Former New Star manager claimed Duffield 'undermined' fund managers' confidence

The full extent of former New Star fund manager Patrick Evershed's claims of bullying by his former employer John Duffield have been exposed.

Evershed is currently contesting his departure from the now defunct asset management company on the basis of constructive dismissal. He left months before New Star was forced to re-structure its debt and then was ultimately sold to Henderson Global Investors for a fraction of its peak value. 

In a judgement handed down by the Employment Appeals Tribunal today, Evershed claims that in the run-up to the credit crunch in 2008, when he was running the New Star Selected Opportunities fund, he told Duffield that he believed:

• That the credit crunch was coming
• He was bullying the group's head of property Roger Dossett to buy over-valued properties
• He was destroying the confidence of his own fund managers and the group's marketing department.

Evershed, who now works for Hargreave Hale, lost the initial claim and is now appealing. Today he won an amendment which will see the case judged under the Whistleblowing Act, meaning that the damages he can potentially win in a further appeal are unlimited rather than being capped at £66,000.  

Duffield's legal team denied all of Evershed's claims during the appeal. It said: 'New Star denies the chairman in any way bullied [Mr Evershed] or attempted to undermine, demean or humiliate him. The chairman always spoke to and acted towards [him] with courtesy and respected [him].'

However, the three judges agreed the case could be judged under the whistleblowing Act because Evershed wrote to New Star's head of human resources shortly before he was asked to leave the company in September 2008 claiming Duffield was bullying him and his colleagues.

The latest judgement in the case reveals the full letter Evershed wrote to the head of human resources, Helen Steel.

The letter said: 'I would like to make formal complaint about the way John Duffield has been bullying me and several of my colleagues.

'He has been vile to most of the fund managers for several years and bullying us. He has created a most unpleasant atmosphere throughout the firm. His conduct and the atmosphere which he has created has destroyed the performance of the New Star funds. He recruited stars and then destroyed them by the way he treated us.

'The board are aware of they [sic] way Duffield has been treating us and by the way his conduct has undermined the self confidence of the fund managers and the marketing department but they have been too frightened of him to deal with the situation in the way they should have.

'In particular he bullied me in to reopening my fund. This destroyed the performance of the fund and my reputation. He has also destroyed the performance of several other funds and the reputation of several of my colleagues.

'He also bullied Roger Dossett into buying properties when he and I and many others kept telling him the property sector was over valued. I kept telling him for over three years that a credit crunch was coming, but he turned his back on me each time and walked away. He refused to listen to me or Roger.