£400,000 for skull whistleblower

Tom Lake suffered sleepless nights after being shown the souvenir

A British Transport Police officer sacked after accusing a colleague of keeping a piece of human skull has been awarded £400,000 in damages.

Tom Lake, from Gateshead, said that he was shown the souvenir by a fellow officer. It had allegedly been taken from the scene of an accident.

He reported the incident, and was fired in April 2005 because he waited some time before doing so, according to BTP.

But a tribunal ruled he was dismissed because he was a whistleblower.

The Newcastle hearing said the "true motivation" was his making the "protected disclosure" against colleagues.

'Very stressful'

Mr Lake, of Snipe Dene in Rowlands Gill, who now works as a taxi driver, was awarded compensation based on loss of earnings, lost pension rights, and injury to feelings.

He said he had suffered sleepless nights after being shown the gruesome souvenir, and that over the past few years every day had been a fight.

"There is nothing, no sum of money, can compensate for the amount of grief my family and I have endured," he said.

"The nightmare of the past four or five years will not go away.

"The force has dragged me through the courts of the highest level in their attempt to defend the indefensible.

"I really do hope that I will now be allowed to draw a line under what has been a very stressful time in my life."

A BTP spokesman said: "We have just received the judgment of the employment tribunal and we will consider it carefully."