Alex Barnes-Ross Was Dismissed after Stalking a Female Colleague

A former superior of Alex Barnes-Ross recounts how he was given every chance to succeed, but his manic behavior, chronic unreliability, and stalking and harassment of a female colleague left no choice but dismissal.

TRANSCRIPT:

My first impression of Alex was that he seemed like a bit of a loner. That he was coming in—like, he was very enthusiastic about doing stuff here, but I soon sort of started to feel like maybe it was a bit manic. But I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and see how they do, and obviously we’re here to help.

So, yeah, then when he started to—as a staff member, when he was around then, that’s when I did feel a bit concerned at times when I noticed how he would deal with other people around him. And I knew he made some people uncomfortable. I could see that he was clinging on to a few certain staff members and wanted friends.

But he was sort of coming in from the side and, like, starting to feel like he’s latching on to us, and like we have to be his friend. It wasn’t like an optional thing. So then I was a little concerned that there wasn’t—that was an area of difficulty for him. And he’s not—obviously may not have had any other friends.

And you could see people start to become uncomfortable with him. And his oddnesses would appear, and people would get a bit edgy and try to avoid him.

It would make things very awkward and uncomfortable. And just make the environment, like, not safe for people, not like somewhere they want to be. And unfortunately, that’s what he generated.

Working with Alex was kind of interesting because he would be a bit up and down, and you wouldn’t even know if he would turn up one day.

He wasn’t necessarily the person you could rely on. He sort of would come in with his somewhat manic enthusiasm to do different things, but he wasn’t the person we could rely on to be there all the time at the times we’re supposed to be there.

Whenever you tried to help him, it was—you could never help him. Like, whatever you would do—like, give him, go overboard to try and make sure he felt like he was addressing whatever he wanted to address, or like if he needed assistance with something, we would give it, and then you’d be accused of giving no help when we just did. And it was like you couldn’t help him. From quite early on, actually, but that got worse as time went on.

And it was more someone that was on the edge—sort of causing turbulence, if you like, and disturbing things, which then makes our job more difficult. And what we’re trying to do—and all we’re trying to do—is help. So if he’s coming in from the side, making it more difficult, then ultimately that’s not going to work.

I remember Alex was dismissed from some of these reports that had occurred—you know, just being odd and not fitting in really, and creating problems and trouble. And then he was fighting to come back.

And then eventually it was sort of like, looked at everything—okay, we can give him a second chance because, of course, we’re all about giving people second chances and want to give people the benefit of the doubt. But again, within a few months, the same stuff was happening, even worse. And he was just—he wouldn’t turn up on time, wouldn’t be in communication. We didn’t really know what was going on with certain things.

And then when I started to have complaints from this fellow staff member of mine who was having trouble with him going after her in a romantic way that she did not want. He was putting her under pressure, and when she couldn’t—she was on reception—and then he would corner her on reception, and that’s not fair because she can’t leave from a security point of view and with her job and what she’s trying to do. And then he makes it so that she can’t go anywhere, and she can’t escape him. It was making her—reducing her to the point of tears while she’s doing her job that she loves and has a passion for.

It started to become apparent that he couldn’t control certain aspects of his personality that would then impact on other people. When he’s making a staff member of mine feel cornered, feel upset, not able to get away from him, and basically feeling stalked—like, I can’t have that for the staff that are here trying to do a good job.

So when this came up, it was like, okay, that’s it. Like, it’s the end of the line. He can’t—we can’t have him here doing that kind of thing. So then he got dismissed.