Prep for Disciplinary hearing

tommytynan123

Geoff1963 wrote: »

So this is some kind of supermarket.

I'm guessing the company is arguing that "prison" could be taken as referring to : the company in general, rather than the blocked passageway in particular.
Taking photographs of people without their consent may be bad, but a picture of a trolley probably isn't ; maybe there a "no photos on site" rule.

Did your son have any conversation with the mother ? Is she making a complaint ? Does she know what is happening ? Maybe she would feel bad about causing him inconvenience.

Understand the prison comment - but the picture was so close to the trolley that at first I thought it was ''jail bars'' You cannot see any part of the child or any part of the company logo. I've now read through the statements made by 3 staff during son's holiday and they are very contradictory. In fact 2 were phone interviews! The statements indicate that the employee who was present at the time was first to tell other employees about it. Confidentiality - really! The company are using their Data Protection Policy as the basis of part of the charge but having read through the policy it is only valid if indeed there was a photo of the baby. There is not!
Mother is not aware.
I'm going to jot down some notes for him tomorrow but the whole thing is way OTT.
Thanks for your advice.

bertiewhite

Undervalued wrote: »

Which in this context is more or less the same thing!

If they say he can't then he can't, certainly without obtaining specific permission. If the employer chooses not to let him then they may be at more risk of a claim for unfair dismissal succeeding if it gets that far (assuming he is eligible to bring one).

As Sangie has said if he approaches them without the employer's specific permission, having been give a general instruction not to do so, then that would be misconduct in itself.

I get the point about the employer not wishing the accused to speak to anybody but I'm asking "how the hell can he obtain a statement without speaking to anybody?" Mind thought?

sangie595

bertiewhite wrote: »

I get the point about the employer not wishing the accused to speak to anybody but I'm asking "how the hell can he obtain a statement without speaking to anybody?" Mind thought?

I have already explained that. Read the posts.

Undervalued

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!!!!!

His right to be accompanied is limited to a work colleague or an accredit trades union rep. So, the fact that they are even allowing you to be outside the room is a favour they are not obliged to grant.

Frankly, he has behaved stupidly and it could certainly be consider to have brought the firm into disrepute. His best bet would be to apologise profusely, promise that it won't happen again and hope for the best.

Forget what people's motives may be and who said what to whom, ultimately he behaved very inappropriately and needs to learn from his mistake. Hopefully they will give him another chance.

You didn't say how long he has been employed? If less than two years then this is all moot anyway.

sangie595

Yep, ok this falls into "mea culpa" territory. He was an idiot. My advice is to not try to defend it. Grovel instead!

The allegation, he's guilty of. Nothing changes that. So now it's a case of balancing risk. How much of their time is he going to waste trying to defend a position when he is, in fact, guilty of doing exactly what they said? Is he going to lie to their faces and say it isn't true when he knows it is - which, saying they have no real evidence, suggests he might try to do? People are notoriously bad liars - if you are ex HR then you know that. How many times did someone lie to your face? Did it make you inclined to be lenient? And does he really want to tell the employer that there is a "blood feud" going on here as his defence, which invites them to put a end to any future trouble between him and his worst enemy by sacking him now while they can?!!!

If he is lucky, he's getting a warning - a final one possibly. But his "defence" can certainly make things worse. He needs to go with being stupid, not thinking, it was supposed to be a light hearted joke, he'll never ever do anything stupid again, he's so sorry, please don't sack him.

Undervalued

tommytynan123 wrote: »

Understand the prison comment - but the picture was so close to the trolley that at first I thought it was ''jail bars'' You cannot see any part of the child or any part of the company logo. I've now read through the statements made by 3 staff during son's holiday and they are very contradictory. In fact 2 were phone interviews! The statements indicate that the employee who was present at the time was first to tell other employees about it. Confidentiality - really! The company are using their Data Protection Policy as the basis of part of the charge but having read through the policy it is only valid if indeed there was a photo of the baby. There is not!
Mother is not aware.
I'm going to jot down some notes for him tomorrow but the whole thing is way OTT.
Thanks for your advice.

No it is not.

You seem to be concentrating on points which are largely or entirely irrelevant. This is not a court of law. At the end of the day he behaved in a way that many firms would rightly consider inappropriate. To dismiss fairly in law the firm simply needs a reasonable belief that the misconduct took place. That is all, fine points of "law" and less than ideal evidence gathering will not make the dismissal unfair.

Undervalued

tommytynan123 wrote: »

Final questions please. 1. Employer has said they will be producing the CCTV so can he insist on seeing it prior to the hearing.

He can't "insist" on anything. He can ask and generally they would be well advised to allow it. If they don't and if they were to dismiss him and he ended up taking them to an employment tribunal then their refusal might slightly strengthen his case. It is certainly not automatic and, as I have said, you need to get off these fine points of procedure and concentre on helping him apologise and offer mitigation.

polgara

As ex HR (did you deal with ER cases?) you should remember the number of times you've come out of hearings saying 'if they had just apologised, the outcome would have been different'.

I have personally been on many hearings advising the chair when the employee has been dismissed when they could have had a lesser sanction if they had only accepted responsibility for their actions rather than try and blame others. It doesn't matter that another person has got it in for your son; if he hadn't been foolish then they wouldn't have any ammunition.

Tell him to go in, apologise and say that he has reflected on his actions and how he would act in the future.

Masomnia

I wouldn't get hung up on the personal vendetta thing either. At the end of the day, if this person does have it in for him and that is the reason they reported him, then that doesn't change what happened. It's a red herring, and as much as I can see why your son would feel aggrieved about the way this has been reported it doesn't alter what happened, and if his mitigation in the hearing was that they have it in for him and that is why it reported, then really his defence amounts only to 'If it wasn't reported you never would have found out'.

The company still think it is worth having the hearing based on the cctv and statements they have, and I don't see how the witness statements your son wants to produce will change anything. If anything it just looks like blame shifting.

I agree with the above comments that he should apologise and say his behaviour was inappropriate, he has learned from it, and it won't happen again.

If it were me though I think I would say that what I did was shared between friends, not publicly (not like facebook), there was nothing identifying about the company, and there was no reputational damage to the company.

Didn't take a photograph of the child and wouldn't dream of doing so.

I think he needs to accept that it was inappropriate, and could have had massive implications and that he's lucky it didn't.

bertiewhite

sangie595 wrote: »

I have already explained that. Read the posts.

I did. So, how does he

sangie595 wrote: »

interview named colleagues for the purposes of gathering statements in his defence.

Without the power of speech? I must be reading the original post wrong