This is a short version some of the relevant facts of the story
There was an argument in the workshop. Whilst I had been on holiday the mot and tax had expired on the company van. I don’t normally do the deliveries for the business, but on this occasion, I had decided to drive the van myself to take any risk of prosecution on myself. I had weighed up the consequences and decided that the maximum penalty for this offence would not exceed £120 in fines and it was worth the risk to have deliveries done on time as promised, to preserve the good name of the business. I checked the insurance position and was assured that the insurance was valid. The Cllaimant refused to accompany me and became abusive. Deliveries were his normal Monday duty and I told him I would not be offering any alternative jobs that day, so he should go home. I ordered him to go home for the day as the workshop would be empty, since the other two occupants (I + another) would be out delivering all day. He refused to go home saying that he had plenty of work to do. I told him that it was my decision what work needed to be done and that he should go home for the day. He became more abusive and threatening. He waved his finger in my face, threatening to report me to the police and also threatening to take me to court. I warned him not to threaten me and told him to leave before he was the situation got out of hand. He ignored me and went to get a cup of coffee which he had made. I went to take the coffee from him and he jerked it away, resulting in the cup being knocked out of his hand and spilling over me and the floor. At this point I grabbed him by the arm and escorted him off the premises. On the way out he was still being abusive and threatening saying that he would be going to the police and that he would see me in court. When we reached the door, I said “go away, you’re fired” as a retort to his threats.
This employee has a history of violent and abusive behaviour in the workshop, not only towards me, but also towards other employees.. He has been involved in arguments with myself and other employees and was sent home and told “You’re fired,” after a previous argument in which he threatened me. On that occasion he came back the next day, after being advised by CAB to come back and apologise for threatening me.. He was allowed to continue working as normal. There had been several arguments in the past, sometimes resulting in him walking out of his own accord, but he always came back and was allowed to resume as normal. On this occasion it was different because he had been offered another job immediately next door and he was encouraged by CAB to seek substantial damages for unfair dismissal by the CAB. On this occasion there was surprise when he did not return the next day, so to ensure that there was no doubt, I wrote him a letter warning him that he should return to work or contact me before the end of the week. I had heard that he was looking for another job and I wanted to make it clear that his job was still available and there was no compulsion to leave. This, he understood clearly.
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The claimant left my workshop and on the same day went to report me to the police for assault and for driving a vehicle which had no tax or mot. He then went to the CAB and repeated the lies about the manner in which he was removed from the workshop. He distorted the facts with regard to the way he was treated and also with regard to the condition of the vehicle. The police report concludes “The IP had refused to leave the premises so was physically removed using minimal reasonable force. The IP has become upset by this and made a complaint of assault. It is my belief that the offender used an appropriate method of removing the IP from the premises under the circumstanced given and therefore this should not be recorded as a crime.” The Cab was less rigorous in their assessment of the situation and swallowed his lies hook, line and sinker. On the basis of his lies they advised him to sent a “letter of grievance” which he claimed in court he had sent, but never in fact, sent it.I twice wrote to the CAB to enquire who posted the letter and when, but received no reply. It is clear that he never posted the letter, but lied about it in court, claiming first that he had sent it by recorded delivery, then when he was told he should have a receipt for this, he changed his story and said that he had sent it by ordinary post, and then changed it again and said that his mother posted it. In any case this letter was incorrectly addressed. Since he walked past my door every day, it would have been easier for him to post it through my letterbox, than to walk to the post office to buy a stamp, and then post it with an incomplete address. At the same time he concealed from the CAB the fact that he was in receipt of a letter from me advising him that he should return to work. Without knowing about this letter, the CAB advised him erroneously and also addressed correspondence to the wrong name and address. Mr West allowed this to go on, knowing that he was in possession of a letter from me with my correct name and address on it. As a result of this perversion of the evidence, he allowed a claim to go forward to the EAT without my knowledge. The EAT in complete ignorance of the facts, judged the case on the basis of the lies which had been presented by the CAB without any input from me, and awarded him a default judgement of £17000 + for unfair dismissal and not following disciplinary procedure, but when judged on the facts, it is quite clear that there was no disciplinary procedure, because there was no dismissal.. Had I intended to dismiss him permanently, I would have taken legal advice and I would have written to him to confirm his dismissal. Instead I wrote to him to make it clear that his job was available, and he has demonstrated in court, repeatedly that he fully understood that his job was available. A default judgement was subsequently made against me and the court did not even send me a copy of it, so I was not even aware that a judgement was made against me until several months later when the CAB sent a letter to my home address several months later demanding payment. When I appealed against this decision, the CAB opposed my appeal even though they had been accomplices in perverting the evidence presented against me. that got my name and address wrong., and submitted evidence that had been perverted. Without any input from me at the hearing, the CAB has successfully portrayed me as an unsavoury character and the claimant as an innocent victim, and this image has stuck. All subsequent hearings have been strongly influenced by these perverted facts.and by the unfair judgement against me. In any case there appears to be a bias against employers in Employment Courts and this was fully exploited and expressed by the Employment judges.
The judgement was made on the basis of a gross distortion of the facts and a perversion of the evidence.
- He told the CAB that the van was not insured – it was
- He suggested that the van had faulty brakes. The van was in full working order. It had failed the mot because of a broken rear view mirror which had been repaired
- He said that I had attacked him violently; that I “had him up against the wall” There was no violent behaviour whatsoever, I had used minimum force to remove him from the workshop after he had repeatedly refused to leave.
- He claimed to have sent a “letter of grievance” but, in fact he never sent it.
- He received a letter of retraction from me on company headed paper with my name and address clearly printed., but he concealed this from the CAB and, failed to submit it in evidence to the court If he had made this letter known to the CAB, they would have taken different action. They would have at least, been able to address correspondence to me correctly..The first correspondence I had was when I received a letter at my home address from the CAB demanding that I pay the sum which had been awarded against me I asked for a review of the judgement on the basis that the only document which had been tposted to me, i.e. the notice of proceedings had been incorrectly named and addressed and I had never received it. Prior to the hearing I had received a phone call from ACAS asking if I would like any help with a claim that had been lodged against me for unfair dismissal by Mr West. I told the lady that I had not received any correspondence whatsoever and therefore had no knowledge of any details of the claim. I queried the address which was incorrect and told her the proper address.
I asked her to ensure that the documents would be sent to the correct address. She insisted that it was not her responsibility but mine and I disagreed. End of conversation, I received no correspondence.
I applied for a review of the judgement, and the judge upheld his judgement on the basis that the documents had been posted to me, notwithstanding that they had had the incorrect name and address. The judge also interpreted the conversion with ACAS as proof that I had been aware of court proceedings even though I had twice asserted that I had been aware of a claim but not proceedings. In my mind there is a huge difference between a claim and proceedings but in Judge Toomer’s mind this amounted to the same thing. I had clearly told the ACAS employee that I had no knowledge of a claim and I had demonstrated that the claim had been incorrectly named and addressed. There was no reason to believe that this was anything but the truth, yet the judge chose to interpret this that I was being dishonest and bloody-minded and refused my appeal.
The emotional distress caused to me and my family by this perverse judgement was enormous and has since been compounded. The family has been split up as a result of tensions arising from this case and we have undergone months of counselling to repair some of the damage done to our relationships. In addition, I made the decision to drive my vehicle, even though the tax and mot had expired as an act of desperation. My business was struggling for survival and customers had been threatening to cancel their orders because deliveries had not been made as promised. Our sales had been declining and at that time the business was losing money. I was doing everything I could to ensure the survival of the business. We have since sold our family home to release money to keep the business afloat. And have paid more than £25000 into the business since then.
I was obliged to spend a further £17000 in legal costs to appeal to the EAT in London who upheld my appeal on the grounds that the judgement had been perverse. The judge ruled that it was no-one’s fault that I had not received the court documents to enable me to defend myself. At present my legal costs have exceeded £25000 and I am facing a further payout of £30000 for the claim.
How could it be no-one’s fault? I had told ACAS clearly that I had not received the documents. They must have relayed this information. More importantly, the claimant was in possession of a letter of retraction from me with my correct name and address clearly printed. This letter was not declared at the hearing even though it formed a substantial part of the evidence. A clear perversion of justice. In addition they claimed to have posted a “letter of Grievance” which was never posted. How could it be no-one’s fault? As e result of this perverse judgements all subsequent judgements have been corrupted by the original perversion of the facts.
There was a new hearing and this had now been delayed by over a year, and as a result of his perversion of the evidence, the claimant was able to increase his claim for loss of earnings over a longer period, and this included the possibility of an larger uplift.
At the hearing the judge took no account of the fact that the evidence had been perverted, and in spite of the fact that he was shown to have lied repeatedly in court, the Judge ruled that I had been solely responsible for the outcome and that the claimant bore no responsibility whatsoever for it. On this basis she decided to award more than the claimant had asked for. She increased the award to £29000+. She ruled that my letter of retraction could not be interpreted as meaning that he could return to work even though the claimant himself indicated clearly that he understood the intention of the letter. When asked in court, why he had not returned to work he replied that he had already arranged to go to the horses on that day. The judge suggested, helpfully to him that, as a dyslexic, he could not be expected to understand the letter. He replied “my mother read the letter to me, but it was too late he was just trying to wriggle out of it” Showing that he clearly understood the intention of my letter, but his intention was vindictive.The judge stated that it would be perverse to suggest this could be a retraction. The word perverse in this context would be normally an odd choice of words unless you assume that the judge was seeking to preclude any appeal on the grounds that this was a perverse judgement. The judge complimented him on finding another job so quickly and making an effort to mitigate his loss. He took the job without even enquiring how much he would be paid. His new boss had approached me and said “Mr West has told me that he has had an argument with you and wants to leave. He has applied for a job with me and I don’t want to cause any problems” He never mentioned the word dismissed or fired. I replied that if he wanted to leave I would not stand in his way.This was at the business next door to me. I later approached the claimant to resolve our differences face to face, and to wish him well in his new job and he refused to speak to me. I had no idea that he was concocting a dishonest claim against mefor unfair dismissal.
I left the court feeling that I had been stitched up by the judge. It would have made no difference what defence I had put up. The court was determined to show that they had been right all along and I needed to be shown that I should not have messed with them in the first place. I could not accept this judgement, based as it was on lies and perversion of justice, and I resolved to make another appeal, because I knew 100% in my heart that the claimant had no doubt whatsoever that his job was available to him and that he had brought this claim as a vindictive retaliation as had been concluded by the police investigation.
In the appeal court the judge refuseded three of the grounds for appeal, but in each case he preceded his judgement with the words “another court may have reached a different conclusion and I, myself may have reached a different conclusion, but they did not exceed their remit.” In other words, he himself thought the ruling was unfair, but he had no power to overule it.
This confirmed in my mind that the judgement had been grossly unfair.
On the matter of the statement by the claimant that “he was just trying to wriggle out of it” the judge asked where this was stated. We replied that we had requested the records of the hearing to assist our appeal but the judge had refused to release them. He then allowed a limited appeal on the basis of this letter and ordered that the records be released to us, by the Bristol judge. On receiving the documentation it was immediately apparent that these were not the records, but an inaccurate transcript written by the judge. Significantly, it omitted any mention of the reply “he was just trying to wriggle out of it” Instead it had substituted words that had never been spoken. E.g.
“Why not return as last time?
The transcript states that he replied “Last time he did not assault me.I had a bruise on my arm” In fact these words were never spoken by him. His actual reply indicated that he did not return because he had arranged to go to the horses.
It goes on
Q. letter21 – shows not sacked
A. this time he was violent
Again the record is corrupt.. In fact the judge asked him if he had been able to read and understand the letter and he replied “My mother read it to me, but it was too late, he was just trying to wriggle out of it”
It appears that the judge has deliberately altered the record in order to strengthen her case and to make it seem that he had not returned because I had been violent. This was not the case, nor did the claimant suggest that it was the case. This was an idea only in the judge’s mind.and was inserted to influence an appeal judge..A proper record of the proceedings will bear this out. I heard the truw record, , my solicitor heard it and my barrister heard it.
The central argument of our appeal was that he had said “he was just trying to wriggle out of it” but the court records had been perverted and this evidence was disallowed.
As soon I received the transcript, I alerted my solicitor to the inaccuracies and demanded that the case be postponed until we receive an accurate record of the hearing. My counsel advised that it might count against me if I questioned the integrity of the judge and I was advised by him to take no action. I had now reached a stage where it was no longer possible to speak the truth in court. I was forced to conduct my appeal against a court record which had been perverted by the judge, but was not allowed to make this clear.
