Zemek: I was scared to bring my mobile phone into work

Former New Star CIO Theo Zemek revealed in yesterday’s tribunal the atmosphere was so poisonous under John Duffield’s regime that she was petrified her mobile phone would be "impounded”.

In a witness statement submitted to the tribunal but not read out, Zemek recalled the day in which she was too scared to bring her personal mobile phone to work.

Zemek said in late 2005, the day after she had lunch with a journalist, an unfavourable article about New Star appeared in the Daily Telegraph which resulted in Duffield losing his cool.

"I was terrified Duffield would attribute the comments in the article to me and I feared my mobile phone would be taken off me and impounded so I had to take my son's phone into work as I feared I would lose all my personal contact numbers," said Zemek.

She added the atmosphere in the office was one of suspicion and fear.

"I assumed that my office phone was being bugged and that we were in constant surveillance all of the time," she said.

"I was made miserable and was ready to crack - each night I would get in the car and cry all the way home."

In yesterday's afternoon session Zemek supported Evershed's witness statement after agreeing around 20-25 staff at New Star were miserable while they worked at the firm.

Zemek added Mark Skinner, who worked as New Star's managing director, confided in her on a number of occasions that he was deeply unhappy about the way in which he was treated by Duffield.

Zemek said Skinner, along with a number of other employees, encouraged her to voice employees' discontent to Rupert Ruvigny, the group's finance director.

"I had many coffee meetings with Skinner in which he voiced his unhappiness, he felt he was being put under so much pressure and was concerned about his health, as well as the rest of the team's.

"I was appointed spokesperson for the group to explain how unhappy a number of staff were because of the way in which we were treated by Duffield.

"I told Ruvigny of our collective concern about the level of unhappiness and stress because at the time I was feeling the most unhappy and the most bullied."

The tribunal has now adjourned until December.

New Star is poised to call up eight witnesses, expected to include former New Star employees Roger Dossett, Mark Skinner and John Jay.