My Appeal Application
My appeal to the Employment Appeals Tribunal was heard on Thursday 29th July. Although written judgments are usually provided within a relatively short time of the hearing, as I have found is usual with my case things did not happen in the normal way. In fact two months after the hearing my legal team had still not received the written judgement and my appeal application to the Court of Appeal had to be submitted without the benefit of us having seen the written judgement, even though the rules governing an appeal state that the time limit for appeals is supposed to be fourteen days following the receipt of the written judgement. I did write a letter of complaint to the Customer Services Officer at the Tribunal to complain, but despite the fact the Tribunal's own rules say that a full reply will be sent to all complaint letters within fifteen working days I have still not received a reply to my letter.
The full judgement can be read by clicking here. I am pleased that Mr Justice Mitting found that, "It was throughout clear that no criticism whatever could be made or was made of the Appellant's technical competence nor of his integrity". However, However, although the Employment Appeals Tribunal accepted that I had been subjected to an unfair disciplinary process and that I had consequently been unfairly dismissed and found that that the Employment Tribunal had not categorised the reason for my dismissal. Surprisingly Mr Justice Mitting did not feel that this was fatal to the Employment Tribunal's reasoning or to the safety of its decision. Amazingly in my view Mr Justice Mitting formed the view that there was no other element of unfairness in the procedure apart from the lack of impartiality of the Chairman. From my layman's perspective I would have thought the impartiality of the person who chaired my disciplinary and made the decision to dismiss me would have been pretty fundamental but apparantly not. The ETA judgement goes on to suggest that a fair hearing would have also produced my dismissal because I had accused Mr Hamilton of personal dishonesty and Mr Watts of preparing false notes of the meeting held on the 8th August and that consequently it was my actions that made it impossible for us to work together again. The ETA therefore came to the conclusion that notwithstanding the lack of the impartiality of the Chairman my conduct at the hearing resulted in the conclusion that I would have invevitably have been fairly dismissed.
In response to this judgement I have lodged an appeal application with the Court of Appeal and am currently talking to my legal team about how we can take this forward. As a comment on the suggestion that I was not entitled to accuse Mr Hamilton and Mr Watts of personal dishonesty I would make the following comments. While they denied the accusations in the Employment Tribunal, they have never had the courage to challenge the information on this website which publicaly and clearly lays out the accusations I have made against them and provides the written evidence which I believe shows that my critisisms are wholly justified. If they truley felt that these accusations were untrue they have had ample time in which to intiate defamation proceedings against me and they have chosen not to do so. I think the fact that they have chosen not to, speaks volumes. In addition the NHS commissioned an internal report by David Sissling to look into the allegations that I have made. The publication date of the report was Tuesday 19th October 2004 and the report states,
"I consider Mr Perkin's allegations proven, in respect of the inappropriate alteration of cancelled operations data for the three weeks commencing 24 September 2001. I am also of the opinion that the Trust was wrong in offering a variety of excuses for the error occurring".
"In conclusion, I am of the opinion that, in respect of the inappropriate charging to Trust expenditure of the Savoy Hotel bill, by Mr Hamilton, the allegation is proven".
If the NHS itself feels that my allegations are proven, particularly with regard to Mr Hamilton, you will understand my dissapointment that the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeals Tribunal feels that I should have been dismissed for daring to "blow the whistle" and accuse these individuals of lying. They did lie and I am glad to have stood up and told the truth even if it lost me my job. I am just sorry that the treatment I received from the "Establishment" will be such a discouragement to others to stand up and tell the truth about the NHS in the future.
On Monday 8th March my legal team filed with the Employment Appeals Tribunal my grounds for appeal against the decision made by the Employment Tribunal that had been chaired by John Warren the South London Employment Tribunal Regional Chairman. The grounds of appeal highlight the fact that the Employment Tribunal have sanctioned my dismissal on the grounds of my personality (not a valid reason to lose your job) and that no allegations of specific misconduct, personal, professional or financial have ever been made against me and that the Trust could identify no event or activity by which the Trust suffered some detriment as a result of any action on my part.
The appeal further identifies that Ms McLoughlin the Trust Chairman gave false answers when giving her evidence under oath and that the real date on which the decision to dismiss was taken by Ms McLoughlin and Ian Hamilton the Chief Executive was the 29th July 2002, just two working days after I made the protected disclosure regarding the misreporting of cancelled operations and four working days after they had become aware that I had made a protected disclosure about the Trust's financial position.
Perhaps most worryingly of all however and the issue which I think has ramifications for all employees who make application to the Employment Tribunal Service is that evidence that I submitted to the Tribunal was not properly transposed from the statements and documents into the judgment. This issued is referred to within the appeal document and I have highlighted in red the passage where the appeal refers to it and gives a single example. There are other examples and these will be raised during the actual appeal. My Member of Parliament Edward Davey has seen the areas in which there has not been accurate transposition of documents and statements and has written to Gerry Sutcliffe MP the Minister for responsibility for Employment Tribunals asking for a meeting to discuss this issue and you can read his letter by clicking here. Edward Davey also sent a letter to Judge Meeran to complain about fact that the Employment Tribunal took seven and a half months to issue my judgment. Much to his surprise when Judge Meeran responded to that letter he said that the length of the judgment indicated the care with which the Tribunal had approached their task. I am very grateful to Edward Davey for sending Judge Meeran a robust response to his letter, which highlights the fact that the incorrect transposition of documents into the judgment hardly indicates that a lot of care was taken. Judge Meeran has now promised to investigate this issue and to respond in due course.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal has now given me leave to appeal and I am expecting to have my case heard in about six months time. Judge Meeran promised in March to investigate this issue and to respond in due course, as I have found is typical of my experience with the Employment Tribunal it is now July and Judge Meeran has not replied.