Suspended By Employer; Cleared by Police

Berlingo100

Hi

Four Weeks ago my girlfriend was arrested after walking out of a chain store with a £3.99 item of clothing in amongst £50 worth of clothing she had paid for. It was genuine error, but as she refused to accept an on the spot fine, the police arrested her, and bailed her for 3 weeks.

As she works for a neighbouring police force in an admin role, she told her employer what had happened, and they suspended her on full pay.

A few days before she was due to return to the police station, she recieved a letter from the police to say that having examined the evidence, they were going to take no further action. She immediately told her employer, who asked her to post a copy of the letter to them.

Nine days on she has not heard anything official from her employer. She called her line manager, but all she would say was that she would recieve a letter in due course. Her union rep has said that it is possible that her employers could still hold a disciplinary hearing, and take disciplinary action against her.

Is this correct?

It doesn't seem right that her employer could punish her for something that she has not been charged with.

Any advice or insight would be much appreciated.

Horace

What the union rep has said is correct, she could be disciplined by her employer despite being cleared by the police. As she works for a neighbouring force then she could be seen as having bought that force into disrepute hence the possible disciplinary.

zzzLazyDaisy

Berlingo100 wrote: »

It doesn't seem right that her employer could punish her for something that she has not been charged with.

Any advice or insight would be much appreciated.

Yes, her employer can still take disciplinary proceedings against her.

The reason is that the burden of proof in a criminal case is that the CPS must prove beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to steal the item. Also the CPS may drop the case if they take the view that it is not in the public interest to proceed, which they may do if they can't be sure of a conviction, especially where the value of the item is so low.

However the employer has a different burden of proof in disciplinary proceedings. In that case, they must carry out a thorough investigation, which includes giving the employee a fair opportunity to state his or her case, and then the decision maker must come to an honest and reasonable decision based on the facts available. This is a much lower hurdle to jump than the police.

Either way, the manager conducting the disciplinary must make his or her own decision and cannot simply abdicate that role and leave it to the police to decide.

Hopefully everything will work out and the employer will believe her when she says that it was a simple mistake, but that is a decision for the employer to make.

Evilm

Legal proof to prosecute her and the level of proof needed by her employer will be different so yes, this can happen.

It is very likely they will hold a meeting and find it was genuine mistake and reinstate her. However they probably have to follow this process exactly rather than just let her off and back to work.

maninthestreet

As some Police Forces seem to think there is nothing wrong to employ people with crimimal records as Police officers, hopefully she will not be dismissed.

Berlingo100

Thanks for your quick responses.

Looks like she is just going to have to go through the waiting like she did with the police investigation, and hope it comes to the same conclusion.