Doctor wins £4.5m for discrimination and unfair dismissal

Polish Dr Eva Michalak, who worked as an obstetrician at Pontefract General Infirmary, said she had been subjected to a five-year campaign to push her out of her job.

The tribunal panel said it was "positively outraged" by the way staff at The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust had behaved. The sum awarded included £30,000 for injury to feelings and £56,000 for psychiatric damage.

The tribunal was told that senior staff members began a "plan" to get rid of Dr Michalak at a secret meeting in March 2003, when she was seven months pregnant.

She began to receive complaints and criticism against her and was accused of bullying junior doctors. She was  suspended in January 2006 and had to wait until May 2007 before disciplinary proceedings began. She was dismissed in July 2008.

The tribunal panel wrote: "As a consequence of that dismissal the claimant has lost her role and status as a hospital consultant, as we will ultimately find, she is never going to return to work as a doctor, a profession which she, in common with both of her parents, cherished together with all the status that that brings with it."

Medical experts said Dr Michalak had suffered "chronic and disabling" post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, which had led to an "enduring personality change".