It’s not often that you see somebody storming out of a public building, but also looking upset. This happened to me a number of years ago as I was walking past Thames House in the Millbank area of London.
The unidentified woman was upset because she had just been shouted at by an MI5 staff member. She said this happened on a number of occasions and had just felt so upset she needed to leave the building.
It was after some investigation that I found this person had been shouted at on seventeen occasions. It was also revealed she had not been to blame for any of those instances.
The culprit was a member of MI5‘s own ‘Human Resources’ department which it has repeatedly refused to acknowledge – and on one occasion even denied it existed. I’ve had it confirmed it does exist.
The eventual report was brief, but it was a legal text that described the harrowing circumstances of seventeen occasions of lengthy verbal abuse the female staff member received. She was left traumatised by the experience.
It’s an ugly case of overreach in employment terms, but unfortunately I’ve found many other instances of it in London. It comes because people feel they can escape accountability, but they soon discover they cannot shirk culpability.



