Big Motoring World executives mocked ‘rude a****ole’ Peter Waddell in WhatsApp groups

Yesterday (Mar 17), the court heard evidence from Tom Clarke, who worked at the used car supermarket group as a general counsel and sat on the investigation committee into Waddell.

During proceedings, he was questioned on a series of internal WhatsApp messages in which executives took ‘potshots’ at Waddell.

The court was shown several messages from a private WhatsApp group involving Clarke and other senior figures, including Huma Rather and Sophie Hazell.

In one exchange, Clarke sarcastically referred to the 59-year-old as ‘poor Peter’ before adding that he was a ‘massive drain’ and describing him as ‘completely nuts’.

In other messages, the CEO was described by senior colleagues as a ‘f***ing idiot’ and a ‘rude a****ole’.

During cross-examination Clarke admitted to using unprofessional language but insisted the messages were limited to private groups with a small number of colleagues.

Questioning the witness, Waddell’s barrister, Alan Gourgey KC, said: ‘This is senior management, is it not, mocking the CEO of the business in pretty crude terms?’

He added: ‘This is how you and your colleagues were speaking about the man who founded the company.’

He told the court that it ‘felt like an impossible task’ for staff to do their jobs in the latter stages of Waddell’s leadership, with colleagues ‘regularly in tears’.

In his evidence, Clarke said the messages had been a way of coping with ‘very difficult’ working conditions.

However, Gourgey retorted: ‘This isn’t support, Mr Clarke, this is people taking potshots at the CEO.’

Secret Freshstream meeting

Later on in the day, talk turned to a secret meeting held by Freshstream in January of 2024.

Clarke admitted that he attended the ‘ideas session’ in which the team discussed making changes to the Big Motoring World leadership, including the potential ousting Waddell.

He told the court that he lied to Waddell about where he was on the day in question, telling him he had been ‘at the hospital since 3am due to a family emergency’ – a claim he later admitted was untrue.

‘That was a lie, wasn’t it?’ said Gourgey. ‘Yes’, Clarke replied. ‘I couldn’t tell him where I was going.’

The trial so far…