Mensa boss sacked 'for using office to run own business'

WILL BENNETT

The top official at Mensa, the society for people with high IQs, made thousands of pounds by running a business from the organisation's headquarters, an industrial tribunal was told yesterday.

Harold Gale used his position to increase subscriptions to his own magazine and sold puzzles to newspapers who thought they were buying Mensa games, it was alleged. Mensa staff spent time working for Mr Gale's company, Harold Gale Associates, and one, who was a director of his company, received a 20 per cent pay rise.

Mr Gale, 54, from Lilleshall, Warwickshire, was sacked for gross misconduct last March after 19 years as executive director of Mensa. His dismissal followed a raid on its Wolverhampton headquarters by society officers, including Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor, who is chairman.

Mr Gale says that members of the British Mensa Committee, the organisation's ruling body, were aware of his commercial activities. He is alleging wrongful dismissal at the tribunal in Birmingham.

Alistair Smail, for Mensa, told the tribunal: "Mr Gale had total authority and because of that complete trust was placed in him by the British Mensa Committee. He was well rewarded . . . and was paid about pounds 60,000 a year.

"Most people in Mensa knew he published a small magazine called Mind Games and that he had set up a private company called Harold Gale Associates Limited.

"Up until 1985, Mind Games had been on sale in newsagents and Mensa advertised in it to attract new members. But in 1985 it became a subscription-only magazine. Mr Gale attracted new subscribers by approaching people who had approached Mensa for membership. The British Mensa Committee thought that Mind Games was produced in Mr Gale's own time. He was dismissed because he breached the complete trust Mensa placed in him to pursue their interests.

"He had exercised his undoubted entrepreneurial skills to promote the interests of his own company, not Mensa's.

"The charges against him are that he diverted inquiries made to Mensa for sales of puzzles away from Mensa to his own company, making himself thousands of pounds.

"He also used Mensa employees and their time to work on behalf of his company while ensuring that Mensa met his overheads."

Mr Smail said that Mr Gale, who built up Mensa from a small, 1,300-strong society to a membership of 40,000, "passed off the work of his own company as being Mensa's".

Kenneth Sutton, secretary of British Mensa, told the tribunal that Mensa derives much of its income from selling merchandise with the society's logo, puzzle-books, quizzes and intelligence tests. After Mr Gale's suspension, Mr Sutton said he discovered that money from newspaper quizzes had been going to Harold Gale Associates and not Mensa. The papers told him they were under the impression that they were getting them from Mensa.

Mr Sutton said that concern about Mr Gale's business activities had begun after a director of British Mensa had written to Sir Clive Sinclair telling him what was going on.

After Mr Gale's suspension accountants were brought in to examine invoices and computer records and Mensa's 25 staff were interviewed. They revealed that they spent many hours working for Harold Gale Associates and one puzzle setter said she spent half her time on Mr Gale's company business.

The tribunal continues today.