Sacked for Theft then re-instated 6 mths later!

Larry22

Hi All, just thought I'd throw this question onto the board for anyone else's views! I'll try and give a brief short outline.
A good friend was working for a large supermarket chain and after returning from holiday was suspended on suspicion of theft, (money going missing before he was away, then none while he was away) firstly on full pay then after a meeting sacked !! a previous employee who was sacked for theft was then contacted & reinstated with the manager saying they now knew he hadn't taken the money because they had caught someone else!
After 3 or 4 meetings with various managers & 6 months later he was re-instated & has been awarded his old job back (cash office) with the whole 6 mths pay back dated inc holiday entitlements, he has until monday to accept or decline the offer, my question is should he try to go for compensation for defamation of character? he lives & works (worked) within a small area where everyone knows everyone & of course they all knew why he was sacked, some of who don't talk to him anymore. In his last meeting he found out that his manager had lied in his statement. Personally I think he should try for compensation even if they class it as a 'Good will gesture'
I hope I have covered most of the case, anyone have any thoughts on this please?

suited-aces

Bite their arm off.

Abbafan1972

Did the manager get sacked for lying?

Uncertain

There can only be any "defamation" if the firm have somehow made this public. If they re-instate him in the same job this make a pretty clear statement that he was "not guilty".

Defamation is a High Court action (not an employment tribunal) and therefore expensive and high risk.

Within reason a company can suspend any employee on full pay - it is in theory a neutral act to allow something to be investigated.

I suspect there is little he can do.

mountainofdebt

suited-aces wrote: »

Bite their arm off.

I agree.

I know its implied that he is innocent by being re-employed but I think I would also ask for my employment record to be clearly marked that I was innocent of all charges which led to my sacking.

Googlewhacker

I think he should take the offer if he wants to go back to the job, if not then thats another discussion but the company only had to dismiss him on reasonable proof, not actually prove he was guilty so for them to offer the job back seems more than reasonable especially as he is getting a nice lump sum out of it.

The fact he is back working there will prove his innocence and for those friends that stopped talking to him over it then that shows how much of a friend they were.

getmore4less

If he does go back and gets paid make sure he sorts out any impact on benifits he may hove had in the mean time.

Larry22

Thanks all for your imput,
He does want his job back mainly because he's nearly 60 so really not much chance of another. The manager hasn't been sacked but his lie only came to light at the meeting yesterday, he did mention going down the grievance proceedure lines once back at work.
Finally he knows that he will have to pay back any benefits paid to him during the unemployed period.
Many thanks for all the replies
Larry

bigsooze

I would advise him to accept the offer.

But I would also suggest he thinks very carefully about raising a grievance - what does he want to achieve from it? Unless the manager is dismissed, he probably won't be made aware of any action taken against them. The best outcome for how your friend has been treated has already presented itself - he's got his job back. Grievances aren't to be taken lightly and it could cause issues for his relationships / reputation just when he wants to be putting it all behind him (it shouldn't mean he's treated any differently but that isn't always how things play out). They should take appropriate action against the manager regardless of your friend raising a grievance or not, and I'm not quite sure what a grievance would achieve for him. If I were him I'd be the bigger person and keep my head held high.

bigsooze

Also - the company did not have to reinstate your friend ... his time limit for claiming unfair dismissal at tribunal had expired, so they wouldn't have been exposing themselves to any risk on that front, + a tribunal will consider if the dismissal was fair on the information the employer had at the time of dismissal, not if any other information comes to light later on.

They could have just shrugged their shoulders and forgot about it, so it genuinely does seem a good will gesture to reinstate him + as if they have acted out of more honourable intentions rather than necessity. I wouldn't make any more out of it.

Larry22

bigsooze wrote: »

Also - the company did not have to reinstate your friend ... his time limit for claiming unfair dismissal at tribunal had expired, so they wouldn't have been exposing themselves to any risk on that front, + a tribunal will consider if the dismissal was fair on the information the employer had at the time of dismissal, not if any other information comes to light later on.

They could have just shrugged their shoulders and forgot about it, so it genuinely does seem a good will gesture to reinstate him + as if they have acted out of more honourable intentions rather than necessity. I wouldn't make any more out of it.

The tribunal was going through and he has a date in March but he can obviously cancel that now,
Regards