Jurors did not hear former Griswold First Selectwoman Anne Hatfield testify Tuesday in the wrongful-firing lawsuit filed by Andrea Charron, but they heard her words.

On the eighth day of the civil trial in New London Superior Court, attorneys for Charron, the former selectmen's secretary, read a deposition from Hatfield given last year on on two dates, June 12 and Sept. 26.

As the deposition was read aloud, one attorney read the comments attributed to Hatfield while the other read the questions put to her.

In the dialogue, Charron's attorney Jacques Parenteau tried to show how the relationship between Charron and Hatfield had been strained, and the environment in Griswold Town Hall had become hostile, after the former town hall on School Street burned down in January 2006.

In the deposition, Parenteau had asked Hatfield about statements that Charron and a few others claimed she said. He asked if she had threatened Charron, if she called selectmen the “board of idiots” and if she said the lapse of insurance was “gross negligence.”

Most of her responses were that she couldn't remember.

”I know I was very upset. I said a lot of things. I don't know,” Hatfield said in the deposition.

On Jan. 17 Hatfield said she sent a letter to Charron offering to meet with her on Jan. 24 to discuss the situation. Both Charron and Hatfield wanted to work things out in a professional manner, she said. Hatfield said she wanted to communicate with Charron or talk about the possibility of transferring her to another department. That meeting, however, never happened.

On Jan. 19 Charron was sent home and placed on paid administrative leave, but during her absence she discovered some disturbing news: that Hatfield had accused her of deleting town files from her computer.

In the deposition, Parenteau referred to a Jan. 28 article in The Day that stated the accusation of deleted files, then another reporting of it in the Norwich Bulletin on Feb. 8. He asked Hatfield if she told Day reporter Megan Bard that Charron deleted the files.

Hatfield said she couldn't remember even speaking with reporters, even though she was quoted in news articles. She said she just complied with the requests per the Freedom of Information Act by sending them the relevant correspondence, including e-mail.

Witnesses later testified that Charron's reputation was destroyed after Hatfield planted the “inaccurate information” with reporters.

”She was crying and upset. She didn't know why Anne would be telling lies about her,” said Charron's daughter, Julie McGrew of Griswold.

The news about Charron's firing and the accusation of the deletion of files quickly spread to other media.

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