Hi all, I really need some advise on my current Employment Case and what to do next. Im currently representing myself, I do not belong to a Union or any org that helps me other than ACAS. I cannot afford Legal Rep and I do not qualify for Legal Aid because my partners savings count as household income(savings are for our new mortgage deposit) I will start by telling you the most relevant points from the beginning. Im from a non EU country. I arrived in the UK when I was 16 years old and I have remained here for the last 12 years. I currently live in Scotland. The main concern of my story goes back to January 2012, when I had applied for a permanent residence card which I was entitled to after remaining under the same EEU family member residence card visa for 5 years continuous. At the time I was working full time and my daughter was only 5 years old. I also had already engaged in a long term relationship with my present partner for a few years. When I was asked in 2012 by my employer to show them my passport status (standard checks by employers) I advised them that because my visa came to renewal point (expiry date 16 January 2012) and I was entitled to Permanent Residence under the EU regulations, I had sent my documents to the Home Office along with my application. My employer was happy with my answer and never asked my again for the time being. In June 2012 I received a letter from Home Office saying that I had not right to stay in the UK and I had to make travel arrangements back to Chile with any dependents(my daughter was born in the UK and held Spanish residence and attends full time education, I could not possibly remove her from her environment when she had no connections to my home country!) Their grounds of refusal were astounding! Apparently I had to show HO a divorce certificate (I never married) from my ex EEU family member but I had showed HO that I was the main carer of a EEU child and my previous relationship broke down due to Violence (evidence provided) I then made then a brand new application, this time with a help of a Immigration solicitor who assured us that my application was going to be successful, so we submitted it again. I was always open and honest to my employer as for what had been happening with my application at this stage even when they didn't ask for any further documentation, I continued working no issues. In October 2012 I was moved to a new team within my department and so I had new colleagues to work with. Comments and bullying about my race/ where I Was from" was from started to become common practice for my new colleagues. They mocked my accent almost everyday and picked on certain words I said and they would repeat it among themselves and laugh, I was certainly not laughing and it made me feel ashamed of myself. Even one of the more senior colleagues made comments about my country and its people, asking me if "we" lived in tents and If I had ever seen clean water before I arrived in the UK, it made me feel very inferior and insulted by those comments and the constant mockery. I raised a grievance with my new manager. He read my email I sent him about the situation and he acknowledged it, he then replied stating that there was a "dignity at work" policy but he didn't say or do anything else. The mockery continued and I did confront my colleagues about it, but it just kept happening on a weekly basis. Then, in December 2012 I found out I was pregnant! delightful news for our family (we wanted a baby so bad after I had a miscarriage in May that year) In December same year, I had two one to one meetings with my manager to address the racially fueled comments and also to discuss a few absences from work due to pregnancy related illnesses I was suffering. I had to tell my manager I was pregnant. My manager did nothing about the racial discrimination comments but instead decided to victimized me and mock me as well in one of those meetings, he said "but you speak funny"- He then asked me who was making such comments and laughing at me, but he then did nothing and excused himself saying that " he obviously was never there present in the team to witness" During the course of December I fell ill with my pregnancy, I had some bleeding at 9 and then 12 weeks and I was panicking. I then developed Sciatica and PGP which left me grounded in bed for several days before I could start Physiotherapy, I could hardly move or walk without the help of crutches. I was signed off by doctor for a couple of weeks(xmas celebrations/new year) When physio started I commenced a new year at work, January 2013, but I was still taking time off for my physio appointments and my weekly check ups because of my bleeding., I could see that my manager wasn't happy and he started asking me to work time off for appointments back. Then, at the beginning of Feb 2013 I received the outcome of my latest Home Office application. Home Office refused to grant me Permanent Residence(grounds were again divorce certificate) and were asking for my removal from the UK. Our world came crashing down, especially when learning that the Home Office grounds of refusal were not valid and they had clearly made a mistake in law. We went ahead and appealed their decision, the appeal was accepted by Tier1 tribunal and my case was going to be allocated for a hearing date. I, then innocently shared the devastating news with some of my colleagues and my manager heard. Immediately he asked me to provide the latest letter from HO to me because he wanted to look at it. I did. He then took a copy of it and disappeared with it in hands. Later that day he called into a meeting room to say I should provide any valid paper work to prove the right of work in the UK. I obviously couldn't provide any evidence because the HO retained all my docs and they wouldn't give me any evidence with regards to my work status.( My manager was pushing me to ask HO to provide a direct email that very same day to HR confirming my work eligibility, yeah right! ) I phoned my Immigration solicitor asking for advise. He then wrote to my work and advised them I had all rights to continue working and that my appeal was going to be held shortly. My employer then said this info was only my solicitors opinion and they then continued demanding from me evidence of my right to work. My manager, continued calling me into meetings for 3 days straight about 4 times a day!, threatening me with suspension/ dismissal. I was told not to tell any of my colleagues at work of this meetings even though I was throgh out suffering with stress/crying fits. I cried my eyes out, I was so scared of losing my job and I was confused, I didn't know what else to do, I was no part of an union, my only support was my family. I tried contacting HR (who were never present in these meetings) in what to do and what were my rights, but they never came back to me. I felt harassed during my meeting with my manager and very scared, worried and no one to turn to.(within my colleagues) It was all too much for me. My partner had to take me to my GP who refereed me to counselling (10 weeks waiting list) by my doctor was very concerned about my deteriorating health that she had to prescribe me with Diazepam!. I was only to take it when in deep stress. Before I knew it I was suspended for the whole of March 2013 with full pay. Through out the suspension we had weekly meetings with employer, this meetings were all very one sided : do you have documentation to prove your right to work? I didnt know who else to ask for help, I then went to my local MP to see if she could contact HO directly and confirm my right of work, My MP was then told by the HO that employers have a service available to them called the Employee checking service" I forwarded a letter from my MP confirming of this service to my employer, this letter stated that its an employer responsibility to establish the employee residential status, not the employee. In April 11th 2013 I was dismissed. Grounds of dismissal: "you were unable to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK" "under the Immigration, Nationality and Asylum act 2006 you must prove your right to work" I appealed the dismissal on grounds that I had an immigration appeal ongoing and further evidence would be available to me, but at the same time I made a full application to the employment tribunals for unfair dismissal, race discrimination and preg/sex discrimination in July 2013 before my 3 months were up. When I had my appeal meetings with ex employer, there was a lot of finger pointing and "its your burden to prove you are not illegal immigrant" etc etc.Before the very first meeting of my appeal against dismissal, I wrote to my ex employer and I pointed out that I was going to make an unfair dismissal claim to the ET including race and sex/preg discrimination. The head of department then called me into a hearing and asked me full details of my allegations in order for her to carry out a full investigation. At the time I had copies of the very email of my grievance to my manager. Ms head of department took copies of this and asked If i possessed any further evidence of my allegations. I responded no.( I do but I will tell more about it later) I was sick, it all got too much, I collapsed at home with panick attacks and uncontrollable crying fits. In August 2013 I had our baby, he was healthy and great! I lost my SMP thought, and future earnings, and to date my employment tribunal is still ongoing. My Immigration status has now been sorted and I have been granted residence based on my daughter entitlement to be in the UK (which I am also going to appeal) but because I am her main carer I need to work to provide for her. I am claiming Unfair dismissal, race discrimination, preg/sex discrimination, the respondent denies this allegations on the ET3 form and also claims that unfair dismissal was to prevent future fines under I, N and Asylum act 2006. They also say that my race, sex/preg are time barred and therefore put of time, also say that I never raised grievances with my employer My case was accepted. We already had a Prem hearing at the Tribunals and this went ok. We are now waiting on a final hearing date. Im going to cut to the chase here. I want to ask about settling. We have a mediator from Acas, who has been very helpful and neutral, but also the respondent keeps messing around with in respect with lies and none clear information in order to have a fair settlement. When I didn't have my Immigration status through yet and my ex employer wanted to settle (they wanted me to withdraw all claims) they started their offer with £500, currently they offered a "without prejudice" £5000 (on a commercial basis), but that is because they now saw my immigration status has now been confirmed that I always had the right to work. I submitted this infor to the Judge who then accepted this as evidence.(he had previously sisted the case awaiting on my immigration status) My grounds are here: 1) I was unfairly dismissed because, when you have an open and ongoing application/ appeal with the HO your rights continue as they were attached to your previous visa, ie right to work and create business, Also unfair because, its not for me to prove the dismissal was unfair, it is for my ex employer to rove that that they fairly dismiss me. They could of Investigated my immigration status a bit more and instead decided to assume I had no right to reside in the UK 2) I raised a grievance into the race discrimination which my employer decided to ignore at any attempt I made to raise it, therefor the grievance was never carried out and still open and ongoing, therefore it is not time barred- taking the circumstances of how things happened (to support this, I had made a detailed explanation of my claims to add to my ET1 and already submitted it to ET. (oh gosh! my fingers hurt) Based on all the info above (please ask questions if you need) how much should I be settling for? what calculations should I be using to see how much my case is worth?? what are my success rates? How an I go Pro-bono ( you need to understand we have a family and losing my job has been a financial nightmare!-not to mention the mentally/physically draining battle) I am on anti -depressants. Please help, any advise is appreciated, and please dont be judgmental towards me , I have never cheated, my visas have always been up to date and I have always worked and paid my NI and taxes into the UK.- I think I have suffered enough already. Before hand, Thank you very much. Ps: I do have further evidence but this is retained by my partner who works for my ex employer, he currently has all my conversations with him via an IM system at work, in where I told him about the racial comments while they were happening! ie all mocking, name calling, names of the people involved etec. Can I use this evidence if the Respondent fails to provide me with it (they have dragged their feet with their internal investigation outcome, I have now asked for an order which the judge says he will consider if the Respondent fails to update me on the outcome of the Investigation)?

Hello, I'm looking for a bit of advice, hopefully someone can help? I applied for an internal vacancy back in March, following my companies procedure set out on the vacancy page. I followed this up several times and had responses citing that applications were being processed etc. Fast forward to last week where I am told by a colleague at my branch that this role had been filled, and this without me being offered an interview. The manager of the department I applied to has emailed me saying he never had info on my interest, despite me emailing him 2 days before the job was offered to someone else and the several emails to HR regarding the vacancy. HR called me 1/10/12 saying that they had spoken to this manager and he has told them he phoned me in April and that I withdrew my application (an application he knew nothing about?!), this is a complete lie as I was still emailing in May! The role the manager is relating to is a completely different role that I turned down in October 2010 as it was based roughly an hour away from my home and I had no means of getting there and back. I strongly believe that the manager is aware he has done wrong by me and is trying to shift the ignorance onto me by suggesting I turned the job down?. I have several emails regarding turning the role down from October 2010 which were between myself and the same manager so how could he mistake this for a vacancy that was advertised 5/6 months later! I have emailed the manager AND the HR contact I had to send my CV to asking if they can offer an explanation as to why my application has been overlooked/ignored but I have not received anything back, other than the HR phone call. I have ALL emails relating to the most recent role I applied for, both sent and received, and to back up the truth of events for the role I showed and interest in back in October 2010. I also believe that the person who has been given the role I applied for is a former colleague of the manager of the department, although without access to our companies employee history I have no proof, only what I have been told. The only problem I have is that I really don't know where I stand and I'm not sure what route to take next, do I follow my companies grievance procedure?, knowing that the way they work and try and sweep things under the carpet nothing will come of it? I've looked at several websites but things are not any clearer, can anyone help? Thanks for reading

Hi everyone, I could really do with some advice please? I have been reported to HR by my manager for using my corporate amex card for personal expenses. This does not mean that the company paid for my personal expenses - I used the card and then paid the bills myself. I know that there are many other people in the company who do this including many senior managers and my boss's boss. There is a line in the expenses policy about not using the card for personal expenses but then there is also a checkbox in the system that says 'do not reimburse - personal expense'. I admit that I let it get out of hand and had quite a lot of purchases go through the card each month (this has been happening over the course of about nine months). There is currently money outstanding on the card - I have paid off a chunk and let my HRBP know that the rest will be paid off the moment I get my next pay. When I first put a personal expense on the card I asked the person who is now my manager if that was something that was done at this company and she said everyone does it and that her boss put everything on hers. It was ok as long as you paid it off... I reminded her of this when she told me that she had reported me to HR but she said 'I wasn't condoning it'. However I have no doubt that she'll deny this completely if asked by HR. She's known the whole time she has been my manager that I had personal expenses on there but she waited until a few days before I left to raise it with HR. I wonder if she has found that it could save her paying my redundancy out of my budget. She put me at risk of redundancy the moment she arrived and I am currently on garden leave for three months for my notice period. This manager and I were once friends before she became my manager and I'm sure there is a personal element to this because from what I have heard no-one else has been disciplined for this. I could really use some help as I am scared witless. I can't afford to lose my redundancy pay, or I won't be able to pay for the degree course I have started or my bills and I can't even start looking for a new job as I don't know whether I will be on garden leave for three months or if I will have a gross misconduct dismissal on my record! I've been asked to come in and meet our head of financial audit on monday as part of the investigation and I'm not sure how to prepare for this meeting or what to say. Can anyone give me some advice on how to defend myself? I've been stupid but I feel my boss is exploiting that to save herself my redundancy money for her budget. Thank you!