The wife of a museum worker believes increasing work pressure, staff cuts and bullying in the last 12 months of his job led to him jumping off a Hamilton bridge in view of his workplace, a coroner's inquest has been told.
Dr Raymond Mayes died in June last year, and his wife Julie wrote to the coroner to ask him to investigate whether the suspected suicide was linked to bullying during her husband's time as a science educator at the Hamilton City Council-operated Waikato Museum, a role he held for 12 years.
Mrs Mayes told coroner Wallace Bain in Hamilton today that her husband had been passionate about his job, but it had become extremely stressful in his last year as a result of council-wide budget cuts and a new museum director. Redundancies were made and staff resigned, which resulted in an increasingly heavy workload, she said.
Mrs Mayes said the 55-year-old did not have a history of depression and had never indicated he had planned to take his life. She said her husband was an "exceptional person" who had been "enthusiastic and excitable" in his work, and was both academic and physical with a love of camping, water skiing and tramping.
While he never used the word bullying to describe work, she said prior to his death he had said he was under extreme pressure and frustrated by the lack of funding. Mrs Mayes described it as an "increasingly toxic environment". By March last year, almost 50 per cent of museum staff had left.
