Lord Sugar Told Apprentice: 'I Don't Give A S***'

A winner of TV show The Apprentice says Lord Sugar told her "I don't give a s***" when he decided not to renew her contract, a tribunal has heard.

Stella English, 34, who won series six of the BBC1 show in 2010, is suing the millionaire business mogul, claiming constructive dismissal.

During cross-examination at the East London Employment Tribunal Service, Ms English said Lord Sugar told her during an unscheduled meeting on September 28 2011 that he would not be keeping her on.

Ms English said: "He said to me 'Look, if you think Lord Sugar is s***ting himself and that's why you're here, that's where you're mistaken - I don't give a s***.

"'I've met my obligations to you. I did it for the BBC and the integrity of the show and a bit of my own PR and a bit of yours too. But the fact is that I don't give a s***'."

However Lord Sugar said Ms English was an "untrusting and suspicious person" who was full of "conspiracy theories".

Reading out his own statement at the tribunal, he said he was surprised when she told him she was not enjoying the £100,000 role with him that she had won.

"I began to think that perhaps the reality of work rather than the glamour of showbusiness was beginning to bite with her," he said.

"Her time in the limelight was beginning to fade."

But Ms English said she could not believe Lord Sugar was not taking her life and future seriously.

"At this point I thought we were living in the real world, not in a game show," she said.

The tribunal previously heard that Ms English worked for Lord Sugar's Viglen division for a four-month probationary period between September and December 2010 before being crowned the winner of the competition that month.

Chris Bates, the show's other semi-finalist, also carried out work for Lord Sugar in another of his companies during this period.

Ms English carried on at Viglen after winning but, when she told Lord Sugar she wanted to leave in May 2011, she was offered another role at internet set-top box company YouView.

Ms English told the tribunal she had felt pressurised by Lord Sugar to take the job.

She said he told her he needed a quick answer as the papers were going to print a story that she had quit the next day.