Employment Tribunal
My Employment Tribunal case concluded on the 18th June. My lawyers were told on the 22nd October 2003 that a decision would be issued on the 30th October. Just after noon on that day the Employment Tribunal Service my lawyers were contacted and told that the decision would not be issued on that day after all and we were subsequently told the judgement would now be issued on the Monday 1st December. On the morning of the 28th November my lawyers were again contacted, to be told that the judgement would not be issued on the 1st December after all and that no further date could be given other than that the judgement would be issued as soon as possible.
Following a complaint from my MP Edward Davey, the President of the Employment Tribunal Service Justice Meeran has sent a written reply stating that the judgement which extends to approximately one hundred pages in length will now be issued before the 31st January 2004. The BBC You & Yours programme did a short update on my case and if you would like to listen to it Click Here.
After a seven and a half month wait, I received my Employment Tribunal Judgement on the 28th January 2004, (the same day as the Hutton Inquiry reported), which stated that it was the unanimous decision of the Tribunal that I had been unfairly dismissed . The Tribunal found that Miss McLoughlin the former chair of the Trust should not have chaired my internal NHS disciplinary hearing at which I was dismissed. The Tribunal further found, that despite what Miss McLoughlin had said during the hearing under oath, that she had not had discussions with any other organisations about dismissing me from my post and that she had approached the hearing with an open mind. She had in fact clearly discussed the matter with the Chief Executive Ian Hamilton, who was of course the investigating officer in my case, before even the commencement of his investigation let alone the start of the disciplinary. The Tribunal said that they did not consider that Miss McLoughlin was impartial and that the Trust's attempts to square things by appointing Miss Mark to sit with Miss McLoughlin did not do so. They also said that the NHS Code of Conduct which had been published on the 9th October envisaged external persons to deal with disciplinary matters with senior staff and that as the Trust was part of the NHS it would have been easy for them to arrange for someone independent from the NHS to have heard the hearing, but this was not done. The Tribunal also found that the fact that I was given no right of appeal was unfair and unjust and that an appeal could have been made to an outside individual.
In addition the Tribunal stated that in regard to the cancelled operations issue I had made a protected disclosure. The body of their judgement also records that I expressed the view to Simon Sharp of Pricewaterhousecoopers, the external auditor in July 2002, that the in future the Trust may well not be able to meet it its statutory financial duties, in my view a second protected disclosure. In addition it was also stated in the judgement that there was no criticism of my professional and technical ability as a Financial Accountant and that over the years I had built around me a loyal and committed team.
Although I am obviously very pleased by these findings, I shall not as things stand be receiving any compensation or be able to return to my post as Finance Director from bringing my case to the Tribunal, as despite all of the above, the Tribunal choose to believe the evidence of my former colleagues that I had been well warned over a substantial period over concerns about my attitude and manner of interacting with colleagues outside of my department. Despite the evidence that I gave which said that I had not been warned about these issues, the Tribunal choose to believe the evidence given my former board colleagues, Suzie Bailey, and Melvyn Esterman, the former finance director of Merton, Sutton & Wandsworth Health Authority rather than the evidence given my myself and my witnesses and consequently they ruled that in their view had a fair disciplinary been independently conducted I would still have been dismissed for this reason.
In the light of this I am currently talking to my legal advisors about lodging an appeal against what I consider to be the unfair aspects of the judgement.
I am indebted to those
individuals who have and who continue to support me including my Trade Union the
as I continue my quest to
obtain justice in this matter.
The Guardian Newspaper have covered the Tribunal Result under the headline "Whistleblower wins tribunal case". Click Here to read their report