A whistleblowing celebrity airport boss who quit his job at Ronaldsway is seeking damages against a government department.

Jeremy Spake, who found fame as star of hit TV series Airport, has already agreed to settle a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal, it has emerged.

He stepped down as deputy director of Isle of Man Airport in March 2022, citing ‘bullying, harassment and mobbing on an almost industrial scale’ on his LinkedIn page.

Now it has emerged he took the Department of Infrastructure to the employment tribunal claiming unfair, wrongful or constructive dismissal related to his whistleblowing over his concerns about safety and other issues at the airport.

He also claimed to have been harassed by individuals in air traffic control.

The details were revealed as the high court heard details of separate claim for personal injuries lodged by Mr Spake against the DoI.

He is seeking damages over the department’s alleged negligence and breach of contract for failing to minimise his stress and provide adequate support during his three years at the airport, where he said he regularly worked 110 hours a week.

But advocate for the DoI Keira Gore argued the new claim should be struck out as it could and should have been included in the tribunal case and the department should not be ‘vexed twice by the same matter’.

The court heard that the former airport deputy director issued a tribunal claim for unfair and wrongful dismissal or alternatively constructive dismissal on May 31 2022.

But Miss Gore said the employment tribunal case was settled by way of a compromise agreement in January this year.

The settlement featured a ‘significant sum’, she said.

She said the dismissal was motivated ‘wholly or primarily by the claimant’s repeated protected disclosures regarding safety related and other matters’.

The court heard that Mr Spake had subsequently issued a claim for personal injuries in April this year.

Miss Gore said the facts of the new claim were ‘all but identical’ to the tribunal claim.

And she said it was issued without any schedule of losses or expert medical evidence.

The DoI’s advocate said there was a ‘real and heightened’ risk of double recovery as the compromise agreement covered injury to feelings and loss of earnings and pension contributions while the civil claim was for loss of earnings and pension.

She said the case should be struck out for abuse of process or alternatively Mr Spake ordered to provide a schedule of losses and expert medical within eight weeks.

Mr Spake’s advocate Chris Grimson said stresses of events during his client’s three years at the airport had ultimately damaged his psychiatric health due to the DoI’s negligence and breaches of statutory duty.

He accepted there were similarities with both claims but insisted the personal injury claims were stand alone and not related to the detriment caused by Mr Spake’s whistleblowing or the dismissal itself.

He said the claimed personal injury damages arose from ‘abject’ institutional failures that led to ‘extreme overwork, lack of support and failure to deal with harassment from a particular faction within the airport’.

Mr Grimson told the court this alleged harassment had been directed to his client by a ‘group of individuals in air traffic control’.

He said the organisation’s ‘institutional and endemic failures’ had led to his client regularly working 110 hours a week and having to ‘shoulder alone’ issues such as health and safety.

Mr Spake first found fame in 1996 when he starred in the BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary Airport set in Heathrow where he was working as ground services manager for Russian airline Aeroflot. He returned to Heathrow last year to present a mini-series looking at how the airport was resuming full operations after the Covid pandemic

Since his departure from Ronalsdway, he has set up a consultancy business with his former boss Anne Reynolds, who left her role as airport director in 2021 after 15 years of involvement with the island’s air and sea ports.

Deemster John Needham said he would be looking to reserve judgment as it was a ‘complex area of law’.