Stress and pressure that was allegedly due to bullying and caused an investment manager to resign his position at Goodbody Stockbrokers, also made him depressed, an employment appeals tribunal heard.

Addressing the tribunal in Dublin yesterday, Dr Gerard Waters said John Looby (36), an investment manager who is claiming unfair dismissal from the firm, was dejected and down after stopping work. "To me it was obvious that it was totally work related," said Dr Waters, who has known Mr Looby for more than 20 years. "He told me how he felt he had been undermined. He was flat and the effect was enough to make a diagnosis of depression."

Mr Looby, who along with two others was hired by Goodbody to run its elite high-risk hedge fund management project in August 2003, is claiming the behaviour of one of his colleagues, Michael O'Sullivan, forced him to quit his €124,000-a-year job.

Goodbody, which is owned by AIB and is Ireland's oldest broker, is contesting the case. It claims Mr Looby resigned of his own free will and refused other positions offered to him at the firm. The company is also alleging he timed his departure to avail of a €50,000 bonus, an award Mr Looby claims he had been entitled to since July. He resigned in October.

Under cross examination by Goodbody counsel Séamus Clarke, Mr Looby said bullying was what he associated with antics in the school yard and that what he experienced was more like abuse. He described five individual incidents over the course of four months where he believes he was intimidated by Mr O'Sullivan's "white anger".

Prompted by a so-called "dignity at work" conference at Goodbody, Mr Looby went to his boss Roy Barret to complain about the way he claims he was being treated. He told the tribunal he felt "disappointed" that Mr Barret did not resolve the issue and after a week's holiday in Wexford decided to leave. He has not worked since.

In response to questions by Mr Clarke, Mr Looby said he had no qualms about not going through the usual complaints procedure as his was a unique situation where three very good friends came into the firm together to work on a specific project. He told the tribunal he was not even aware of the group's complaints policy, as by this time he was operating "just as a shell" and simply wanted it to be over.

Also giving evidence at yesterday's hearing, Brian Gray, the third partner in the project, said he had known Mr Looby since 1988 when they both worked at NCB. He said they became good friends quickly and continued to spend considerable amounts of time together even after he moved to work at Montgomery Oppenheim.

In response to questioning by Mr Clarke, Mr Gray said the atmosphere between the three men was very good at the start of the project, though it deteriorated over time as Mr Looby did not put in as much work as the other two. Asked about the five incidents where Mr Looby alleges he suffered abuse, Mr Gray's accounts to the tribunal differed from those told by Mr Looby. He said they both knew that Mr O'Sullivan was a man who told it how it was, but that he had no recollection of him slamming doors or raising his voice as alleged by Mr Looby.

The hearing was adjourned to continue in January.