Prep for Disciplinary hearing

sangie595

tommytynan123 wrote: »

The letter that arrived today went through each piece of evidence and commented whether it was valid or not etc. (In summary - main bits here below)
1. Because an employee saw a photo that she says had a baby in it then what he produced must have been fabricated and therefore a breach of trust. They have no photo. On the day in question the corridor, where this happened, had some piles of box's and flyers piled on the floor which is not the norm. His photo shows them visible through the bars of the trolley. CCTV shows the same boxes etc in the same position and layout.
2. The witness claims she picked up the baby and that son put it down (I assume she means after she had passed the baby to him?) CCTV shows that to be a complete lie.
3. The witness claims that messages from her on the day to son were not sent so must be made-up. In effect he managed to create some message pages on a PC and print off. He now has absolute evidence that they were genuine. I won't bore you with the details.
(Final statement from employer)
''In your defence you described your behaviour as boisterous. I do not see how making a phallic gesture to a child and taking a picture is boisterous. It is not conduct becoming an employee or manager at Lidl. Had the parent witnessed your actions, irrelevent of your alleged content of the picture, this had the potential to bring the company into disrepute.
Therefore it is decided that your conduct was unsatisfactory and that you are dismissed for gross misconduct.''

Then the appeal bits which he is following to appeal etc. If the appeal fails then its a tribunal with full legal help which I can fund.
Onwards we go.

Boisterous? Really? Which part of grovel and apologise was that?

I'm sorry, but I'm inclined to agree now - your son is not telling you the truth. Or you aren't telling us the whole truth, although I'm more inclined towards the former than the latter. And you need to think carefully before committing a potentially large amount of money to something that simply doesn't make any sense. Because I'm going to be blunt - my IT skills are pretty basic too. And I could forge a screenshot and more with relative ease. And just because he can't do it doesn't mean he doesn't know someone who can - it is not being an average eight year old these days. We have gone from never touched the child and didn't photograph the child to an obscene gesture involving a baby! With a witness who has absolutely no reason to lie. I think you need a serious chat with your son - there is a lot more to this story than you have been told.

tommytynan123

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

I believe that it is far more likely that the OP is not getting anything like an accurate picture of events from his son. This story has not made sense from the outset. It's taken us this long to find out about the "phallic gesture" when that was clearly the central point of the disciplinary charge in the first place.

The first use of that phrase was in the letter he received today informing him of the dismissal. It has never been used before by employer or witnesses or him. Now, don't laugh, but I'm 62 and I didn't realise that 'the finger' was a phallic gesture. Neither did my Mrs. Perhaps we are just old!!
So we'll appeal and move on from there. I'll complete the story when I can.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

tommytynan123 wrote: »

The first use of that phrase was in the letter he received today informing him of the dismissal. It has never been used before by employer or witnesses or him. Now, don't laugh, but I'm 62 and I didn't realise that 'the finger' was a phallic gesture. Neither did my Mrs. Perhaps we are just old!!
So we'll appeal and move on from there. I'll complete the story when I can.

I absolutely don't believe that. I believe that he has told you that, but I don't believe it is true.

How old is your son? I am presuming over 21. I am not sure you are helping him at all in this matter. I would suggest you back off.

sangie595

tommytynan123 wrote: »

The first use of that phrase was in the letter he received today informing him of the dismissal. It has never been used before by employer or witnesses or him. Now, don't laugh, but I'm 62 and I didn't realise that 'the finger' was a phallic gesture. Neither did my Mrs. Perhaps we are just old!!
So we'll appeal and move on from there. I'll complete the story when I can.

I'll be 60 in a couple of weeks, and I know exactly what it meant.

But really, there is more to this story than you are being told. Is he really claiming that the letter referred to an incident that wasn't even mentioned in the disciplinary? That isn't at all likely. To be honest, the version that you are telling, and which I am sure you believe, bears little relationship to the employers version of events. And I can see absolutely no reason for the employer to say that CCTV shows nothing happening, but we are going to believe a witness despite that. Even if they were out to get him with whatever fabricated story they could find (and there is no reason to suggest the employer is doing that) they could fabricate a story that they could credibly believe without flying in the face of actual evidence. The reality is that an employer, in disciplinary terms, can come to the decision that they believe one person over another one without any supporting evidence provided that they can show that it was reasonable to do so. So why on earth would the decide to believe one person over another whilst holding evidence that the person was lying? If this was a stitch up, that CCTV footage would have been recycled long ago!

It is always difficult to be objective when ones "own" are involved. But any objective analysis of this, based solely on your partisan view, is full of inexplicable holes in his version of events and irrational claims. Now if we can see that, based on your version which reflects only the best side of the story from your son, don't you wonder what we might see if someone we're putting the employers side? I'm not suggesting that this particular employer is a angel. They most definitely aren't. They'd be very high on my list of ****bag employers for their anti union stance. So I'd be delighted for them to be dragged through the mud. But the fact is that they are also not idiots, and they simply do not dismiss people when the evidence, hard factual evidence, says that they are telling the truth. Now I've been in enough of these situations to know that, more often than not, nobody is really telling the whole truth. Even when they believe they are. But the divergence between versions here is too big. And rational deduction has to suggest that it is the story your son is telling you that varies from the truth most.

nicechap

tommytynan123 wrote: »

Thanks so far. He was leaving work in a hurry to get to a cricket match and having clocked out he couldn't get to the locker room because the passageway was blocked with a trolley. The trolley had a baby in and the mother had been allowed to use the staff toilets. So the trolley with baby was unattended.

For a joke he put his finger up by the trolley and took a photo and added ''I'm on the way if I can get out of this prison'' and used snapchat to send to team captain. By complete chance another employee had turned up, saw what he did, and told his worst enemy what she had seen. This worst enemy reported the incident which was also recorded on CCTV. (I've slapped him for being stupid) His hearing is based on ''disrepute'' ''breaking DPA'' and ''inappropriate behaviour''

Being snapchat it is not social media and photos self-destruct after 10 seconds? Employers do not have a copy and their only proof is the witness statements and CCTV. Son does have a copy as his friend has some app that saves them. It has never appeared on social media. In the photo you cannot see the child at all or see the company logo - in fact it took me a while to figure out it was a trolley as it was taken so close.

The employee who witnessed has now said, on a PM on Facebook that she was pressurised by the other employee to tell all. He has a screenshot. It appears now that half the store know he has been suspended and why - a few are leaping to his defence with comments. He has not asked anyone directly. In fact on Day 1 back from leave couple of days back he was met by a store assistant who said ''haven't you been sacked yet?'' which was the first indication something was not correct. (good confidentiality!!)

He also has a recorded conversation (really not sure how) of the worst enemy saying she will get him out the store eventually.
Bearing in mind this happened in the staff area not in view of customers it seems very OTT. Employers do not know he has all this evidence.

Final questions please. 1. Employer has said they will be producing the CCTV so can he insist on seeing it prior to the hearing. 2. They have said that I cannot accompany him (I'm ex HR) but he has got a colleague lined up and I can sit outside and he can pop out to consult with me if needed. Is that correct procedure now? (I know it changed)
Kids!!!!!

tommytynan123 wrote: »

The letter that arrived today went through each piece of evidence and commented whether it was valid or not etc. (In summary - main bits here below)
1. Because an employee saw a photo that she says had a baby in it then what he produced must have been fabricated and therefore a breach of trust. They have no photo. On the day in question the corridor, where this happened, had some piles of box's and flyers piled on the floor which is not the norm. His photo shows them visible through the bars of the trolley. CCTV shows the same boxes etc in the same position and layout.
2. The witness claims she picked up the baby and that son put it down (I assume she means after she had passed the baby to him?) CCTV shows that to be a complete lie.
3. The witness claims that messages from her on the day to son were not sent so must be made-up. In effect he managed to create some message pages on a PC and print off. He now has absolute evidence that they were genuine. I won't bore you with the details.
(Final statement from employer)
''In your defence you described your behaviour as boisterous. I do not see how making a phallic gesture to a child and taking a picture is boisterous. It is not conduct becoming an employee or manager at XXXXXX. Had the parent witnessed your actions, irrelevent of your alleged content of the picture, this had the potential to bring the company into disrepute.
Therefore it is decided that your conduct was unsatisfactory and that you are dismissed for gross misconduct.''

Then the appeal bits which he is following to appeal etc. If the appeal fails then its a tribunal with full legal help which I can fund.
Onwards we go.

Presumably the CCTV confirms he put his finger up whilst close to a trolley that had a baby in and it also shows him taking a picture on his phone of the event and the witness being present too.

Whether the baby was in the photo or not, or whether the photo was photoshopped, or shared wider is all pretty irrelevant.

tommytynan123

Thanks all!! Onwards we go to the appeal. Out of interest I'll let you know how it goes.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

If you insist on appealing, please try and bear in mind that if he goes in there accusing everyone of lying and conspiring against him, all he is going to do is make things far worse.

Try and listen.

He hasn't told you the truth, so you don't have the full facts.

To compound that, you are incoherent and incapable of presenting a case.

I don't care if you make things worse for your son, so go ahead and do so. But you will.

sangie595

I think this subject is exhausted. If the OP was ever listening, they certainly aren't now.

Malthusian

tommytynan123 wrote: »

Now, don't laugh, but I'm 62 and I didn't realise that 'the finger' was a phallic gesture. Neither did my Mrs. Perhaps we are just old!!

Please don't tell us you thought it was something to do with Agincourt.

If you had fewer posts I'd think this was a windup, but perhaps it's just that neither you nor your son care much for objective reality.

ReadingTim

It doesn't really matter what it exactly means; regardless it is neither polite nor professional, and for what is tantamount to swearing at a customer, it's not surprising he's been given his marching orders.