A saleswoman is facing jail after she faked a ‘bad’ handwritten doctor’s note about cancer treatment and lied about evidence of sexual assaults in two failed employment tribunals against her former employers.
Louise Gallagher, 50, sued distribution giant Bunzl for sex discrimination after leaving the company in 2018, and mounted an unfair dismissal claim against health product supplier Essity after leaving the firm in 2023.
In both cases, Gallagher made “strikingly similar” allegations that she had been sexually harassed, but her claims were ultimately thrown out when she was accused of telling a series of lies during tribunal proceedings. One lie was rumbled after the doctor on the note denied writing it after seeing the “bad” handwriting.
Gallagher is now facing the prospect of a possible prison term, after she admitted three counts of perverting the course of justice.
(Image: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire)
While mounting a case against Bunzl in 2020 and 2021, she made a series of false claims that Transport for London had CCTV footage to support her sexual assault allegation.
When her case was unravelling, Gallagher produced a bogus doctor’s note claiming she needed a two-year adjournment so she could receive treatment for breast cancer.
And in 2022 and 2023, Gallagher has admitted “manufacturing” emails from the Metropolitan Police to support her claim that there was an eyewitness to a sexual assault when she worked at Essity.
Gallagher entered the dock at Wood Green Crown Court on Tuesday afternoon to enter the three guilty pleas, and she is set to be sentenced on May 19.
Two further allegations of perverting the course of justice, relating to her disputed claims of sexual assault, are set to lie on file.
Perverting the course of justice charges often lead to jail terms, and carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
(Image: Tristan Kirk/PA Wire)
A 2024 Watford Employment Tribunal ruling sets out how Gallagher alleged she had been sexually assaulted by a Bunzl colleague, shortly after an investigation was launched into whether she had submitted a fraudulent bill for a hotel stay on expenses.
In May 2020, Gallagher sent Bunzl an email suggesting that Transport for London (TfL) had confirmed – following a subject access request – that it possessed CCTV of the alleged sexual assault.
But TfL denied providing Gallagher with information, and told Bunzl’s lawyers that any CCTV footage would already have been wiped.
When Bunzl applied for the tribunal claim to be dismissed, Gallagher produced a handwritten letter from a doctor asking for a two-year delay.
The note read: “The claimant is very sick with breast cancer which has spread to other parts of the body so needs years of treatments and some of the tumours can’t be operated on until the treatments shrink them.”
“Her health must come first and she is currently fighting for her life and this is why we have asked for this case to be postponed for two years.”
When the authenticity of the note was challenged and the tribunal refused to delay the hearing, Gallagher responded by saying she was “shocked” and provided a treatment schedule and “medical letters”.
But when she was contacted, the doctor – a leading consultant in cancer care – insisted “categorically” she had not written the note asking for a two-year delay, and added: “I know my handwriting is bad – but not that bad!”
Gallagher’s tribunal claim was thrown out, and she was ordered to pay £8,000 to cover Bunzl’s legal costs.
Employment judge Rebecca Eeley concluded that Gallagher had a “propensity to lie” to gain an advantage, and she had “knowingly misled” the tribunal about the existence of TfL evidence with a “forged or doctored document”.
“The medical certificate is clearly an untruth,” she added.
Gallagher first made claims of sexual harassment and bullying against Essity when she was placed under investigation by the company for allegedly falsifying documents and being dishonest.
In the tribunal claim that followed in 2023, Gallagher said she had made a report to police about sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The company applied to strike out the tribunal claim, and pointed to her behaviour when suing Bunzl as evidence of “scandalous” and “vexatious” litigation.
Gallagher wrote to the tribunal saying: “The sexual assault took place and this was never in doubt, it has gone to the CPS.”
She also attached a “witness email” which suggested it had come from a man who witnessed the alleged assault and had provided evidence to the Met Police.
But the force confirmed the investigation into Gallagher’s complaint had gone nowhere, while the supporting witness evidence had been fabricated.
Gallagher was “vague” and “evasive” when challenged, Judge Paul Daniels concluded when dismissing her claim against Essity.
“Her case appeared to be based on huge generalities and bare assertions that witnesses would all appear later, with various unpersuasive excuses as to why they could not appear or give evidence now”, he wrote.
The judge concluded that Gallagher had “repeatedly provided false evidence during the course of these employment tribunal proceedings.
“She has directly deployed and tried to rely on such dishonest evidence in letters to the tribunal and in her claim.”
The judge accepted that Gallagher had received breast cancer treatment between November 2020 and January 2021. But in his April 2024 ruling, he dismissed her claims of unfair dismissal, discrimination, and breach of contract, and noted that a police investigation for perverting the course of justice was already under way.
Gallagher, of Marlborough in Wiltshire, initially pleaded not guilty to the perverting the course of justice charges in October 2024.
She was set free on bail after entering guilty pleas on Tuesday afternoon March 12, and will be assessed by a psychiatrist ahead of her sentencing hearing.
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