Stitched up and now dismissed

PRINCE55

I work in the licensed premises sector and have been with the same company for 8 years working my way up. The business i manage received and audit 2 weeks ago, to which i was fully confident that there wasnt going to be any issues.
Oh how wrong i was.... to cut an extremely long story short in order to give you all the facts, it came to light that there was a deficit of £1955. We managed to work out the money had been taken and then covered up on two separate occasions. Both occasions i can prove i wasnt there or in the same county and had left my assistant in charge. The audit also showed in black and white that my assistant had declared the incorrect figures but when we came to find certain spreadsheets for those two certain weeks, they are nowhere to be found on the computer or in the recycle bin folder. So i dont have the evidence to prove that up till the days i was off for that week there were no cash issues.
On the day of the audit i was 99% sure that it was a clerical error and after some digging about we would find it, that in the interim i went and pawned all my jewellery in order to replace the £1955.
The day after i was suspended and the investigatory process was started.

Last Wednesday i attended my disciplinary meeting where i was dismissed, not for theft as they said they know i never took the money, but for not following company cash handling procedures which constitutes gross misconduct. During the hearing mine along with my assistants and team leaders statements were read out. My team leaders statement matched mine however my assistants shocked the life out of me with the allegations he made and with how bitter he sounded towards me. I had absolutely no idea he was capable of this whatsoever.

So now i have lost my job i love and have worked so hard for, my home as i live above the business i manage and my chances of getting the same position within a different company.

I am appealing this decision though but before i post the letter wanted to know if anyone had any advice or pointers for me. Any constructive comments would be greatly appreciated.

elsien

You say the statements were read out at the disciplinary.
Was that the first time you had seen them, as you should have had all the evidence against you beforehand to enable you to prepare a proper defence.
Did you receive a copy of the disciplinary proocedure before the hearing, as if they've not followed it then you can use that in your appeal. Were you told about your right of accompaniment and did you use it?
Seems odd they'd take one persons word against another with no supporting evidence, if there's no paperwork to back up your assistants claims.

Southend1

I guess the elephant in the room that you need to address in your appeal is why you didn't pick up the discrepancy prior to the audit.

kazwookie

On the day of the audit i was 99% sure that it was a clerical error and after some digging about we would find it, that in the interim i went and pawned all my jewellery in order to replace the £1955.

Why on earth did you go and do this?

To me it seems a bit like an admission of guilt.

I really hope it works out for you.

bluenoseam

I'll agree with a previous poster here, even with the best cover up job in the world I'd expect any business with cash handling measures in place to have a regular check of cash. That would have flagged up the "missing" money significantly sooner than any audit would have been able to catch it.

Another question would be was this a "regular" audit or was it one which was a request from you? If you'd followed some regular checking procedures & noticed the money missing you would then have been in a position to request an audit with suspicions as well as would have been able to conduct an investigation into the "missing" paperwork.

I believe you had nothing to do with why the money was missing, what I do however believe is that you have been negligent with regards to cash security & general awareness. At the very least it should have been the case that prior to going away and on your return a safe check was done in order to verify that everything was 100% correct on leaving & 100% correct on your return.

I hope your appeal goes well and all, but from someone who's been in a not too dissimilar situation I'm not confident - you've admitted serious shortcomings and ultimately that's going to be difficult to counter.