Trainee broker wins payout after being treated like a 'skivvy' by bullying boss

When Barnaby Hill landed a job with a City shipbroking firm he thought he had begun a long and fruitful career.

As trainee to one of the old hands at Howe Robinson, he expected to pick up invaluable knowledge each day.

Instead, he claimed, he found himself picking up after his new boss.

Mr Hill, 27, said he was treated as a 'personal skivvy' by his mentor George Hulse and made to perform all manner of menial tasks.

He also claimed he was bullied by Mr Hulse, despite all his hard work.

After he complained the firm moved him to another role, but sacked him several months later.

Yesterday Mr Hill won an undisclosed out-of-court settlement from the firm after suing it for £100,000 for wrongful dismissal.

He had told an employment tribunal: "Towards the end, I was very intimidated by George Hulse. I was punch drunk.

"He would walk into the office and I would be nervous because I did not know what he would say. If I had other work, it would always come second. I was always apprehensive."

Mr Hill, who was educated at £24,000-a-year Radley College and gained an upper second degree in theology from Bristol University, said he wasted hours preparing accounts for Mr Hulse's own firm and bidding for paintings he wanted at art auctions.

He lost two lunch hours returning a fancy dress costume for his boss and dropping his Cartier watch off to be repaired.

He was also asked to book Mr Hulse's flights, pay his congestion charge, tidy his desk, drive his Porsche to the garage and help move his home furniture to Germany.

He told the tribunal that on one occasion, he hurried back from a Christie's art auction to the office to send some urgent paperwork to Howe Robinson client BNP Paribas.

Mr Hulse allegedly screamed at him: "I don't give a damn about BNP Paribas. Why the f*** did you leave the auction?"

Mr Hill, of Pimlico, South-West London, complained to the firm's directors in February 2006 that he was being bullied.

He was moved but then sacked from his £22,500-a-year post the following November, the tribunal in Stratford, East London, heard. Mr Hulse had been appointed to the firm's board the previous month.

He then decided to sue. Giving evidence, he said colleagues considered Mr Hulse "something of a maverick".

Mr Hill, who now works as an estate agent, added: £I found that I was not working as a trainee ship broker at all, but as George Hulse's personal assistant.

"George Hulse was usually not in the slightest bit appreciative of the work I did. He was bullying, loud and abusive to me."

Howe Robinson, founded in 1883, strongly denied Mr Hill's sacking was related to his 'whistle-blowing' complaint but admitted he had been unfairly dismissed.

The parties agreed to settle the case out of court on Tuesday on the second day of the hearing. The terms of the deal are confidential.

A Howe Robinson spokesman said: "This was a young trainee who was dismissed by us, technically wrongly because we thought we had complied with the statutory procedures. We admitted liability on minor, procedural matters."

Neither Mr Hill nor Mr Hulse commented after the hearing.