I agree with Shani, she may tell your PI that you have been sexually harrassing her anyway, just to get rid of you. Seeing as if the university found out what she did, she could get kicked out.

Badhaircut, don't let this girl bully you (and making false accusations IS a legally recognised form of bullying). Speak up immediately.

That is awful.. this girl goes from bad to worse.. Blackmail of any sort is bang out of order.. I would tell as many people as possible about this threat.. Talk to your supervisor about it and get it all out into the open.. At least that way if she does start throwing stuff around then people are prepared for it.

I agree with the others

Furthermore, I STRONGLY request from the Postgradforum Team not to delete this thread - it represents a clear proof (with dates and times) how things have developed which BHC might need as a last resort if things do get nasty.

BHC - last I checked this is seriously out of order! Can anyone seriously be so stupid as to threaten a "senior" work colleague with unbased sexual harrassment claims - you need to get a higher authority in on this one!
Having said that, she'd deny everything if you made her accusation public and you'd wind up looking a wotsit-stirring tit. My advice is to tell her the next time she thinks to threaten you, you will have her up in front of an industrial tribunal so fast her head will spin. I cannot stand people like that!

Many of you know the trouble I have had with my previous supervisor's political games, which made it hard for me to find a post doc. Now I have one I dont want to lose it (I also had to change some details to anonymise things).

The way I see it, had I not been in the room, I would have never been aware of anyting, right? And the situation would have remained the same. What difference does it make that I tell Sabrina. Its not going to bring her work back is it?

I guess there is one good thing that came out of this, is that anything I have complained about before is absolutely trivial (like vivas, upgrades, finding jobs). I put my hands up and can now say I was being unduly pessimistic. Those of you who said it before called it well and were damn right about it.

It takes something like this to put things in perspective.

although you aren't going to do anything, and that's up to you, you still need to watch your back - it would make sense for her to undermine / accuse you as much as possible, just in case you decide to talk in the future.
You could make notes (times, places, exact words etc) of all the incidents, so that if you ever need them then your memory of events can't be called into question. I would also be tempted to have an mobile phone / mp3 player or something to hand that you can set to record surreptitiously.
It's all very shocking, though!

BHC, I would strongly suggest that you be pre-emptive. Get this right out in the open, every single detail. Otherwise, as someone else mentioned, this snake could anticipate your move, and then you won't have a leg to stand on. What a disgraceful situation. I can't stand deception and manipulation! Hence, why I keep my distance from departments and their politics. Keep us posted

BHC while i understand that speaking out about the sabrina incident won't bring her work back, and i agree that it is not absolutely necessary for you to bring it up - you do need to speak to someone about being threatened. this is about you, not about sabrina.

tell your boss or your line manager or your HR, or your welfare office, or someone. but get it out there on the record. you can say that you don't want anything to happen, that you are not pressing for anything. but you need to get it on record. so that somewhere someone has it written down and filed that you have been threatened.

then, next time katy does threaten you, you tell her right out that you told X and if she makes her threat true, they will back you up. and if she spreads rumors without the preliminary threat, then you have a much firmer position than if you hadn't told someone beforehand.
please, do protect yourself.

The saga continues...

A few days ago, there was something in an earlier post by Olivia that got me thinking about there being a possible other source of evidence. I noticed that there was this black box suspended on the corner of the room. I asked one of the postdocs what was it, and he told me that there had been a break in last September and a lot of valuable equipment had gone missing, so the uni had installed cameras in case it happened again.

This morning I went over to security and the rather helpful guard told me they kept a months worth of footage before they wiped it. I said rather vaguely that "data had gone missing" and he reviewed the tape.

Guess who was captured on film?

I went to see the PI (who is in the UK now but it is like the 3rd time I have met him) and explained the situation. He listened to the whole story and was REALLY sympathetic. He also said he was really impressed by the way I had taken on the initiative and handled it myself.

He got a copy of the tape and saw what happened and then arranged a whole group meeting tommorow morning. He also arranged to explain what had happened to Sabrina, but I don't think Katy knows yet.

I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL TOMMOROW MORNING!

Well, I can't wait till tomorrow either, to read your account of what has happened. I feel really glad and relieved for you you got hard evidence to not only protect yourself, but also denounce her. Well done

This is ridiculous, so much drama. It's like a fictitious soap! I am intrigued to see how this will turn out, though.

BHC, you are amazing. I bow down in respect. In true James Bond fashion, you secured the evidence and are going to destroy the evil in this world!

Well done BHC . Finally some justice .. I been following this story and I am amaze by how competitive the research environment is . I always thought this kind of things only happened at Cambridge /Oxford (maybe Imperial as well) . Anyway you ever know what people are like , some of them pretend to be your friend to get closer to you so they can savage your work . Some pretend they are dumb and trying to get all the help they can ..and in fact they are ahead of you in the project. Some just want to destroy your work by contaminating the reagent you use and some just competitive and reptitively asking you where you at and what you are doing today !

Is sickening ! BHC have fun tomorrow .. Lets hope Katy get kicked out and never allow to step into research ever again !