….or dismiss fairly?
by Philip
In my time I’ve dealt with a fair number of cases involving malingerers. Bad backs are diagnosed by Doctors based on what a patient tells a Doctor.For those employees who genuinely have bad backs, most employers have sympathy for and help and support the employee back to full fitness. However an alleged bad back sometimes is a useful cover for a work shy employee wishing to avail himself of generous sick pay scheme.
My personal favourites include an employee who was off with a supposed bad back for many months. One day the employer had a fire on the premises, the absent employee with the bad back was also a retained fire fighter and turned up on the back of a fire engine and put the fire out.
Another employee also off with a bad back was pictured in the local paper having won a pro-am golf tournament. Needless to say both employees were dismissed. We would suggest in cases like this that the reason for dismissal is given as abusing the sick pay scheme.
In the case reported here, the employee was also off with a bad back but was caught on video tape loading and unloading shopping, driving and coming out of the bookies. An employer can discount an employee’s sick note and place weight on what they see, which is normally covert video surveillance.
Just because an employee is caught red handed malingering, it does not mean that this will prevent them from claiming unfair dismissal.
Provided a fair procedure is followed, Employment Tribunals will find in favour of employers where good evidence exists that the employee is shirking. Video evidence is normally good enough, as is a private investigator’s report.
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