Hi, I was wondering if anyone can help regarding whistleblowing and subsequent victimisation? I am asking on behalf of someone else. Due to the sensitive nature of the situation, I need to be a little vague, I apologise. The person complained at work about a situation that is definitely unethical and probably fraudulent. It involves vulnerable people and a high profile national organisation's name. The person was as a result bullied quite badly and the CEO made barely veiled threats about their job. About 2 weeks after the complaint, a whistleblowing policy retroactively appeared saying workers have a right to whistleblow and they support that, despite it not being the case when the person complained to management. The bullying involved being excluded from decisions/meetings relating to the persons job, being shouted at several times publically for no reasonable reason (causing the person to break down in tears) and various other nasty behaviours including being excluded from talking to anyone as the issue was being concealed and they specified that they were worried the person would talk about it. The person has now, 4-6 weeks on, been handed a reduced hours letter. This will put the person in a financial position of possibly having to reject the new hours, dismissal and possible claim. So to my question: does this sound like a constructive process to you? I feel the timing of the reduced hours is rather pointed given what has been happening recently and a desire to either force the person to resign or get a new contract in to dismiss (the person has been there 11-12 years.) And I am frustrated that this person is in tears daily about how they are being treated just for speaking out against an injustice. I am not even joking that if any of this was given to the media they would have a field day (even just the bullying, if we were to take out the other thing, would make an amazing headline given who they are and where they work). Is that too vague to even understand? I'm sorry, I guess just venting it all out helps. Thanks.

Hi there, I'm a company director (no shares), and discovered late last year that the MD and majority shareholder were committing fraud (fraudulent invoices from ghost employees, tax evasion) for financial gain. Over teh Christmas break I grabbed all the books and now have concrete evidence. I have notified the police who advised me to call the HMRC hotline - this was done back on 29/12/14 and I'm still waiting to hear back from them. Returning to work on Jan 5th, I confronted the MD and shareholder, and they put me on garden leave. A letter from their solicitor the following day confirmed this pending an investigation into believed gross misconduct (this is totally fabricated). The company is very small - a total of 4 employees including myself - and I'm still on garden leave, with the last solicitor's letter saying they should be ready for the disciplinary hearing in about 3 weeks. Is this acceptable or should I be getting my solicitor to gee them up a bit, maybe starting an employment tribunal process? This company has been running for 3 years, the previous company (same customers and service) for 20 years - I have been an employee for that long. As I'm now 46, I feel the chances of me getting back into this trade are getting less and less as time goes on. Any advice is appreciated.

Hi all, long time lurker first post! I had been working for an agency who had been short changing my wages resulting in not being paid the national minimum wage. Several other co workers were in the same boat. I told the agency i expected to be paid for these hours and would be reporting the matter to hmrc and the workers rights helpline. Three hours later I was "no longer required" I have since reported them for the above. Am I protected under whistleblowing laws?

I noticed that Amelia Gentleman, a reporter for the Guardian has been asking for people's experience on work programme on Twitter. Here is her tweet which contains her email address. As this is not a verified account here is a link to her Guardian profile. http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/ameliagentleman

My situation is as follows: Somebody rang the works whistleblowing hotline and made 2 allegations about me. Allegation 1: That when i had the opportunity to re-hire an old employee in January 2010 to a new position that i did not follow procedures in order to receive the companies referral fee, i have been accussed of stating that I would give 50% of the fee to the re-hire, that I would not advertise the job for the given period that i would interview him. Allegation 2: The whistleblower has stated that my current employer has overpaid me by £800 in June 2009 and I deliberately did not tell them. I was interviewed as part of a fact finding exercise to allow me to hear the allegations. What the investigator did not know was that in September 2011 my line manager was asked by somebody to investigate the referral fee i received - not sure who this was all i was told was that an internal audit had flagged up i had been paid this referral fee and i may not have been entitled to it, i produced all my documentation that clearly showed that at all points of the recuritment process that HR and recruitment were aware of the fact of me putting forward the old hire for the new job. In addition to this i had no control over the advertisement i was not involved, I was present at the interview but did not interview him i was there to talk to him about how the role had changed HR interviewed him and they made the offer of employment. I was then told verbally that this matter had been closed in September 2011 and i was told that maybe there was a conflict of interest as I was going to be the line manager but as HR were presented and all parties knew i was asking as referral then it should have been picked up before the payment was made which was incidently 5 months after he was offered the job. I was told at that point no further action would be taken. I have at no point offered the old hire 50% of the referral fee. Allegation 2: The whistleblower has claimed that I have been overpaid and have deliberatly kept the £800 over payment in June 2009. I have been through all my payments for the year of 2009 and no overpayment was made, however what i have uncovered is this, Feburary 2008 I was UNDERPAID by £800 then mid march i was paid the underpayment (800) as a one off payment however in my monthly March salary i was in fact paid the £800 so yes i have only just uncovered this due the allegations made, up until this point i had no idea and nor did my employer. Concerns: I am so worried that I am going to be sacked for gross misconduct and accused of theft, however their are circumstances that should be taken into consideration, in January 2008 my father who lived overseas died very suddenly and the underpayment occurred because i should have been paid berevement leave but my employer did not charge my time correctly hence the underpayment, and I do remember this because the reason i noticed i was underpaid was because i need to pay my mum for my ticket to go overseas to bury my dad but couldn't withdraw the funds, I contacted my best friend who also works at the same company but now we have fallen out and told her i didn't have enough money for my ticket she offered to give me the money if payroll couldn't pay me, so i contacted payroll who said that they would ammend this and would pay the underpaid amount into my account within the few days, which they did. As my employer had corrected the error before the next pay date I had no reason to assume that the following month my salary would have been overpaid as up until Febuary i had never had an inconsistent pay packet. So i carried on with my daily business without thinking anything of it, i was obviously completely distressed about my father and in addition to this i was going through a breakup with a partner who also shared my account so going through my bank details on regular basis is not something i do. Money was going in and out of my account i was trying to sort out berevement and a breakup payslips were paper and not given to us all the time. What i am worried about is that my employer is going to say to me how did the whistle blower know it was £800 if you didn't tell them, I honestly don't know other than the fact that it appears my ex friend has a grugde and it is conincence that the amount is the same she knew about the underpayment because she offered to buy my ticket also how come my employer cannot identify the error ? and we have both had to wait for a whistle blowing allegation to be made before this error has been uncovered. Please could somebody give me some advice here, I have been with employer for 7 years and i love my job but I feel totally devested. I have not been suspended yet I am told this is just fact finding.

All, I have read this thread with interest as it seems very relevant to me. One big difference is that the respondent has asked for me to consider JM and the CMD (by telephone) is scheduled to last 15 minutes. I have already said that I am in agreement (really good things to do with my life, still, but very annoyed with the company who sacked me). I will ask for a statement of position and expectations from the other side and also for them to meet the cost of legal representation on the day to approve any eventual agreement. Or the cost of it afterwards, to sign it off but I am wary of them changing their mind after the event. I have a question about the accuracy of the ET3 put forward by the respondent - if it is false in any way does this disadvantage them? Two items particularly:- They have changed wording in a letter (correct copy is in the bundle) I wrote to them that presents me in a poor light. Also, during the disciplinary process and appeal the company referred to a letter notifying me of the grievance appeal outcome, which was unsigned and wrongly dated, that I did not receive. I did receive a signed letter a day later that overrode much of what was in the letter that they refer to, which was signed and is in my possession. The actual letter I received was satisfactory to me whereas the one quoted was not. Are these things important to an ET? Following my grievance appeal and the letter issued the company went straight into an (inadequate) investigation of points I had raised and subsequently held a disciplinary meeting. I was then dismissed, pay in lieu of notice, from a responsible job and after 11 years with the company. An appeal was unsuccessful. Any comments would be very well received - I haven't started a new thread as I think there are similarities here. In addition, a compromise agreement is seen by employers as covering things up. This may disadvantage a job seeker, particularly where CRB checks are required. What is anyone's view? Loquitur achieved a good result - well done.