Dismisal with notice - appealling

AH84

I suffer from attacks of pretty severe depression, because of this I had a lot of time off of work last year. I got a Final Written Warning because of this (I had no prior warnings/councelling etc...) I didn't appeal at the time because I was depressed and didn't have the energy to argue.

10 months passed, and I had another attack of depression (mainly due to finding out my brother in law had taken indecent images of my 6 year old son and 10 year old female cousin, along with downloading according to the police, well over 1000 indecent images of other children)

One of the conditions of my Final Written Warning was that along with contacting my line manager to let her know I would not be at work I also had to contact my Operational Support Manager too.one
I genuinley forgot to call my OSM so recieved another disaplinary hearing leading to Dismisal with 4 weeks notice. I will be appealling this time.

OK, that's part one of my problem.

The second part is that for a while I had been getting overpaid due to an admin error after I reduced my hours. We agreed a repayment plan that suited both of us.

But now that I have been dismissed they said that they needed to recover as much as possible so took my whole last wage. So I received no money.

I now have no money to pay bills/generally live etc...
I contacted HR and they told me that there was nothing that they could do as they needed to recover as much as possible.

Surely they could keep with the same agreement but instead of the money coming straight out of my wage slip I would set up a direct debit with the same amount being paid to them.

So my question is, can they do that? take my whole wage for the month without discussing it with me? Especially when I am appealing the Dismissal action anyway? Am I not classed as an employee until after the appeal hearing?

Thank you for reading.

Jarndyce

I'm sorry but I can't see that the employer gas done anything wrong here. Yes they are entitled to dismiss after excessive sick leave (although you do - if true - have strong mitigating circumstances and that is perhaps your best chance of winning your appeal, especially if you have evidence to back up your account). Otherwise, you cease to become an employee once you are dismissed and at that point the employer is entitled to recover the overpayment in full.

SarEl

Yes they can do that - if you owe the employer money then the whole of a final wage may be "recovered ". You have been dismissed and you are no longer an employee unless and until you win the appeal.

The other part of the problem could do with more information, but it may well be that your best/ only real chance here is the appeal. How much time off are we talking about, and to what extent have you kept them in the loop about what was happening - and it may seem a silly question, but why did you forget to call? Is there any special circumstances around forgetting?