Seven West Media is understood to be telling people that Tim Worner's job is safe. Credit:Kirk Gilmour But Seven needs to answer the damaging allegations around its chief executive's behaviour. If it can't then Stokes must act. In what other major listed corporate would it be acceptable for a chief executive to have been found to have engaged in an affair with a subordinate and failed to respond to allegations of the use of illicit drugs during work periods? After settlement talks and a Human Rights Commission mediation fell through, the former executive assistant making the claims, Amber Harrison, has resorted to publicly telling her story of a two-year affair with Worner.

Kerry Stokes' Seven Group Holdings has raised $540 million after exiting its Caterpillar franchise in China. Credit:David Mariuz It includes details of sexually explicit text messages from him along with legal documents detailing two now-abandoned legal settlement deeds. Both were signed by Harrison and Seven's legal director Bruce McWilliam. The most recent settlement deed suggests that Harrison was to be paid around $2 million over the period of a year in return for her silence and the deletion of all the text messages sent to her by Worner – who has previously described himself as a family man. Amber Harrison (left), with her boss Nick Chan and his wife Peggy. Chan was responsible for approving Harrison's $500,000 in expenses over five years. However, sources have said that the amount was significantly smaller – around $350,000 – and that the deed documents misrepresent the settlement figure as they were sloppily drafted.

Stranger still, the offer was made after Seven accused Harrison of fraudulent misuse of a corporate credit card. Harrison says Seven has spent around $1 million on legal fees in what is a very expensive cleaning-up of Worner's mess. For Seven the optics around this, its ethics and its governance are atrocious. It is not denying the consensual affair – it can't. Initially Harrison was offered compensation and the opportunity to move to a different part of the company. But relationships between the parties deteriorated. Harrison, 17 years junior to Worner, says that "during the past four months of negotiation I have tried everything to secure a third contract to replace the two Seven were never going to honour because that was their plan. They wanted me frustrated by the legal process, unable to get to court, broken and penniless and they wanted to cover up the affair with Tim, and the cover-up of Tim." Now that the story has been made public the spotlight is on Stokes and the independence of his board.