A City worker won about £800,000 damages yesterday over the bullying she says she endured in the "department from hell".

Helen Green, 36, sued Deutsche Bank Group Services (UK) Ltd over the harassment she allegedly received from a group of colleagues.

Mr Justice Owen, at London's High Court, said she was "subjected to a relentless campaign of mean and spiteful behaviour designed to cause her distress".

He said the behaviour amounted to "a deliberate and concerted campaign of bully-ing within the ordinary meaning of that term".

He awarded her £35,000 for pain and suffering, £25,000 in respect of her disadvantage on the labour market, £128,000 for past loss of earnings and about £640,000 for future loss of earnings including pension.

The bank will also have to pay her legal costs, with an interim payment of £350,000.

Miss Green, who worked in the firm's secretariat division between October 1997 and October 2001, said she suffered psychiatric injury because of "offensive, abusive, intimidating, denigrating, bullying, humiliating, patron-ising, infantile and insulting words and behaviour".

She believed she was targeted for "mobbing" by four women: Valerie Alexander, manager of the insurance division; her personal assistant, Fiona Gregg; telephone directory administrator Daniella Dolbear; and Jenny Dixon, PA to department head Richard Elliston.

She denied that she had done anything to justify the behaviour or that she had "talked down" to the women.

Miss Green, 36, of Manchester Road, Tower Hamlets, east London, was twice promoted before she received stress counselling, paid for by the company, in March 2000, and assertiveness training.

She had a nervous break-down in November 2000 and was admitted to hospital on suicide watch.

In April that year she resumed full-time work but suffered a relapse in October. Her job was kept open for her until September 2003 when her employment was terminated.

It was agreed by the medical experts on both sides that she developed a major depressive disorder but there was disagreement about its cause.

The final amount of damages will be clarified later after arguments in court.