A City executive suing her boss for discrimination alleged today that he had tried to kill her.
Jordan Wimmer claimed she remained so frightened that she still wedges her door shut with chairs at night.
A hearing in central London heard that Ms Wimmer called the police after being followed by a man on the Kings Road on May 9 this year who, she alleged, resembled her boss, Mark Lowe.
Ms Wimmer accuses Mr Lowe of humiliating her at a Mayfair investment firm. The Central London Employment Tribunal has already heard that Ms Wimmer, a Canadian who lives in Chelsea, joined the company in 2004 on a salary of £50,000 which rose to over £500,000 over four years.
The tribunal heard today that notes of a conversation she had had with a doctor showed that Ms Wimmer claimed that a man who looked like Mr Lowe drove a car at her.
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Elizabeth Melville, representing Mr Lowe, read part of a doctor’s note which said “her boss had always said he knew lots of Russians and could get rid of people in a heartbeat”.
Ms Melville said: “Is it your belief Mr Lowe was trying to get a hit man or member of his family to kill you?”
Ms Wimmer replied: “Yes.”
Asked if she thought her claims were the product of “an overactive imagination”, Ms Wimmer said: “No I don’t. If you knew your client you would understand.”
Ms Wimmer told the hearing she was still afraid of Mr Lowe. She said: “Yes, I sleep with chairs on my door every night, and yes, when I have a car that’s coming at me six times, swerving at me, and I have to run into a restaurant and dial 999, with a man identical to Mr Lowe sitting in the front seat, yes, I think my life is in danger.”
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Miss Wimmer’s witness statement had said that between January and March 2008 she had showed symptoms of depression and was suffering from exhaustion brought on by overwork and harassment.
Mr Lowe’s barrister read a section from Ms Wimmer’s e-mail diary from January 2008 which showed she had a holiday in the Caribbean and Canada, had been out for drinks with friends on several nights, and had held a birthday party.
It also showed that in the space of a week she had gone to a party at Annabel’s nightclub in London, been to a West End musical and then flown to New York for a weekend where she attended a ball at the invitation of an Austrian bank.
Miss Melville said: “This diary, Miss Wimmer, is not the diary of a woman who is being overworked, is it?”
Another section of the diary from April showed that in a three-day period she went to a private members club, then planned a trip to a West End nightclub before going out for dinner and on to Annabel’s the next night.
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Ms Wimmer said she only went to the private members club because she was able to get a quiet table there. She said: “I was so noise-sensitive then. I had so much anxiety then.”
The executive told the hearing her social activities were a front she hid behind to mask her anxiety. She said: “I understand from your view how these e-mails look but I also know in myself the way that I felt.
“I kept a very public face and my public face was not reflecting my private self and my private self was one that was suffering and very unwell.”
Ms Wimmer told the hearing that sometimes she was so depressed and exhausted she felt unable to leave the safety of her bed, to which Miss Melville replied: “I think most people suffer from that, Miss Wimmer.”
Miss Melville told the hearing that Ms Wimmer was “prone to exaggeration and fantasy” and had actually turned down an offer of help at work. The hearing was told that Ms Wimmer received a phone call and an e-mail in May last year from a Russian woman named only as Margarita, looking for work, but she decided not to take up the offer.
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Ms Wimmer said that decision was based on her assumption that the woman was a Russian prostitute and Mr Lowe only wanted her to join the company so he could sleep with her.
Ms Melville said: “You propose to come to this tribunal, an open hearing, and allege this woman you never met is an escort?”
Ms Wimmer replied: “I could be completely wrong. I’ve never met her, it’s just the way my boss was. I had a reasonable expectation what she was when I heard her spoken English.”
Yesterday the hearing heard Ms Wimmer accuse Mr Lowe of bringing high-class escort girls to business meetings.