A Deputy headteacher wants £1million damages after claiming she was forced to sit in a farting chair.
Sue Storer, 48, says she was constantly apologising to parents, pupils and teachers about the embarrassing noise, an employment tribunal heard yesterday. But she claims the school refused to replace the chair. Then, a year after making an official complaint, two male deputy heads got new executive chairs but she didn't.
Divorced Ms Storer, 48, said the chair roblem was part of catalogue of sexist behaviour which undermined her position at 1,000-pupil Bedminster Down secondary school in Bristol.
She quit her £48,000 a year job last September and is claiming constructive dismissal and sex discrimination.
Ms Storer, an art teacher for 26 years, told the hearing: "It was very embarrassing to sit on. I asked for a chair that didn't give me a dead leg or make these very embarrassing farting sounds. It was a regular joke that my chair would make these farting sounds and I regularly had to apologise that it wasn't me, it was my chair."
She said she suffered four years of overwork and intimidation after taking the job in April 2001.
She claimed that head teacher Marius Frank favoured her two male colleagues.
She alleged he also dashed her chances of promotion by making her invigilate in an exam when she should have been attending a final training session for her head teacher tests.
He told her colleagues had complained about her management style but refused to name them. Ms Storer said she had a nervous breakdown and felt suicidal.
The chair problem plagued her constantly. She tackled school health and safety co-ordinator, fellow deputy head Dick Hibdidge, but nothing was done.
She was outraged when a stack of new chairs were delivered but she didn't get one. The mum of two said: "All the male managers received a chair. I couldn't understand why there wasn't one for me.
"I asked one of them, 'did you put in a request for that?' and he said, 'no, Dick came and offered it to me'."
She added: "The point is that I had specially requested a chair under health and safety regulations and I didn't get one."
Head Mr Frank told the tribunal in Bristol: "I would have expected a deputy head to have the wit and initiative to sort it out." He said one lot of chairs sat in reception for two weeks before they were allocated. "If it was an issue, I would have expected her to help herself."
If she wins her case she will claim compensation based on 17 years' lost earnings and pension totalling about £1million. All the evidence has been heard and the case was adjourned.
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