My concern is, that waiting another week for an area rep, is another week without me earning money. I've got a family to think about now.

To be honest with you, I have had hardly any contact with the union rep, and not received any support from him. I was told that the regional rep could attend the appeal with me, but not until late next week, I cannot afford to wait that long. At the moment I don't know where my next wage is coming from, which is certainly not an ideal situation with a baby on the way. I feel like I have been treated like a criminal, when I know I have done nothing wrong. Throughout the whole process it has felt like I was guilty until proven innocent, and received no support whatsoever from management at the company.

That's what I intend to do, I know in my heart of hearts that I done all the relevant safety checks to ensure that the property in question was left in a safe manner. I have had no other disciplinary issues or run ins with any management whilst working for the company. My main issue is that I know there are engineers still working there, who without question left major gas leaks at customers properties, yet they only receive a final warning? There doesn't seem to be any consistency with their disciplinary outcomes. Me and my partner are due to have our first child in 2 weeks time, and I wouldn't risk my job and baby's livelihood by not carrying out the correct safety checks. I also work on a call out rota, which is worth an extra £500 a week to me, money that I shouldn't have missed out on. I can't explain how frustrated I an with the whole thing, if I had done wrong then I would have gladly held my hands up and walked away, but I know I have done all that I should have.

I was dismissed on Thursday 21st January, and yes, I am member of the gmb union. Like I said previously, I think the company followed the actual correct procedure, and gave me opportunity to be accompanied by the union rep. Man other thing that I am not happy about is that at the appeal hearing will be the manager to decided to dismiss me for gross misconduct, I thought an appeal should be heard by someone who is impartial? I think all the other questions have been answered.

I have been employed by the company since November 2012. I am pretty sure that they followed the correct procedures in going about the disciplinary, I just cannot see how they have come to the desicion that it was classed as gross misconduct. I have had no other disciplinary problems whilst working for the company, no verbal warnings, nothing. I just cannot get my head around how they have come to their desicion, any why they would take the word of a third party engineer, over mine. Especially when there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, no readings, no details of where the actual supposed leak was, no paperwork left on site to back the findings up. And as previously mentioned, there are two engineers still working for the company who left open ended gas pipes, which is far worse than what I am being accused of, yet they've still got their jobs??

I am a gas engineer by trade, I have recently been dismissed from work for an apparent act of gross misconduct by leaving a supposed gas leak. The long and short of it is, that a National Grid engineer attended a property after I had carried out some gas work (8 hours later). I have been in touch with National Grid and the engineer's van was on site for a total of 6 minutes (18:01-18:07). In these 6 minutes the engineer had supposedly got his tools out, traced and repaired the gas leak, carried out all safety checks, and left the relevant paperwork?? For those of you not in the know, a gas tightness test (to check for gas leaks) alone takes 4 minutes, that leaves 2 minutes for the engineer to complete all the rest of the work/checks. I know for sure that I carried out all the relevant safety checks, and there was no leak present when I left the property. The work I carried out was in a small pantry just off the kitchen, with a closing door. My guess is that the customer had entered that pantry, there was still a lingering smell of gas from the earlier work carried out, so panicked and contacted National Grid. There is no physical evidence that there was even a gas leak on site, and no paperwork left by the National Grid engineer confirming this, just an email saying that a leak was repaired. As far as I am concerned the National Grid engineer could have told the customer he had repaired a leak, just to put her mind at ease. I was sacked for gross misconduct on the grounds of probability, saying that I "probably" didn't carry out the correct safety checks, when I know for sure that I did. There is not one bit of evidence, apart from that email saying that a leak had been repaired, it is just my word against theirs. I have my first child on the way in 2 weeks, and would not risk my job for the sake of carrying out a 30 second check with gas leak detector spray. I also do not think that the dismissal was fair, in relation to previous cases of gas leaks with other employees. There are two engineers still working for the company who in the past year have left open ended gas pipes (major leaks) yet they have been given final warnings. I was under the impression that all disciplinaries should be dealt with in an equal manner? Yet I have been dismissed on the grounds of "probability", without any physical evidence. I have an appeal hearing on Friday, and help/information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

We moved into a rental property in November 2011, 5 data later, a lady turned up on our doorstep and demanded money for a debt with British Gas. We explained that we were the new tenants and that the debt must have been owed by the previous occupants. Despite this, letters and threats of court action kept turning up through the post. We got in touch with the managing director, who put our complaint to the customer service director to deal with. This dragged on for months, we even forwarded copies of our tenancy agreement to prove the date we moved in. In June this year, British Gas finally agreed we didn't owe this debt (god knows how it took them so long to come to this conclusion), and it was agreed that the account would be settled. On Monday morning 23/09/13, I checked my credit file, only to find this debt showing up on there, along with apparent missed payments!!!! Which has now downgraded my credit score to poor. The house we are currently living in has just sold, and we are looking to get a mortgage, but because of these missed payment records on my credit file, mortgage companies won't touch us. My girlfriend is currently 5 months pregnant with our first child, and this stress and inconvenience is the last thing we need. I have put another complaint in, and told them I want this resolving asap, otherwise I will consider legal action against them. Can anyone offer any help?

I had crutches for a couple of weeks, and the ankle had elastic tubing applied to it. I know that soft tissue injuries can cause long term damage, but for a trained professional to miss not one, but two fractures is inexcusable. I don't think there was any displacement of the bones, but considering it was back in 2007 it is probably hard to tell. No ligaments were torn as far as I know, the hospital put it down to strained ligaments.

I injured my ankle back in 2007, it was originally diagnosed as a sprained ankle and damaged ligaments. I would like to point out that x-rays were taken before this diagnosis. I have been under the specialist at my local hospital, and i has come to light over the past couple of years that I had actually fractured my ankle in two places. I have undergone physio through the nhs, and also through nuffield health, but still have constant problems with my ankle. I cannot put weight on the ankle some mornings, and cannot walk any decent distances without experiencing pain. I don't understand how trained professionals can miss bone fractures? I have also had ct and mri scans on the ankle, but still nothing done by the nhs. Has anyone else had any experiences like this? I have put a complaint in with my local hospital, I am just worried what the future holds in regards to arthritis etc.

Thanks for the advice, I also forgot to include the fact that they upped our direct debit without prior notice. When we rang them and questioned this, they said that they had sent us a letter to us, we never received this letter. But low and behold, after having a conversation with them, a letter arrived a couple of days later informing us of the direct debit change. They just think they can do what they want!!!!!

Me and my girlfriend have been tennants in our house since October 2011, soon after we moved in we had a debt collector from British Gas knock on our door chasing money from the previous occupants. We informed them that we had only just moved in, and then proceeded to set up an account with them. On our first bill we were told there was a debt against the property, and that we'd have to pay it otherwise our gas and electric would be disconnected, so we had incorporated this debt into our monthly payments. We chased this up, and eventually got the debt removed from our account. We were still receiving bills addressed to the previous occupant, as well as our own bills, so once again I rang British Gas to inform them that the old tennants name needed removing from the property as they no longer lived here. I later received an email saying that my account, and the account for the previous occupant had been deleted (they said they had to remove my account in order to remove the previous tennants account??), and that I would have to set up a new account with them. Today I have come home from work to two bills from British Gas, one addressed to myself, and one addressed to "The occupant". The one addressed to the occupant is demanding over £1200, and the one addressed to myself is in credit by £1000 and details all the payments that we have made over the past year. I really do not understand what is going on, we have spend numerous amounts of money on the phone to British Gas, and they can never get anything right, I really am sick to the back teeth of them. Does anyone know where I stand in regards to this letter demanding £1200? and the letter that claims I am £1000 in credit? Any help would be really appreciated.

I have recently been dismissed from my old employer for apparent "gross misconduct", I have been in touch with my trade union and ACAS, and they both agree that I have a strong case for an appeal against my dismissal. I have received a date for the appeal hearing, but the person who took the desicion to dismiss me is going to be the "presenting manager". I don't see how the appeal will be impartial, if the person who decided my actions were so bad to be dismissed for gross misconduct will be involved in the process. Am I within my rights to request that the said person is not involved in the appeal?

I was recently dismissed for "gross misconduct" by my ex-employer, without any notice. I have since saught advice from the union, and also from acas, and both seem to think that i've got a very good case in my appeal. I don't want my old job back, as i'd never consider working for the company again, all I want to do is get the dismissal off my record (if possible). The job was a reasonably well paid one, and to find another job in the same industry i'm looking at about a £7k a year loss, would I be able to claim any money back to take into account this loss? I was only at the company for 11 months, so I don't think I can claim for unfair dismissal, I just want to get "gross misconduct" off my record.

Yes, I have a copy of one of the emails that were sent on my own email account, as soon as they suspended me, they also suspended my work email, so I was unable to get any access to it. No notes were taken during the disciplinary, that is why we requested for it to be adjourned, so I could be represented by a union rep who could make some notes for himself, they just disregarded our request. Do I only have a certain amout of time to submit an ET1? I have sent an email to my former employer, making them aware of my intentions to appeal against the desicion. I have also heard rumours from several employees that the company is really struggling, and may not last 6 more months. They have got rid of a lot of engineers over the past few weeks, to save paying redundancy money, I wonder whether this could be the reason why?? Seems a bit suspect to me.

I had not met this union rep before. I only found out he would be representing me, on the day of the disciplinary. He only found out the night before the hearing, as the company dragged him in the office to work on "light duties".