Hi All, I was dismissed on grounds of gross misconduct on 30th November 2012. There were two reasons for this dismissal outlined in my dismissal letter:- 1, That i instructed, either directly or by "inference or omission", someone who reports to me to to falsify company documentation. 2, That I failed to correctly hand over information relevant to the issue above and in doing so failed to follow the company Quality and Health & Safety Procedures. The incident was investigated independently (internal, different department) where the two issues were highlighted and disciplinary action recommended. There were a number of mitigating factors highlighted and as such the requirement for disciplinary action was to be based on a balance of probabilities, i.e. was this intentional fraud and an attempt to cover it up. There are a number of issues surrounding the investigation and disciplinary process that did not follow the company procedures: - 1, The Company Disciplinary Procedure states that any disciplinary action will be proceeded by a full and prompt investigation. The incident occurred on the night shift of 30th of September yet, although it was immediately apparent, was not investigated until 24th October. When the investigation took place it failed to interview all the people that could have clarified the first point. 2, The charge of breaching Quality and H&S procedure could be levelled at nearly any mistake but if this was sufficiently serious there are reporting procedures for reporting both Quality and H&S failures. No such reports were raised as, at the time, nobody saw this as that significant. At my first disciplinary hearing on 13th Nov it was not made clear to me exactly at what level I was being disciplined i.e. there was not a statement saying "you did X and Y and this constitutes gross misconduct". This is important as this hearing went on for over three hours and was more of a fishing/muck spreading exercise. In the last 15 minutes I was shown a set of notes claiming to be notes of two conversations me and my manager had on the 5th & 15th of October (also failure of procedure not to disclose before hand). These notes contradicted my recollection of events and, on the surface, appeared to cast doubt on my truthfulness. This hearing was suspended, as was I, until the meeting was reconvened on 27th November. The second hearing was relatively brief and added little to the matter. I was informed in writing that I was to be summarily dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct effective immediately, I appealed this decision on the 21st of December and I was informed in writing on the 7th of Jan 2013 that the appeal was not upheld. In their response the company agreed that there was no evidence that I had intentionally instructed the falsification of documentation. They withdrew the notes of 5th and 15 of October as I had shown them to be either poor reflections or in fact fictions. They withdrew claims that testimony supported their case when it did no such thing. Instead they have liberally sprinkled the word Neglect around and are stating now that the reasons for my dismissal are unchanged. They are basically saying that through neglect I caused the falsification of company documents by inference or omission. There are many mitigating factors surrounding the initial mistakes which I have not had an opportunity to defend. On paper this incident looks serious to those not experienced in my field but in reality there were no consequences and could have been no consequences because of these errors. There is a general level of shock and outrage amongst my former colleagues that this has happened. I could go on all day, but thanks for reading and ANY advice is greatly appreciated. Damion Edit, sorry I have the full account in a word document which is currently at ten pages and getting longer, I'm trying to condense this down a little for the ET1 and clarify reasons that will appeal to a tribunal.

Forum virgin so please be gentle with me. I am endeavouring to help-out an old friend who was left with well about £35,000 of debt when her marriage failed seven years ago. When her (ex)husband's business failed she naively took out credit cards and a loan to try to help him. Needless to say, he is long gone but the debts still remain. Fortunately, I am in a position to help her with an interest free 'loan' to settle some of her debt but certainly not to the tune of £30,000+. She had progressively cleared some of the debt under a DMP (set up by the CAB in 2006) and was left with four outstanding accounts, all still being paid under her DMP. One was with Cabot and the other three with NatWest: I successfully negotiated with Cabot and agreed a F&F of £3,350 on a debt of £11,000 - so that was cleared. This left the three Natwest ones. NatWest loan - balance £13,470 - current monthly payment of £10 NatWest credit card - balance £5,120 - current monthly payment of £22 Tesco credit card - balance £1,390 - crrent monthly payment of £8 (Worth mentioning, she also has a NatWest mortgage that is not in arrears). I made F&F offers on these. Both credit card offers were refused. The loan offer was passed to their DCA, Moorcroft, by NatWest. Moorcroft quoted an outstanding figure of £18,729 - almost £4,700 more than she realised she owed. It appears that, in addition to the loan, there are two further debts (£2,748.98 and £1,908.71) both relating to overdrafts. Moorcroft put her account on hold on 27th July 2012 while they contacted to NatWest. NatWest have now passed the account to Fredricksons who have just made contact. They haver sent letters relating to the loan and both overdrafts. I have sent them an athorisation letter so they will now have me to deal with. Although her DMP did include these debts, NatWest had only sent her a regular statement for the loan account, hence her confusion. The £10 a month she has paid has been credited to this loan account meaning that both overdrafts have not reduced at all. So here is my first qestion - as it appears to be over 6 years since any credit was made to these two debts, are they now Statute Barred, even though her DMP included them? I (she) has sent CCA request letters regarding the loan and the credit cards. Care has been taken not to mention the two overdrafts in any communication. File requests have been sent to Call Credit, Experian and Equifax. I also need some guidance on the situation with her credit cards but in the interest of not making this post any longer, I will post seperately on these. Thanks for your perseverance in getting this far.

How we decide whether to tell a business to pay compensation to a consumer for “loss of use”. In this context, the term “loss of use” refers to circumstances where the consumer has been unable to use their motor vehicle because their insurer: incorrectly refused to settle a claim; “avoided” the policy (treated it as though it never existed) in error; or took too long to settle a claim (for example, the insurer took too long to carry out repairs agreed with the consumer). http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/loss-of-use-mv.html