Lawyer ‘fired for writing erotic novel’ sues ex-bosses for 3.5m pound

LONDON - A lawyer, who was fired by her bosses for penning a racy online novel, is suing her ex-employers for 3.5 million dollars.
Deidre Clark, 44, a former senior associate for international finance at Allen and Overy, has levelled charges of sexual discrimination and unfair dismissal against the firm.

However, firm bosses have rubbished her claims.

Clark posted erotic fiction under the pseudonym ‘Deidre Dare’ online; the website also contained snaps wherein she was sporting a see-through lingerie.

She lost her 126,000pound-a-year job in the firm’s Moscow office in February 2009 for “gross misconduct” after her site - narrating the sexcapades of a fictional high-flying young businesswoman - allegedly brought the firm into disrepute.

And now Clark, an American, who is now a “sexpat” columnist for the English-language Moscow News newspaper, is dragging the firm to court claiming 3.49 million pounds in damages.

Allen and Overy, which employs 5,500 people across the globe, said it would “vigorously defend” the allegations.

In papers tendered to Stratford Employment Tribunal, in east London, Clark said her boss, Tony Humphrey, 60, became “sexually obsessed” after both of them got intimate at a staff party.

“I believe my dismissal was purely a matter of sexual persecution by my superior,” she said.

She also said her online novel Expat was a “weekly serialised novel about living in Moscow”.

While admitting that the book was partly autobiographical, Clark maintained it had nothing to do with her co-workers and peers at the firm.

She also claimed the right to publish the novel.

“We are aware of (Miss Clark’s) employment tribunal claim,” the Telegraph quoted a spokesman for the firm, as saying.

He added: “We are entirely satisfied that the termination of her employment was justified and lawful and will defend Ms Dare’s claim vigorously.” (ANI)