Apprentice winner was 'overpaid lackey', employment tribunal hears

THE TELEGRAPH (UK) [06/03/13]

By John-Paul Ford Rojas

A winner of TV series The Apprentice wept today as she claimed she was shunned by colleagues, rarely saw her mentor Lord Sugar, and was treated as an “overpaid lackey” in her £100,000-a-year job. 

Ms English said her role became 'increasingly untenable' and she 'continued to be marginalised'  

Photo: PA  

[SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

Stella English told an employment tribunal hearing, attended by the business mogul, that he admitted he did not “give a s***” about her role. 

Millions watched in 2010 as Ms English competed against 15 other aspiring executives to win a £100,000-a-year job at the peer’s Viglen division, supplying IT equipment to academy schools. 

But within months their relationship had turned sour and she told him she could not continue to work at the company, where she said she felt increasingly marginalised. 

She was moved to a role at another company but ran into similar problems before being told by Lord Sugar that her contract would not be renewed. 

The mother-of-two claims she was given no choice but to resign, and is claiming constructive dismissal against Lord Sugar. 

Ms English, of Whitstable, Kent, said she had no real role at Viglen and was not taken seriously by her colleagues. 

She said she did not feel like Lord Sugar’s “apprentice” as she said she only saw him five times during her 13-month employment. 

Ms English fought back tears as she said she was given no guidance about what she was meant to be doing and was “ostracised” by her colleagues who told her she had taken over another woman’s job which had a salary of £35,000. 

Relegated to carrying out basic administrative tasks, she said her job was a “sham”. 

She said that she was upset when her boss Bordan Tkachuk described her to Lord Sugar by saying: “Nice girl. Don’t do a lot.” 

Ms English said her role became “increasingly untenable” and she “continued to be marginalised”. In May 2011 she asked if she could meet Lord Sugar, but he made it “abundantly clear” he did not want to see her. 

She said she told Lord Sugar: “I have tried so hard for so long and it’s not working. I’m an overpaid lackey at Viglen. My pride would not allow me to continue doing it.” 

Ms English moved to her new role at internet set-top box company YouView in June under “pressure from Lord Sugar who gave cause for concern that there might be adverse publicity due to me resigning” but in September she was told that the peer would not be renewing her contract. 

She said Lord Sugar told her he had given her the second role to spare any damage to The Apprentice, the BBC, or his own public image. She said he added: “But the fact is that I don’t give a s***.” 

Ms English, who left school with no qualifications to become a £82,500 manager on the trading floor of a Japanese investment bank, said the news that her contract was not being renewed came as a “bombshell”. 

“I was in absolute shock. I’d given two years of my life to be told by somebody that ‘I don’t give a s***’. All the effort that I’d put in - to be told this was so unnecessary.” 

She said she did not remember being told that the winner might not work directly with Lord Sugar, adding that she understood they had in previous series. 

“I didn’t believe that they would pay me £100,000 a year to do anything less than £100,000 worth of work,” she said. 

Earlier, Lord Sugar sniggered as the tribunal was played clips of the TV show, in which he is described as “Britain’s most belligerent boss”. 

The hearing at East London Employment Tribunal continues.