THE OFFICERS:

Ian McGregor: Marietta Farnsworth's line manager who carried out the original investigation under the Harassment Policy.

"From what we have learned during the evidence he should have instantly disqualified himself from undertaking that enquiry"

"Even on his own account given to Mr Murray and Mr Rae, he appears to have had an abnormally close personal friendship with Karen Stephens"

"It extended to caring for her children from time to time."

"But because of the extent of his admitted friendship he should not have involved himself in what was bound to be a very sensitive and difficult investigation."

Mick Murray: a senior officer who carried out the disciplinary investigation.

"Absent an explanation from Mr Murray, the only conclusion to which we can come is that his handling of the investigation was fundamentally dishonest."

"He suppressed all of that evidence..."

"It seems clear from Mr Farrar's (personnel officer) evidence that Mr Murray misled him about the nature of the material."

"..that the picture put before Mr Rae, the decision maker, had been deliberately distorted by Mr Murray."

"...Mr Murray's handling ... of the disciplinary hearing. If we may coin an old an hackneyed phrase but one which serves the purpose, this was not prosecution but persecution. It was long on adjective and hyperbole and short on accurate fact."

Donald Rae: Assistant Chief Education Officer and disciplining officer who made the decision to dismiss Marietta Farnsworth.

"He has, if we may say so with respect, attempted at great length to justify the unjustifiable."

"His decisions were not merely perverse. In some cases they, and the reasons which he has advanced for them, can only be categorised as spurious."

"We were extremely troubled by the way in which ... he justified his decision by including in the factors which persuaded him, that the allegations were part of Mr Murray's case - as though that had some probative value in itself - and that the victims of the alleged bullying had regarded it as such. It seemed therefore that no matter how flimsy the allegation, he was three parts of the way towards convicting Mrs Farnsworth, provided those two extremely unpersuasive criteria were fulfilled, which of course they were in every instance."

"Yet in a Freudian slip which his attempts to justify increasingly damaged his credibility, he clearly suggested that those who came forward to give evidence on behalf of Mrs Farnsworth must be a friend or close friend of hers and supportive of her which served to undermine their worth as a witness."

"...he was prepared to accept Karen Stephens' basic complaint of bullying ...... This despite a substantial body of evidence to the contrary."

"No reasonable employer could have concluded that they remotely approached what anyone with a modicum of common sense would have regarded as bullying."

"Whilst we do not think that Mr Rae was deliberately telling us an untruth, that answer demonstrates the extent to which he was prepared to go to justify his decisions."

"Again, it would seem that Mr Rae was more impressed by the distress which Jan Barber appeared to demonstrate when giving evidence than by the very obvious flaws in the evidence itself."

"The decision by Mr Rae to uphold Linda Gilbert's complaint can only be characterised as perverse."

"We were treated to a rather undignified (and wholly unconvincing) exposition by Mr Rae of the reasons why he found....."

"We remain baffled as to why Mr Rae, absent his usual reasons for believing a complaint, could have concluded otherwise."

"The way in which Mr Rae rationalised his finding of guilt in some circumstances leaves us with serious doubts about the degree to which he actually believed the case being put forward by Mr Murray, who, it is relevant to note was his immediate deputy."