Anybody know anything about a Disciplinary Hearing?

mayb_2

Who is paying your solicitor if you are not in a union? Have you asked the Union if they will advise you? My union offers free legal advice to members and also they may represent you at the diciplinary as you are a member now. Don't forget if you take this to court or to an Industrial Tribunal it is your local LEA you will be taking there and they may employ in house solicitors to defend themselves.

Were you in a position to throw this person off the course? Is there any documented evidence of her being dismissed from the course? Was she available to attend the course at that time. If the answers are No, No and Yes - she would presumably have turned up and there would have been nothing you could do about it whether you thought she should be there or not.

Is it possible this student is making use of laws regarding Disabled Access etc to make a complaint against the college and you have become the scapegoat for them having failed this student in some way? They may have many hidden agendas here. Are they in a position to take diciplinary action against you if you are not working for them anymore? How will this affect your chances of being employed elsewhere? Have you made any complaints in writing to the employer regarding the process of your interview and the fact that you do not accept the written record of this? Copy these to someone else such as the Governors. Send all mail by recorded delivery.

Don' t forget that as of 1 October 2004, employers are required to follow a minimum statutory disciplinary procedure. If you have not signed the record made at your meeting then they may not have conducted this correctly and cannot prove what happend at that meeting or presumably that it happened at all! If you did not have the opportunity to be represented at the meeting then that was a breach of your rights.

If you are a member of a Union it is unlikely that they would not give you the sort of advice you need right now. Employment Law details can be found on the website and you could check these out for yourself as well. If you want to fight this then perhaps start giving it back to them big time!! They may think again if you show you are not just going to roll over and accept this. Go after the LEA for money owed and get everything said to you put in writing.

Despite all of this I would be tempted to walk away if there is not going to be any long term damage to yourself and your employment opportunities. It is hard to take but there is no way to fight this without a great deal of stress to yourself. I have been there and done that and although my employer settled on the day before the tribunal I took a long long time to get over it all.

sandralovescats

Thanks for all of that mayb!

First of all this complainant was a friend of some 8 years' standing. I have seen the deterioration in her since January this year.
At the end of the term March 06 I talked her into missing the Summer Term since she was due in hospital for her Parkinsons' since it was out of control (3 week) then another two week stay in hospital for another condition. She agreed to miss the Summer Term.

The original interview was not done to the new Employment Law re Grievance Procedure, no. They refused to tell me the complaint - from May to August 06.
I was told the complaint at the beginning of the Interview on 2nd August.

The records were not shown to me, nor was I allowed to sign them.

I laid a Grievance against the LEA in September regarding the way the Interview had been conducted. I received a letter of acknowledgement and was then ignored.

I laid a second Grievance against the LEA in October which was acknowledged and was then ignored.

I instructed a Solicitor in October. The LEA ignored him for a few weeks, then gave in. The letter to the Solicitor says that I have been found guilty of discrimination.

The NASUWT will not get involved since I am only a member since 1st September this year, but they have been advising me.

I changed Solicitors. The current Solicitor is currently attempting to get my insurance company to underwrite the case for me.

The documents sent to me yesterday re the Disciplinary Hearing are full of lies, errors and omissions - to make me look bad. I can prove that 99% of those are untrue, through documentary evidence.

It is like knocking my head off a brick wall. Whilst I want out of this, I don't see why I should be accused of something that I didn't do.

When arranging the interview I was told I had to attend place XXX and I refused to do so because they flatly refused to tell me the nature of the complaint "that is confidential you are not allowed to know". That phone call was a Thursday afternoon and I had work commitments on the Thursday and Friday all day. The person calling was going on holiday on the Saturday for two weeks and would phone me on her return.
On the Disciplinary Hearing documents it states -

"Miss xxxx refused to make an appointment to see me"
"Miss xxxx eventually gave in over two weeks later"
"Miss xxxx was very aggressive"

Yes, I lost my temper with her, because she wouldn't tell me what the complaint was!

When the interview was carried out they weren't the least bit interested in anything I had to say.

I am going to leave it up to the Solicitor - I shall see what he has to say in the morning.

If I go for Constructive Dismissal I can still take them for a lot of money.

mayb_2

Believe me I do know that the injustice of it all hurts more than any loss of money. I was fortunate that I had a sister working in HR and a brother in law working in the legal department of a University to advise and support me. I was not in a Union at the time of my complaint.

Nothing would have stopped me pursuing this case for breach of contract and constructive dismissal, I was so angry at the injustices that had been done to me. I had a great deal of written evidence to support my case but people I had worked with for 9 years had been warned off of suporting me and I lost a lot of 'friends'. One of them told me they could not afford to put their own job oportunities on the line - another resigned herself over similar issues and didn't want to make a fuss because they wanted a good reference. Some supported me in private and ignored me at work. Your earstwhile friend must have had a hand in this somewhere because surely the college must be acting on some information they have been given regarding this person and why they left?

I 'won' my case but it took a long time to bring it all to a conclusion and in the end I had still left my job and had started work in a different field altogether. The money was just peanuts really when it arrived none of my grievance had been aired and I received no apology or admission of unfair treatment. This was through a tribunal it may be different in a court but I was told not to expect much in the way of money if I won - because I was working somewhere else - no loss of pay even though I was earning less.

I don't give in easily and I was glad they had had to pay me, but in the end I think it may have been better for me to just walk away. Believe me this is said in hind sight - it is about 7 years ago.

I had an illness that nobody knew about and I desperatly wanted to keep my job as I was worried that if I became disabled (this was a possibility at the time) I wouldn't get another one. There is no doubt that the stress I experienced throughout this time, which included doing a completely different job with less pay and lots of travel, made my condition far worse.

I have a job I really enjoy now and my condition improved and I don't think anyone would guess I had a problem. If anything went wrong now I know my current employer would make any adjustments necessary to allow me to carry on working.

As you have said you have a disablity I wondered if your circumstances might be similar and perhaps it would be bad for you to suffer the stresses you are heading for.

I don't blame you if you go ahead - why should they get away with it and you have been treated very badly. I just think you should check with the solicitors on what the best outcome of this could be when you win. They should have to pay you up to date even if it doesn't come to court, if you have been suspended without prejudice. It may be at the end of it you won't feel satisfied that real justice has been done. You don't want that job back and I don't know how this would affect your chances of another one in education. Whatever they say these people always check you out on the telephone etc I have seen it happen. You may never know why you don't get that job officially but you will always wonder.

If you go ahead I wish you the very best of luck and I would be seeing myself in that. I had some very good advice from someone at the beginning of my troubles. Anger gets in the way, deal with the anger and attack the problem with complete calm. I went home that day and put all of the cushions I could find and the pillows in the house and beat the **** out of them telling them exactly what I thought of everything. I ended up in tears and the dog had hysterics but it did the trick - after that I could look the thing straight in the eye and get on with it.

Sounds completely mad but it worked!

sandralovescats

The Solicitor is not allowed to accompany me to the Disciplinary Hearing.

He says it is not a good idea to go for Constructive Dismissal.
The Union says the same thing.

So, I have nothing to lose, I will just resign anyway and forget the whole thing.

My hurt pride is not worth the effort and energy of having to respond to the drivel that has been laid against me. I know that it is not true and the people around me who matter know that none of it is true.

Thanks for your help and advice.

dmg24

I'm really sorry things haven't worked out, however you know that you have done nothing wrong, so you can walk away with your dignity firmly in tact.

Best of luck for the future x

mayb_2

I am sorry to hear that things did not go as you had hoped. You are totally right - the only people that matter are your real friends and you don't need to explain any of it to them as they were right there with you anyway.

I am glad you have been spared the misery of pursuing this any further - they are not worth it and like me you may look back on it one day and think that actually they did you a favour by pointing you in a totally different direction.

I wish you well in whatever that turns out to be. Good Luck!