Louise Gallagher, 50, has been jailed for four years and eight months after admitting three counts of perverting the course of justice. She faked a doctor's note claiming she needed cancer treatment and invented evidence of sexual assaults while suing her former employers.
Gallagher produced the fake sick note and lied about evidence of sexual assaults during a sex discrimination claim against distribution giant Bunzl and a separate unfair dismissal claim against health product supplier Essity. In the fabricated note, she claimed she had been signed off work for two years to receive cancer treatment, at a time when her employment tribunal against Bunzl was faltering.
Judge condemns 'prolonged and blatant' conduct
At Wood Green Crown Court on Friday, Judge Timothy Godfrey sentenced Gallagher after she pleaded guilty. 'It was a prolonged, blatant, and egregious course of conduct, liable to undermine public justice,' the judge said. 'Your conduct was sophisticated and planned, including lying to a tribunal judge on oath.'
In her tribunal against Bunzl in 2020 and 2021, Gallagher made false claims that Transport for London had CCTV footage of her being sexually assaulted by a colleague at Waterloo station. She doctored a genuine TfL email to support her lie and maintained the existence of the footage in false evidence to a judge, even after TfL had confirmed it did not exist. When that lie was exposed, she submitted the fake doctor's sick note to try to delay proceedings.
Invented witness and bogus police statement
In 2022 and 2023, Gallagher invented a witness to a sexual assault allegation that formed part of her tribunal case against Essity. She gave a bogus statement to police, posing as the invented witness over email, which led to the man she had accused being questioned under caution. Police grew suspicious and discovered she had created the witness's email account and activated the phone after making the claim.
The court heard Gallagher was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, but the GP whose name appeared on the fake sick note said she had not written it. The handwritten letter 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.'
Claims struck out and previous convictions
Gallagher's claim against Bunzl was thrown out, and she was ordered to pay £8,000 to cover the company's legal costs. Her sexual harassment claim against Essity was only made in response to being investigated for falsifying documents and dishonesty. It was struck out when a judge concluded she had 'repeatedly provided false evidence during the course of these Employment Tribunal proceedings'.
The two companies told the court they had been forced to spend tens of thousands of pounds defending the claims and devoted significant resources to investigating the bogus evidence. The court also heard Gallagher was a convicted fraudster, with a 2015 conviction for stealing £4,500 from employers before submitting doctored bank statements and a bogus HMRC letter, and a 2014 conviction for buying £1,822 of equestrian equipment using stolen bank details.
Gallagher, of Marlborough in Wiltshire, maintains that the sexual assault and harassment allegations in her tribunal claims were genuine, and says she produced the fake evidence in her 'desperation to be believed'. The judge said she will serve one-third of her prison term before being automatically released.
