Hospital Car Parking fines Help Help!!

HO87

bazster wrote: »

I find this very hard to believe. What exactly is a "caution" from an NHS trust? What does it consist of, and what legal significance does it have?

Sounds like nonsense to me.

Why nonsense?

PACE directs that anyone charged with a duty to investigate (and this need not be a statutory duty) must abide by the Codes of Practice. That means that the investigator at the Trust would have to use the standard PACE caution and follow the requirements of PACE throughout. Fraud departments within NHS Trusts are commonplace. You'd be surprised by the number of dentists who claim for fillings they haven't done and doctors claiming for out-of-hours work they've allegedly done whilst actually sunning themselves on the beach in the Maldives, for example. Of course these cases rarely make the press. It wouldn't do the NHS too much good for the public to discover that those who stand to gain most from the NHS (next to suppliers, of course), in some instances, can't keep their fingers out of the cookie jar.

Being obliged to adhere to PACE would also mean that an investigator should not use oppressive conduct and threatening a member of staff that if they do not submit to an interview with him will mean that he will get them arrested sounds awfully like an inducement/oppressive conduct. I'd like this chap on my staff. His feet wouldn't touch.

mikey72

HO87 wrote: »

.........Being obliged to adhere to PACE would also mean that an investigator should not use oppressive conduct and threatening a member of staff that if they do not submit to an interview with him will mean that he will get them arrested sounds awfully like an inducement/oppressive conduct. I'd like this chap on my staff. His feet wouldn't touch.

It could just have been a statement of fact.
How would you have phrased the choice given?

HO87

mikey72 wrote: »

It could just have been a statement of fact.

Indeed it may well have been. Whether it is a statement of fact or otherwise does not absolve the investigator of his responsibilities - if he wishes to preserve the PACE integrity of the interview - to avoid oppressive conduct.

mikey72 wrote: »

How would you have phrased the choice given?

I do not give people any warning of my intention to interview them. They are generally called to an office by their line manager and told there and then that I will record an interview with them about x,y or z. If they refuse - which is their right - I am in a position to record that refusal. I do not invite. The person concerned is told that I would like to interview them then and there. Their only choice is to stay or leave. Inevitably, if they decline the offer of the interview they are suspended at that point. My last interviewee was a senior company director and he received the same offer as the admin clerk I'd interviewed just before him. Interestingly the clerk kept his job but the director didn't. Nor his share options and he cried a deal harder than the clerk did.

If one of my staff came to me and suggested that he was planning to give a prospective interviewee warning of his intention, by way of a "heads up" or otherwise he'd have to do some fairly fancy footwork to persuade me that what he was proposing to do was unlikely to prejudice the investigation and was extremely unlikely to avoid exposing him and me to accusations of oppressive conduct.

Many people seem to think that interviews are intended to obtain confessions. They aren't although that may be the end result. Interviews are about eliciting accounts so that they may be compared with known facts. If during the course of that process people come to the realisation that their account is worthless or has more holes than a Swiss cheese and decide to make a clean breast of it then that is their choice. It should not be the objective.

We should also bear in mind that the investigation is being conducted by an investigator working, ultimately, for the same employer as the OP. A primary duty is therefore in respect of the employment law. I'd be extremely interested to know how the OP's employer might like explain to an employment tribunal how it was that some days, perhaps a week or more before interviewing the employee he had sufficient facts to hand to warrant their being spoken to (he must have done because that is what his request of the OP says) but did not act "reasonably" (which in this context means "as soon as possible") and interview them?

Furthermore, one could imagine that the OP may be suspended at the conclusion of the interview because of the "seriousness" of the allegations being made. I'd also be interested to understand how the employer could explain to a tribunal that the allegations were so serious that they warranted suspension when only a short time before (immediately prior to the interview) the OP had been allowed to remain at work for some considerable time beyond the employer having sufficient facts to interview them?

Do you really want to go any further down this route, mikey?

mikey72

HO87 wrote: »

Indeed it may well have been. Whether it is a statement of fact or otherwise does not absolve the investigator of his responsibilities - if he wishes to preserve the PACE integrity of the interview - to avoid oppressive conduct.

I do not give people any warning of my intention to interview them. They are generally called to an office by their line manager and told there and then that I will record an interview with them about x,y or z. If they refuse - which is their right - I am in a position to record that refusal. I do not invite. The person concerned is told that I would like to interview them then and there. Their only choice is to stay or leave. Inevitably, if they decline the offer of the interview they are suspended at that point. My last interviewee was a senior company director and he received the same offer as the admin clerk I'd interviewed just before him. Interestingly the clerk kept his job but the director didn't. Nor his share options and he cried a deal harder than the clerk did.

If one of my staff came to me and suggested that he was planning to give a prospective interviewee warning of his intention, by way of a "heads up" or otherwise he'd have to do some fairly fancy footwork to persuade me that what he was proposing to do was unlikely to prejudice the investigation and was extremely unlikely to avoid exposing him and me to accusations of oppressive conduct.

Many people seem to think that interviews are intended to obtain confessions. They aren't although that may be the end result. Interviews are about eliciting accounts so that they may be compared with known facts. If during the course of that process people come to the realisation that their account is worthless or has more holes than a Swiss cheese and decide to make a clean breast of it then that is their choice. It should not be the objective.

We should also bear in mind that the investigation is being conducted by an investigator working, ultimately, for the same employer as the OP. A primary duty is therefore in respect of the employment law. I'd be extremely interested to know how the OP's employer might like explain to an employment tribunal how it was that some days, perhaps a week or more before interviewing the employee he had sufficient facts to hand to warrant their being spoken to (he must have done because that is what his request of the OP says) but did not act "reasonably" (which in this context means "as soon as possible") and interview them?

Furthermore, one could imagine that the OP may be suspended at the conclusion of the interview because of the "seriousness" of the allegations being made. I'd also be interested to understand how the employer could explain to a tribunal that the allegations were so serious that they warranted suspension when only a short time before (immediately prior to the interview) the OP had been allowed to remain at work for some considerable time beyond the employer having sufficient facts to interview them?

Do you really want to go any further down this route, mikey?

May as well, as I'd be interested how you can demand an interview is carried out immediately, with no witness present, and no warning, or face suspension, and you not regard that as oppressive.

HO87

mikey72 wrote: »

May as well, as I'd be interested how you can demand an interview is carried out immediately, with no witness present, and no warning, or face suspension, and you not regard that as oppressive.

Could you point out to me where I suggested that there would be no witness present?
Could you point out where I suggest that someone has to submit to an immediate interview or face suspension?

taffy056

The point about it all is that the OP should go with a witness, a union rep at the very least, or a solicitor if one can afford or legal cover under a house insurance will allow. If it was me I would take a recording of it as well, most smartphones allow that.

Still fail to see where a break of the rules in a civil matter could lead to criminal fraud. I would get the parking document they rely on to determine their rules, the ones I've seen are full of penalties and fines, which this is not! The remedy to the situation is for them to issue a small claim for it.

mikey72

HO87 wrote: »

Could you point out to me where I suggested that there would be no witness present?
Could you point out where I suggest that someone has to submit to an immediate interview or face suspension?

HO87 wrote: »

.................I do not give people any warning of my intention to interview them. They are generally called to an office by their line manager and told there and then that I will record an interview with them about x,y or z. If they refuse - which is their right - I am in a position to record that refusal. I do not invite. The person concerned is told that I would like to interview them then and there. Their only choice is to stay or leave. Inevitably, if they decline the offer of the interview they are suspended at that point............

Not a lot of wriggle room there really.

HO87

Where does this suggest that they are told that they must submit to the interview or be suspended? They aren't.

They are told that they are to be interviewed and they can chose to go ahead or decline but they are not told that they will be suspended if they don't go ahead with the interview. There is no shilly-shallying. They are offered the choice. If they agree the interview goes ahead. If they decline they are, generally, suspended. To say "if you do not agree to being interviewed you will be suspended", or words to that effect would be oppressive.

You have not addressed the other point I raised. Could you show me where it is that I suggested that no witness would be present?

mikey72

HO87 wrote: »

Where does this suggest that they are told that they must submit to the interview or be suspended? They aren't.

They are told that they are to be interviewed and they can chose to go ahead or decline but they are not told that they will be suspended if they don't go ahead with the interview. There is no shilly-shallying. They are offered the choice. If they agree the interview goes ahead. If they decline they are, generally, suspended. To say "if you do not agree to being interviewed you will be suspended", or words to that effect would be oppressive.

You have not addressed the other point I raised. Could you show me where it is that I suggested that no witness would be present?

So, immediate interview or suspension? That'll give them a lot of time to sort out a witness.

Again, not much wriggle room.

HO87

mikey72 wrote: »

So, immediate interview or suspension? That'll give them a lot of time to sort out a witness.

Again, not much wriggle room.

And your comment about there being not much wriggle room is based on what? My having not described the process in detail?

I am still waiting for your explanation of what it was that enabled you to draw the conclusion that no witness would be present.