BBC Airport star Jeremy Spake sues the Isle of Man government for personal injuries after stress ‘from working 110 hours a week’

• Spake, 54, rose to fame after appearing on 1996 documentary series ‘Airport’ 
• He said his mental health deteriorated while working at the Isle of Man Airport

BBC Airport star Jeremy Spake is suing the Isle of Man government for personal injury damages after he became stressed from ‘working 110 hours a week’.

Spake – who rose to fame after appearing on the 1996 documentary series ‘Airport’ – is claiming his mental health was damaged due to ‘overwork’ at his job.

The 54-year-old said his mental health deteriorated during his three year employment as the deputy-director of the Isle of Man Airport at Ronaldsway and is suing the Isle of Man government for personal injuries.

He quit the role in March last year citing ‘bullying, harassment and mobbing on an almost industrial scale’ on his LinkedIn page.

The Isle of Man High Court heard that Spake has previously received personal injury damages from ‘abject’ institutional failures at his employment that led to ‘extreme overwork, lack of support and failure to deal with harassment’.

But now Spake is launching a separate legal action over the department’s alleged negligence and breach of contract for failing to minimise his stress.

Jeremy Spake appeared on six part documentary series The Airport: Back In The Skies in 2022

He said his mental health deteriorated during his three year employment as the deputy-director of the Isle of Man Airport at Ronaldsway. Pictured on The Airport: Back In The Skies

Spake – who rose to fame after appearing on the 1996 documentary series ‘Airport’ – is claiming his mental health was damaged due to ‘overwork’ at his job

Spake – who also wrote a book called ‘The Toughest Job in Britain’ about his experiences working at Heathrow Airport – began working at the Isle of Man Airport in 2018.

The former star left the job three years later and received substantial damages from the Isle of Man government’s Department of Infrastructure (DoI) which runs the airport, at an industrial tribunal in 2022.

He claimed unfair and 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 and received a payout after both sides reached a compromise agreement.

Now, it has emerged Spake is also suing the Department of Infrastructure for personal injuries in a separate legal action launched in April.

The Isle of Man High Court heard he is seeking damages over the department’s alleged negligence and breach of contract for failing to minimise his stress and provide adequate support at the airport where he said he regularly worked 110 hours a week.

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

Spake – who also wrote a book called ‘The Toughest Job in Britain’ about his experiences working at Heathrow Airport – began working at the Isle of Man Airport in 2018

Spake appeared on game show Pointless Celebrities in 2019

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.

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’.

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 Spake had issued a claim for personal injuries in April this year and Ms Gore said the facts of the new claim were ‘all but identical’ to the tribunal claim.

Merla Celestine, Air Jamaica’s station manager, Michele Harris, Terminal manager and Jeremy Spake Aeroflot’s supervisor at London Heathrow Airport for BBC series Airport

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  Spake ordered to provide a schedule of losses and expert medical within eight weeks as his claim wasn’t issued with these elements.

READ MORE – Airport’s Jeremy Spake looks totally different as he returns to screens 17 years after becoming fan favourite on the BBC documentary

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

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

An Isle of Man government spokesperson said: ‘The matter is being examined by the courts and that it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.’

Elena Yegorova, Spake’s legal counsel, said: ‘For legal reasons, neither Jeremy nor any of his representatives are able to make any comment concerning this matter at this time.’

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 Ronaldsway, 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.

MailOnline has approached the Isle of Man government for comment.

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