THE sacked former chief executive of Bury Hospice has hit out at the “witch-hunt” against her.

Jacqui Comber told an employment tribunal in Manchester today that an investigation into the hospice’s troubles was biased against her and that she had undergone “trial by press.”

The tribunal had heard earlier this week that Mrs Comber’s sacking in March 2016 was “an inevitability” in order to protect the hospice’s damaged reputation, regardless of her culpability.

Mrs Comber, who is claiming unfair dismissal, agreed that the hospice board acted reasonably in considering her dismissal in order to reassure the community about the hospice’s future, but added: “What it unreasonable is not having the conversation with me.

“The hospice was leaking confidential information to the press. It could have only come from the hospice.

“What, in effect, they did was to have a witch-hunt. It was trial by press.

“I worked at Bury Hospice for four years and when I came it was in total disarray.”

She added that she believed the hospice was “just about turning the corner” in 2015 and criticised allegations from a former trustee – Mike Ganley – that she was a “psychopath”.

She said that the board had taken a “gung-ho approach” in deciding to go ahead with the building of the new hospice, a decision that was taken before her appointment, and that there had been a “domino effect” which was the cause of the hospice’s problems.

Mrs Comber said: “When we got to me being in post, we have made cuts, we have made staff redundant, and we have cut our services down.

“What the trustees of Bury Hospice did not do was to make the stakeholders in Bury aware of what the effect was of their decisions.”

Mrs Comber said she was promised she would be interviewed as part of any investigation but had not met the hospice’s new board members when they took the decision to sack her.

She also denied that a volunteer at the hospice had been banned from entering the building.

Michael Tansey, the hospice’s former finance operations manager, said that his view of allegations made against Mrs Comber by former trustees, Mr Ganley and Paul Lavin, were that they were “boys throwing their toys out of the pram.”

He added that he had not been aware that there was a potential risk of the hospice being liable for the repayment of a £507,000 grant awarded from the Department of Health for the conversion of the old hospice building into the Grace’s Place children’s hospice.

Employment judge John Sherratt will deliver a written judgement on the tribunal at a later date.