Wealthy older boss who was led on by ‘lady of leisure’ PA as he bought her Botox, bags, shoes and two cars says he wants to ‘draw line under sordid affair’

A wealthy older boss who fired his PA after discovering she was stringing him along has spoken for the first time, saying he is glad the ‘sordid affair’ is over.

Peter Metcalfe, 54, showered Emma Hennell-Whittington with gifts and a £30,000-a-week salary for a job he didn’t need, hoping their relationship would turn romantic.

But after discovering she had a secret bodybuilder boyfriend, he fired her – and later successfully defended a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Now that she has been ordered to hand over £15,000 in legal costs, he has told MailOnline about his damages, although he was unsure whether she would actually pay him.

Mr Metcalfe, who owns a rural transport company based in the North Yorkshire market town of Hawes, had hired Ms Hennell-Whittington as a personal assistant in August 2021.

She later tried to sue him sexual harassment after she led him to believe she was interested in pursuing a romantic relationship while receiving expensive gifts, but her employment tribunal claim was rejected.

Mrs Hennell-Whittington, in her late 30s and engaged, received an annual salary of £30,000, working just ten hours a week.

And Mr Metcalfe also gave her gifts worth tens of thousands of pounds, including a Botox treatment, handbags, a Volkswagen Tiguan car and a Honda Civic.

While she led a relaxed lifestyle, swimming and shopping during office hours, Mr Metcalfe further offered to cover the £45,000 cost of buying the part of her fiancé’s house where she lived with her teenage daughter from another relationship.

A legal judgment published following an employment tribunal in Newcastle noted that Ms Hennell-Whittington ‘did not, at any time until the termination of the employment relationship, inform him that she had no romantic interest’.

Speaking today from his office in Hawes, he said: ‘I just want to draw a line under this whole sordid business.

‘I’m happy with the result, as happy as I can be. I just want to draw a line under it now – end.’

A relaxed Mr Metcalfe, who shared the office with two female employees busily tapping away on computer keyboards, replied: “Who knows?” when asked if he expected to receive the £15,000 now owed to him.

He added: “The written reasons why she lost are all in the ruling, and that’s that.”

Mr Metcalfe and Ms Hennell-Whittington had first met when he was doing business with the Stockton fertilizer company she worked for in early 2021.

The tribunal was told they exchanged flirtatious banter and she suggested employing her as his PA, while he replied that he did not need a personal assistant but could see her as a ‘lady of leisure’.

The hearing was told how “the penny finally started to drop” for Mr Metcalfe that Ms Hennell-Whittington was not romantically interested in him when she attended a charity ball at his transport company with Alan Grieves in July 2022.

She is said to have started a relationship with Ultimate Strongman competitor Mr Grieves two months earlier, while ‘still dating her fiancé’.

She had told Mr Metcalfe she was about to leave her estranged ex-partner, but new love Mr Grieves, a construction boss, had gone unmentioned.

Mr Metcalfe terminated her employment five days later, the tribunal was told.

Her subsequent claims of sex discrimination and harassment relating to sex were dismissed, and she has now been ordered to pay £15,000 in legal costs to Mr Metcalfe’s transport company.

An employment judge, who described Ms Hennell-Whittington as “an articulate and intelligent individual” but an “unreliable historian”, said she knew the case would “embarrass” her former employer.

Kirti Jeram said: ‘By pushing for a final hearing, [she] effectively forced [Mr Metcalfe] to be subjected to public scrutiny over matters which she knew, or at least reasonably should have known, were likely to be difficult and embarrassing for him.”

The judge found that Ms Hennell-Whittington had ‘encouraged’ Mr Metcalfe’s affections as part of a ‘transactional’ relationship that provided her with a lifestyle she ‘could not reasonably expect’ in another job.

‘[Mr Metcalfe] “described her as the ‘best thing in the world I have ever met’ and he regularly and explicitly expressed his love for her,” the verdict said.

‘[She] did not answer these words; she didn’t ask him to stop either. [She] however, it did let us know [him] of her wishes and financial needs.

‘[He] believed that they were developing their relationship, platonic as it now was, in secret, with the possibility of exploring an open and romantic relationship in the not-so-distant future.

‘[She] knew those were them [his] beliefs and hopes, and she took no steps to undermine them.”

Mr Metcalfe had made it clear from the start that he wanted to build a relationship with Ms Hennell-Whittington, who he first met when he became involved with the Stockton fertilizer company she worked for in early 2021, Judge Jeram said.

‘Before the employment relationship started, there was absolutely nothing to prevent [her] of simply informing [him] that his affection for her was misplaced and unwanted,” she said.

‘We decline [her] case that [his] The affection for her grew in a vacuum, without any reciprocity, encouragement or input from her.

‘We characterize her behavior towards [him] as being transactional in nature.’

The judge made the costs order after the final hearing, saying Ms Hennell-Whittington had been warned her case was likely to fail.