My employer is accusing me of fraud as he is retaliating me of raising whistleblowing

Sambucus_Nigra

Terrified wrote: »

Thank you all for your replies. I may not have been very clear in my earlier messages. The salary increment was signed by my manager and I then acknowleged the salary increment by signing my name underneath. I then passed the letter to the payroll/finance team. This is not a big company so that is how it works. Everything was ok. I received the salary increment and all was fine. Then from Feb onwards with a number of grievance cases and whistleblowing cases, my manager was suddenly faced with all that. Not only that, business overall is not doing well too. I was told to be the investigator for the grievance cases and the whistleblowing cases which I did. I concluded that there were facts and proof to show that the grievance cases and the whistleblowing cases were all genuine. When I told my manager, he told me to change the outcome. When I challenged him, he became angry and so I changed the outcome. But right after that, he found excuses to terminate those who raised the grievance cases and whistleblowing cases. I was saddened to see that. Then there were another 2 grievance cases and 1 whistleblowing cases, again the same thing happened. This time, I told my manager that he was not right in doing so because what we should be doing is to fix the problem and not sweep it under the carpet. He was upset because also his boss was looking at my manager's business results which has been terrible. So how best for the manager to solve this is to restructure the business and guess what, whoever raised the grievance and whistleblowing cases were made redundant. My manager also told me he did it on purpose. So, when I challenged him, he said I am the next one to go if I don't like. When I challenged him on that, he said he will find ways to do so. Then suddenly, he says that I falsified my own increment letter. No, I did not. As I said, he approved. He signed it. I then signed to acknowledge. I then took a copy and gave it to payroll/finance. My manager now claims I changed the percentage of increase in the letter which is of course not true.
He has got his lawyer to write to me. My manager's boss is not getting involved. The board of directors are not getting involved. I guess they find it expensive to terminate him plus with bad business results, if they terminate my manager, there is a risk that business results may even be worse. So, my manager's boss and the board of directors are very quiet plus I do not have access with them.
My HR department is not really HR. She is more of an admin who only looks after the office premise, does paper document filing and organises job interviews etc. So, she told me she does not want to be involved as she is scared to say anything.
Many of the employees are supportive of me. But when I ask them if they would jointly write to my manager's boss and the board of directors to raise the concerns, they all go quiet. I understand as some of them have told me that they have families and these difficult times they don't want to leave as there are not many jobs out there.

I think that you have handled this badly and didn't read the signs and keep schtum. however - when you say his lawyer has written to you, what has he written to you to say?

Terrified

My manager's lawyer has written to me accusing me on this. He has asked me to attend a disciplinary meeting. I really do not mind attending but as I am still in shock I want to calm myself down before attending. Plus, I know if his lawyer is paid by the company, obviously his lawyer will be in favour of him. I know how lawyer's ask questions to intimidate the other party and as I still under shock and stressed out, I need time to recover before attending this meeting. They have told me if I don't attend by end of next week, then they will just do ahead without me in the meeting and made decisions on their own. But this is pressurising me, isn't it?
Am I being too naive?

Sambucus_Nigra

terrified wrote: »

my manager's lawyer has written to me accusing me on this. He has asked me to attend a disciplinary meeting. I really do not mind attending but as i am still in shock i want to calm myself down before attending. Plus, i know if his lawyer is paid by the company, obviously his lawyer will be in favour of him. I know how lawyer's ask questions to intimidate the other party and as i still under shock and stressed out, i need time to recover before attending this meeting. They have told me if i don't attend by end of next week, then they will just do ahead without me in the meeting and made decisions on their own. But this is pressurising me, isn't it?
Am i being too naive?

What does the letter actually say?

Terrified

Part of the letter states states "your manager suspects you of falisfying your salary increment letter in January 2012 and you are invitied to attend the discplinary meeting at any date but before 3 August 2012........

If you do not attend or do not reply to this letter, then we will need to go through the investigation on our own and in your absence ......."

Sambucus_Nigra

Are you sure this person is a lawyer?
Anyhow - I think you need the assistance of a lawyer yourself...get yourself on here and post your problem.

http://www.redundancyforum.co.uk/

I would recommend though - putting your text into time based bullet points so that SarEl can sift through the issues, and be prepared to type out the full letter that you have received.

Acc72

Terrified wrote: »

I then passed the letter to the payroll/finance team.

When I told my manager, he told me to change the outcome.

When I challenged him, he became angry and so I changed the outcome.


He has got his lawyer to write to me.

My manager's boss is not getting involved. The board of directors are not getting involved.

Take Sambucus Nigra's advice and visit the website mentioned.

However, please "get your story straight" and just concentrate on the actual facts.

Also, post in sentences and paragraphs etc. as otherwise it is very difficult to understand.

Also, consider the following :

-Do you have a copy of the increrment letter signed by your manager ? (if not, it must be in Finance/HR file - make sure that you get a copy today (assuming that it hasn't "gone missing")).

-When your manager told you to change the outcome of your investigation, how did he do this ? (eg. do you have an e-mail or did he tell you verbally ? - if there is no evidence, he will of course deny this and you have no proof).

-As changing the outcome of the investigation is part of your "defence" you will actually shoot yourself in the foot if you do not have any tangible evidence (as you will be effectively admitting to what will be regarded as gross misconduct).

-I assume that when you say "his Lawyer" you actually mean the companies lawyer and not his own personal solicitor ?

-You say that neither his boss or the board of directors want to get involved - how do you know this ? (do they know what has been going on?).


I am trying not to be too critical here, but you have got yourself in a right pickle (and to be honest, you have not helped yourself in many respects).

As I said previously, unless you feel that you will not get another job on similar pay relatively easily, then why not just look for another job (is this really the kind of company you want to work for ?).

In this case and the future, you may have a clear idea of what is right and wrong but in reality you need to do what is right for you.

WashingTime

Evilm wrote: »

Be prepared to defend yourself calmly. If he does try to call the police they will need the evidence and you should be able to prove that it wasn't you/wasn't fraud.

You don't have to prove anything. There's a small principle of English law that says he needs to prove the case against you.

As many people can testify ... it's almost impossible to prove the counter-factual!

Sambucus_Nigra

WashingTime wrote: »

You don't have to prove anything. There's a small principle of English law that says he needs to prove the case against you.

As many people can testify ... it's almost impossible to prove the counter-factual!

That's not the case in employment law. However, I don't think the employer has followed any 'law' here in any case.

shellsuit

You've said many times that your manager is the head of the company (he's right at the top), but in post #51, you talk of your manager's boss?

If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear...your manager sounds like a jumped up bully.

Wellery82

This has confused me!

Terrified - Can you clarify -

• Who originally gave you the letter stating a salary rise, and was this given to you by hand, or by e-mail?
• Why were you given the pay rise and who told you?
• What is your job role?

I don't understand how you could even be accused of falisying this letter, unless you are a PA to the boss and typed them up yourself? Even if you did this however surely it would have been in response to a document confirming who had pay rises?

And how large is the company in terms of employees? To say HR are scared of a manager seems a very very strange statement, especially if there are a board of directors as you say! They would simply escalate if they felt an employee was vindictively trying to remove someone from an organisation

The whole thing doesn't seem right