Kate Bleasdale is a nurse turned successful entrepreneur who set up the medical staffing firm; Healthcare Locums (HCL), after winning a £2.2m sexual discrimination settlement in 2002, against her previous employer; Match Group. She claimed that she fellow directors at the company had sent sexually explicit emails to her. However, since building her own business from the damages, her world has collapsed around her after being suspended from her own company after major accounting discrepancies were found in the company’s accounts. The financial officer, Diane Jarvis, has also been suspended and all shares in HCL have been frozen.
Details of exactly what irregularities have been unearthed are not being disclosed by the company at present, but judging by the measures taken, it is speculated that they are major accounting errors.
Bleasdale has denied any of the allegations of wrongdoing and promised, “I’m going to fight this. It is absolutely trashing my reputation. Why are they doing it? Nobody from the company has spoken to me. The first I knew was when an adviser rang me and then seeing the announcement. I’m absolutely gutted.”
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