Machynlleth Town Council’s clerk wrote “extraordinary” letters and emails to an employee’s GP and trade union representative accusing her of abusing sick leave and lying over her health, a tribunal has heard.

The full judgement for an employment tribunal of former Y Plas cleaner Pamela Newcombe found that Jim Griffiths, who has served as the council clerk for three years, had an “apparent antipathy” towards Miss Newcombe.

She had raised a number of grievances against the council and clerk over working conditions.

Judge Richard Powell, sitting at the tribunal in October, found that Mr Griffiths - who is currently suspended from his role as Machynlleth town clerk - “intended to damage Miss Newcombe’s reputation” when he wrote to her GP about her sick note, despite not having written permission to do so.

In his letter on 7 December 2018, Mr Griffiths wrote that “it is becoming well known that she abuses the council’s full pay sickness absence policy”.

“I am confident that you have not been told the truth in this case and that your patient has manipulated this whole situation to her advantage and at great financial cost to ourselves,” he wrote.

Miss Newcombe was told about the letter by her GP and found it “devastating”, the tribunal heard.

“What Mr Griffiths did,” Judge Powell found, “was convey allegations of dishonesty and fraud against the claimant to a third party which had no knowledge of the alleged conduct and no concern in such allegations.

“That conduct was, in my judgment, intended to damage the claimant’s reputation.”

At the tribunal, Mr Griffiths “asserted that he was entitled to make these comments and did not anticipate they would be conveyed to the claimant”, but Judge Powell said he “did not accept for one moment” that Mr Griffiths “could reasonably expect a GP receiving such vitriol about a patient” not to “convey that information to their patient”.

The tribunal also heard that Mr Griffiths told a trade union representative that Miss Newcombe had been out on a “bender” after calling in sick in the previous week, calling her claims “vexatious” and that she herself would face disciplinary action “if not careful”.

Judge Powell called the response “extraordinary” and said that “he had no doubt whatsoever” Mr Griffiths’ conduct amounted to a breach of trust and confidence.

“There is an apparent antipathy towards the claimant and a sense that her concerns were unjustified,” Judge Powell said.

“At one point in his evidence Mr Griffiths, and I paraphrase, said ‘she was likely to raise a grievance if you breathed in her direction’.”

A healthcare report, shown to the tribunal, said that “workplace stress” had led Miss Newcombe to suffering from “panic attacks and palpitations” and that she felt “bullied and harassed” by Mr Griffiths.

The tribunal ruled that Miss Newcombe, who had worked at Y Plas since 2013, was unfairly dismissed and the council was ordered to pay her a total of £11,606.

Mr Griffiths declined to comment on the ruling.