At employent Tribunal how much importance

Sappoo21

At employent Tribunal how much importance is put on the witnesses
I have none but the boss has 3 all of them i have issues with and I know there weak points they probably bunged them £50 to write them but would the ET beleive them or me my evidence is far stronger than theres. So do I have any need to worry.
help much appreciated

elpulpo

Will you be represented at the ET? Having someone skilled in cross-examination makes a great deal of difference in exposing weaknesses in witness statements.

Remember also that ET panels spend all day every day listening to evidence from people, and have a good measure of whether they're telling the truth.

The main thing is to remain calm yourself, make sure your witness statement is well prepared and explains what happened in simple, straightforward language.

In many circumstances where there is a conflict of evidence, the tribunal simply prefers the evidence of the person who comes across as the most reasonable.

It's often preferable, for instance, to perhaps conceed a few points; to admit to an extent that you might have been wrong about something. It makes you come across as a reasonable person.
Charging in there and and shouting 'I'm totally right and the employer is completely wrong!', can make you seem that you're not capable of presenting a level arguement.

At the end of the day, you have no control over what anyone else is going to say, so there's no point in losing sleep. If what they say is not fair or true, there's a good chance that will come out.
Maintain the moral high ground.
Keep calm.

Sappoo21

elpulpo wrote: »

Will you be represented at the ET? Having someone skilled in cross-examination makes a great deal of difference in exposing weaknesses in witness statements.

Remember also that ET panels spend all day every day listening to evidence from people, and have a good measure of whether they're telling the truth.

The main thing is to remain calm yourself, make sure your witness statement is well prepared and explains what happened in simple, straightforward language.

In many circumstances where there is a conflict of evidence, the tribunal simply prefers the evidence of the person who comes across as the most reasonable.

It's often preferable, for instance, to perhaps conceed a few points; to admit to an extent that you might have been wrong about something. It makes you come across as a reasonable person.
Charging in there and and shouting 'I'm totally right and the employer is completely wrong!', can make you seem that you're not capable of presenting a level arguement.

At the end of the day, you have no control over what anyone else is going to say, so there's no point in losing sleep. If what they say is not fair or true, there's a good chance that will come out.
Maintain the moral high ground.
Keep calm.

I don't have someone to represent me but community legal aid have been
vv helpful and I have a straight forward and to the point statement which they have drafted based on facts and clear evidence but I just didn't expect them to be quite so cutting when at time we were good work friends.
thanks again for your information

elpulpo

Often the case that people who you thought were your friends suddenly disappear at such times.
Particularly when they're the employees of the person you're up against. Or, like you say, they're being bunged or bullied into saying what the employer wants them to.
If their testimonies aren't true it's likely to backfire when they're crossexamined.

moneysavingexpert79

The likeliness is that the 3 witnesses who are called will be trying to stick on the side of the employer so much they will not answer your questions. This bode quite well for me in my tribunal as the simplest questions were replied with, "I'm sorry, I can't help you'. All this does is make them out to be spineless, and not impartial witnesses, which isn't what the tribunal is looking for. Ideally call up a different witness yourself or choose a witness that you know fr sure will be called anyway just to make your employer think 'why are they calling ....... as a witness?' although it may be too late for this already.

Tribunals are done in a day normally so the statement you provided to them prior to the tribunal will be heavily called on throughout the day. I came from the perspective it is up to them to prove they're not at fault rather than you to prove they've done something wrong.

If you've never been in court (like me) and are nervous about the day then I can assure you it isn't anything to worry about. That's if you're confident you can represent yourself properly. The chances are that they haven't even hired an employment lawyer and are just using their estate agent or whoever wants to make a quick few quid.