Ex-Target employee calls HR manager 1000+ times after dismissal, ends up in court

A bitter work dispute has spilled into the courts, after a spurned ex-employee waged a mobile campaign against manager.

AN ex-employee of Target Brookside phoned a regional HR manager more than 1000 times following her dismissal in September last year, including 686 times in a single day.

Wilston woman Haley Jessica Turner, 29, was today placed on a 12-month, $1500 good behaviour bond in Holland Park Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to the Commonwealth offence of using a carriage service to menance, harrass or cause offence.

No conviction was recorded.

The court heard that Turner had worked for Target for 13 years without issue, but it was only in her final year when she was transferred to the Brookside store to manage a department that problems emerged.

Turner alleged she was bullied at the store and an unfair dismissal case has since been heard before the Fair Work Commission, although the outcome was confidential.

After she was dismissed on September 17, Turner began a “bombardment of incessant” phone calls to her regional HR manager, beginning slowly before culminating in the period between October 19 – 23, when the manager received at least 1025 phone calls.

The court heard that even as he attended the Upper Mount Gravatt Police Station to lodge a complaint, he received 45 phone calls.

Defence solicitor Adam Moschella told the court that the loss of his client’s employment was “incredibly stressful” for her.

He claimed that she suffered panic attacks and only remembered about 10 of the calls, although she accepted the volume of calls which came from her phone.

Mr Moschella said Turner’s culpability was lessened because of the absence of malice or any accompanied stalking.

Magistrate Simon Young was not satisfied of the reasoning.

“This cannot be explained simply as stressed-out mode,” he said.

“It was effectively 24 hours a day.

“Your actions were irrational and extreme.”

The “irony”, Mr Young said, is that Turner knew how difficult it was to face bullying in the workplace, but that what she had done to the manager was a form of bullying.