AS A schoolgirl, Patricia Dunn, the ousted chairman of Hewlett-Packard, was upbeat and cheerful, mature beyond her years, according to a former teacher. Pattie, as her friends call her, is a role model for young people, according to her husband’s family.

The kind words from former teacher Barbara Rosenberg at Terra Linda High School in San Rafael, California, and from cousins Jim and Leslie Peck were among the 59 letters of character reference that Dunn presented last month to a US congressional committee.

The submissions formed part of her evidence to the committee investigating her role in a mole-hunt to find the source of leaks from HP’s boardroom.

Along with the letter, Dunn, 53, submitted a DVD of a recent speech and a six-page, single-spaced “Life History in Brief”. The potted biography is the impressive resume of a former temp who rose to become one of the most powerful women in business. But the CV, references and DVD were not enough to save her.

The snooping scandal “would make Richard Nixon blush if he were alive”, said congressman John Dingell. It was “a fine display of arrogance, cover-up and probably gross stupidity”.

Last week matters went from bad to worse as Dunn surrendered to the authorities to be charged with criminally spying on HP directors and journalists.

The HP scandal has tarnished not only Dunn’s reputation but that of her company, the founding father of Silicon Valley.

James Cox, law professor at Duke University, North Carolina, said the “ham-fisted” way the board had handled the investigation was bound to spark calls for tighter privacy laws. “Privacy is a hot issue in America. With the technology we have today there is always a fear that your bank account is going to be the next thing to get hacked into,” said Cox.

So far Dunn has vigorously denied any wrongdoing and defended her right to investigate who was leaking private details of HP’s board meetings.

In an interview to be broadcast tonight on the news show 60 Minutes, Dunn echoes her testimony before Congress. “If you think that Hewlett-Packard is the only company that has an investigations force — which by the way is peopled mostly with former law-enforcement officers who do

all kinds of private detective work, moni- toring, posing as other people in order to solve problems to protect shareholder value — you’re being naive,” she said.

The programme focuses on the memoirs of Carly Fiorina, HP’s former chief executive. In her book, published in America next week, Fiorina admits she began an investigation into media leaks last year. But in her first comments on the leak case Fiorina said she was shocked to learn about the use of “pretexting”.

Once an obscure and potentially illegal practice, pretexting — using false pretences to access an individual’s personal records — is now a household word in America.