteside’s recurrent illness was foreseeable and that it was also foreseeable that the working conditions he was subjected to would lead to psychiatric injury.”

He ruled the council must pay Mr Whiteside damages for breach of contract, to be decided at a second trial.

Judge Thornton said despite Mr Whiteside’s repeated warnings that his stress levels and workload were becoming unmanageable, nothing was done by his managers, Andrew Beedham and Iain Sim.

He said his first breakdown was due to “him overworking, concentrating on multiple problems without sufficient direction in circumstances where much of his work, although of high quality, was not appreciated because it could not be, or was not made use of due to financial cutbacks”.

Mr Whiteside’s managers recognised he was in danger of having another breakdown.

The court saw a memorandum to the council’s Personnel and Training Manager on February 3, 2000, written by Mr Beedham and seen by Mr Sim, which said: “Since [Steve Whiteside] returned he has become increasingly involved in both Crystal Palace and South Wandle regeneration partnership schemes.

"There is the likelihood that this will escalate to such an extent that Steve will be in the same position as he was last May unless alternative arrangements are put in place to enable Steve to progress private work.”

However no action was taken on this memorandum.

The court heard that at one point Mr Whiteside was involved in giving advice on two different sides of a planning appeal relating to a project to regenerate the River Wandle.

A company called Prologis wanted to build warehouses on land which the River Wandle ran under. If their planning application was accepted, the judge heard it “could strike a mortal, or even a fatal blow to the South Wandle project” on which Mr Whiteside had been working.

The application was rejected and, despite having helped those opposed to the application, Mr Whiteside was asked to provide evidence to help the council case officer to put the appeal statement together.

Judge Thornton wrote: “He was in the middle of a conflict between those who wished Prologis to succeed in the appeal and those, who were in the minority, who wished to promote LBC’s clear policy that the appeal should be dismissed.

"He was receiving no help or steer from management as to what he should be doing and how he should be doing it.”

Since Mr Whiteside’s breakdown Andrew Beedham, chief planner, his line manager Iain Sim, divisional director and his manager Philip Goodwin, the Director of Planning and Transportation, have all left the council.

Mr Whiteside is seeking damages for loss of earnings of £108,100, loss of future earnings of £135,311, loss of pension of £115,036 and various itemised past and future losses which produce a total, without interest, of £364,955.

He said: “I am reasonably pleased with the judgement but I am still doing battle with the council.

“We have another trial to decide damages. I don’t want to go to another trial and another hearing, I want this to be it. I want to put this all behind me and get on with my life.”

A spokesman for Croydon Council said: “The council is disappointed with the outcome of this case but will look at the judgement closely to see if there are any lessons that are still applicable in 2010.

“The matters took place a number of years ago, under the previous administration, in an organisation unrecognisable from the council of today.

“Since 2005 there have been significant changes that include personal development plans for staff, staff survey action plans, improved staff communications and engagement, reviewed discipline, capability and grievance procedures, improved Trade Union relationships and management training.”

Judge Thornton’s comments on:

Management and supervision

“The management and supervision of the work of the UDD and of those working in the UDD was very loose and diffuse.

“Clearly, this somewhat loosely structured management was in need of change and improvement but little had been achieved within the UDD by the time Mr Whiteside left.

“The job reviews were wholly ineffective, no proper general risk assessments had been undertaken and no specific risk assessments of Mr Whiteside were ever undertaken, there was little or no management of the work loads and work distribution and no attention paid to the often stressful working conditions and their concomitant, harassing and bullying tendencies of particular members of staff directed to other members of staff.”

Working conditions, harassment and bullying

“It was clear from the evidence that working relations within the UDD were very poor.

“Mr Whiteside remained doggedly insistent on raising his complaints and concerns and in pursuing his grievances with those he came into contact with. Mr Beedham adopted a laissez-faire approach to life. He considered that nothing would change so he was prepared to work his way round the difficulties created, usually be ignoring them. Thus, every contact with Mr Beedham amounted to an unwelcome reality check. It was this repeated experience which became, in his mind, bullying and intimidation whereas it was, at worst, behaviour amounting to repeated and annoying reminders of his situation.

“There were, however, clear instances of intimidation and bullying. Mr Whiteside gave evidence that cliques developed in the office and referred to two members of staff who had been bullied by such cliques.”

Health and safety risks

“The policy of undertaking risk assessments was introduced in 2002 and the UDD was provided with risk assessments in September 2002 and March 2003. The relevant assessment, that of stress, yielded a low/medium assessment following the first assessment and a medium assessment following the second..

“The following risk factors were being assessed: Nervous break downs, depression, low morale, low self esteem, poor concentration, panic attacks, lack of control, irritability, nausea, headaches, migraines, anxiety, anger, high level of accidents, sickness, and absences, long term illness.”

“A medium assessed risk, as was provided in March 2003, required additional control measures to be complied with within four weeks.

“Following the receipt of these assessments, Mr Whiteside provided his comments and returned them to Mr Beedham. However, nothing further was done either to check the assessment or to identify and work towards the eradication of the identified risk factors. Given the significant incidence of virtually all of these risk factors amongst most members of the UDD, urgent steps should have been taken to improve the health and to reduce the risk of health breakdown within that department.”

Job reviews

“It is a remarkable fact that each of the five job reviews undertaken between 2000 and 2004 contained detailed and repeated complaints by Mr Whiteside about lack of management direction and support, about the risk to his health arising from his working conditions, about conflicts and poor morale within the UDD and about the difficulties of completing satisfactorily many of the tasks assigned to Mr Whiteside due to a lack of departmental strategy and policies. None of these reviews was signed off, none raised with Mr Whiteside by Mr Sims and none appeared to influence or affect the work and working conditions provided for Mr Whiteside in the ensuing year. Each was, in effect, a whistling into the wind.

“It was particularly striking that in late 2004, all three senior managers within the UDD, a very small department, had stress-related breakdowns or illness. Mr Beedham had a breakdown in October 2004 which he attributed to over-work and work-related stress. Ms Murphy had periods of illness at that time and, according to Mr Whiteside, was suffering from the effects of stress which was work-related. She left LBC’s employment early in 2005 and Mr Whiteside stated that she declined to give evidence for him because she could not bear to think about or be reminded about her time within the UDD.”