What’s the country coming to?
by Philip
I don’t want to sound like a grumpy, old man or a Daily Mail reader spluttering into my cornflakes but based on the facts of this case I do wonder about the state of the nation.
The facts put briefly are these:
Bus driver subject to racial abuse by “boorish, yobbish” young passengers. Youths got off the bus. Driver heard loud bangs, stopped the bus to investigate. Bus driver gets out. Bus driver racially abused by youths and punched. Bus driver punched one of his attackers in self defence. Bus driver spat at by said youths. Bus driver trips up one youth when he starts to run away and punches another who is about to hit him.
The police are called and the bus driver is arrested (although no legal charges are brought.)
The bus driver is dismissed for assaulting the “customers.”
WTF! As some might say.
The offence to most people’s notion of justice is firstly the fact that the bus driver is arrested (not the racist, boorish youths) and secondly that the bus driver is dismissed (rather than being congratulated and promoted.)
Thankfully the Tribunal (and the EAT) correct the injustice of dismissal by finding an unfair dismissal.An act of self defence did not warrant summary dismissal. The driver (harshly in my view) was found 40% to blame for his dismissal, though, in over-stepping the self-defence boundary.
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