Wessex19, your second last sentence hits the nail on the head. I wish I had had the guts to shop the nasty - although I suspect that he would have sweet-talked his way out of it. He had been in trouble several times before but got away with it. Ended up with promotion and a couple of 'BE' awards. But then, who said life was fair?
It probably didn't occur to him that anything was wrong when 2 of his most senior people asked to be posted away at the same time, or that his 2 ic refused to do his dirty work for him...