Turning Point’s former IT director is taking the charity to an Employment Tribunal after she was sacked for gross misconduct, shortly after the charity had recruited someone into a newly-created interim role above her.

Ibukun Adebayo had been the IT director at Turning Point since 2004 and was dismissed from the charity on 30 August 2013 following a three-month suspension. She now plans to submit an unfair dismissal claim to the Employment Tribunal.

She has already two submitted claims to the Tribunal in the months leading up to her eventual dismissal. In May she submitted one for harassment and discrimination and when she was dismissed she submitted another for victimisation.

Adebayo told civilsociety.co.uk: “As far as I am concerned this is a simple case of they wanted to dismiss me,  they wanted me out of the business.”

Earlier this year Turning Point set out to recruit for a new senior IT post after separate reviews by Adebayo and an independent consultant had concluded that a chief information officer role should be created.

However, she claims the charity neglected to tell her of its plans to recruit an external candidate and when the post was advertised, as an interim programme director role, she was told she could not apply for it.

She said: “That is my role that I’m already performing,” and added: “I’m qualified as a programme management practitioner, HR management practitioner - whatever they changed it to I’m qualified to do it.”

Adebayo had represented the charity at IT conferences in her capacity as the charity's most senior IT executive and had been interviewed by CIO magazine, with the blessing of the charity, she said.

Turning Point confirmed that it is involved in Employment Tribunal proceedings with its former IT director but said: “It would be inappropriate to comment in any way whilst those proceedings are ongoing.”

The reason Adebayo was given for her dismissal was that she had deleted profiles on her laptop, but she maintains that the laptop that was examined was not the one she had been using at the time.

She also claims she was reprimanded for accessing derogatory emails about herself, which she did when testing how to use the programme to carry out a search for someone else, as had been requested by the HR department.