Hartlepool Borough Council ordered to pay the a former council worker over £500.00 in unpaid wages.
Tuesday 20th December 2022 08:14am
Hartlepool Borough Councils been ordered to repay £551.00 in back pay to a former employee after a tribunal sitting at Newcastle Court found the council guilty of breaching employment regulations.
The claimant took Hartlepool Borough Council to court after being sacked from her role with the local council back in 2021 when she worked as a catering assistant & a cleaner at two schools operated by the local council.
However complaints over COVID breaches by the local council & numerous other Health & Safety infringements led to the former employee being hauled before a disciplinary panel before subsequently leading to her dismissal from her job following claims by the council that the employee had committed “gross misconduct” when the council claimed the employee failed to show up at other locations for work the council claimed her employment contract deemed she was to work.
In the judgement transcripts which consist of fifty five pages put before Newcastle Employment Tribunal, the local council attempted to paint a picture of an employee who was “untrustworthy”, who'd made repeated complaints to the council over “frivolous” issues, with the former employee of the council counterarguing that under current employment legislation she was in fact “a whistle blower” who’d repeatedly revealed numerous COVID & health & safety breaches by the local council that were repeatedly ignored.
Claims by the employee that she'd overheard a number of conversations made by Kieran Bostock, Hartlepool Borough Councils Assistant Director (Place Management) that she was "untrustworthy" & "disrespectful" were all dismissed by the employment tribunal judge, however in the lengthy judgement published only recently, Employment Judge Loy issued a reserved judgement in many aspects of the claim which are likely to be decided upon sometime in 2023.
However its claimed the former HBC member of staff was however partly successful in her claim to sue the council for unfair dismissal on other aspects of her claim & Hartlepool Borough Council was ordered to pay the sum of £551.00…
So far Hartlepool Matters has been made aware that at least three other Employment Tribunal claims made recently against the council have now been settled out of court following concerns by the councils legal department that those claims had significantly good prospects of success by the former members of staff who'd made the claims to the county court & that those claims going to a hearing not only would have been embarrassing to the councils reputation, but would have also contributed to a significant burden on the local tax payer if a judge had handed down a ruling.
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