IF YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW HOW LEWISHAM COUNCIL TREAT PEOPLE WHO SUFFER WITH DEPRESSION READ ON....
I have experienced injustice first hand. Having gone through a harrowing 3 year and 8 month legal process in the Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal and the High Court, (and being unrepresented throughout), my eyes have now been open to the harsh realities of our legal system, particularly as a 'Whistleblower' and 'Litigant in Person', with no legal training.
I was 'easy meat!'
YOU WILL ALSO FIND OUT HOW THE TRIBUNAL SYSTEM TREATED ME: I am a whistleblower who took on a FTSE 100 Company and a Local Authority in a quest to expose what I perceived to be harassment, discrimination, malpractice and corruption- using covert recordings and other documentary evidence, but I was failed by the judicial system and left with a huge debt.
You can view the 'Timeline' of my experience here.
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WHO WERE THE DEFENDANTS’ IN THIS CASE?
Lewisham Council and their public officers/managers:
Ralph Wilkinson (Lewisham Council's current Head of Public Services)
Christine Grice (Lewisham Council's former Head of Access and Support)
Elaine Smith (Lewisham Council's current Positive Activities Team Manager- who had also been the joint interim head of the Youth Support Services at the time)
Valerie Gonsalves (Lewisham Council's current Key work Team Manager)
Kate Parsley (Lewisham Council's former Head of the Teenage Pregnancy Team- who had also been the joint interim head of the Youth Support Services at the time)
Elaine Hattam (Lewisham Council's HR officer)
The Defendants' were represented by their in-house legal team, specifically their Solicitor- Francis Millivojevic and their Head of Law- Kath Nicholson, (who signed statements of truth in the defence of my claim). The Defendants' Barristers were Stuart Brittenden from Old Square Chambers and William Bennett from 5rb.
Lewisham Council spent in excess of £700,000 of tax payers money defending legal action brought in the Tribunal and High Court, by me (AA Vaughan- an unrepresented Claimant with no legal training). I am a former employee.
Lewisham Council admitted that it defamed me. Babcock and Lewisham Council had previously tried to 'gag' me with a £95,000 settlement offer, which I refused.
Read the Tribunal Claims that I brought against Lewisham Council and its managers.
I subsequently withdrew my Tribunal claims in order to focus on my defamation case and vindicate my reputation, (as the Tribunal cannot hear defamation claims).
Lewisham Council claimed that it spent £350,000 defending my withdrawn tribunal claims, which involved the same set of events as my defamation claim.
My long fight for truth and justice
- Lewisham Council and their managers subjected me to numerous detriments.
- A plan was then hatched to get rid of me.
- I was suspended for 7 months on full pay, (whilst Lewisham Council fabricated evidence against me in my absence), before eventually sacking me, (within months of me refusing a payoff of £95,000 to go away and keep quiet) .
- Then Lewisham Council 'topped it all off' with a nice big helping of...

and

This was also huge blow for me because:
- The speedy vindication of my reputation was paramount, but the High Court had effectively ruled that I would have to wait to have my day in court, (and the Tribunal hearing was not due to take place for at least another 7 months);
- Once the Tribunal hearing begun, I would have simply been told by the judge that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear my defamation claims;
- The Tribunal had also ruled that I could not submit all my crucial covert recordings, (which disproved the allegations that were being made against me);
- All of the Defendants' whom I had accused, were not even going to give evidence at the Tribunal hearing;
- The Tribunal did not have the power to make an order preventing Lewisham from breaching my human rights and/or the power to award damages for a breach of the Convention rights under the Act.
WHAT DID MY UNION DO?

DID I HAVE A DISCIPLINARY RECORD? NO!
- I had never received any formal warnings before I was suspended, no formal complaints had been made about me and no one had ever taken out a grievance against me.
- I was not fired for misconduct. Lewisham Council trumped up some other charge against me: 'some other substantial reason', (whatever that means)!
HOW DID I RESPOND TO THIS?
Whilst still employed I raised grievances which were dismissed by Lewisham Council. I also 'blew the whistle' to reported Michael Gove, Nick Clegg, Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling and many others, but no one was interested. I then decided to take legal action, issuing tribunal claims for discrimination, whistleblowing detriment and unfair dismissal and a High Court claim for defamation and breaches of my Human Rights. My Tribunal claims against Lewisham Council were never heard because I withdrew them in order to focus on my defamation case against them. (You may have heard about my earlier tribunal case which I was offered £95,000 to settle, but refused. This case was against my former employer- the FTSE 100 Company Babcock. This case against Babcock was a separate case, involving different issues. It had nothing to do with Lewisham Council. Lewisham Council merely inherited the case because my employment transferred to Lewisham whilst the case was still on-going). I was left with no other option but to litigate against Lewisham Council. I just wanted to clear my name and be able to work!LEWISHAM COUNCIL DEFAMATION
The defamatory statements in question are not trivial. They are false and malicious and extremely serious. I advised the High Court that they constituted libel, (approximately 34 statements) and slander, (approximately 50 statements). I covertly recorded Lewisham Council managers during my employment with Lewisham Council. Lewisham Council didn't know that I had covertly recorded until after I was sacked. I accumulated around 40 hours of recording and I also built up a large quantity of documentary evidence. These pieces of evidence disprove all the allegations made against me. Lewisham Council and its managers all maintained their false allegations against me for nearly 2 years.DENIED MY RIGHT TO VINDICATE MYSELF


- Spending cuts and wasting tax payers money
WHY SHOULD YOU BE ENRAGED BY ALL OF THIS?
You would be right to be enraged when tens of thousands of pounds of public money is being wasted by a local authority without justification and which undermines the culture of accountability that is required by the publicly funded body. At the final High Court hearing in November 2013; Lewisham Council produced a hearing bundle. The bundle included information regarding 85 million pounds in cuts that it stated that it needed to make to its budget over the next 4 years. Lewisham Council stated that the cuts were getting harder to make. Around the same time (in November 2013), Lewisham Council also made numerous staff redundant. These staff included many of my former colleagues. The money that Lewisham Council wasted on defending my genuine defamation case could have paid for a number of people’s salaries and/or gone towards the cost of maintaining a number of its services for several years.You can read Lewisham Council’s Chief Executive’s notice to staff about these cuts to the budget here.
Lewisham Council defended a my defamation claim for a year, (from December 2012- December 2013), only deciding to make its strike out application in October 2013. It then applied for costs when my defamation case was not allowed to proceed to a full hearing. It subsequently decided to pursue any costs against me, (what a big surprise...or not)! Read the e-mail I received from its legal department advising me of this, but stating that it would reserve its right to do so. It asserted that its reason for not pursuing costs against me was because I was already bankrupt, that I had no assets or savings and it wanted to therefore avoid wasting money. It is important to note that Lewisham Council was aware that I had no assets or savings when it pursued costs against me when I lost my tribunal case: Lewisham Council and the other defendants spent £20,000, on hiring someone just to prepare the bill for its claim for costs of £260,000 in that case- knowing full well that it could never recoup the money. It was also aware of my situation when it made an application to apply for the costs against me when the High Court made the decision to prevent me from proceeding to a full hearing for my defamation case.