Disciplinary witness, are you allowed to have someone who is on long term sick?

[40somethingwonderful]

A friend of mine has been suspended (not following procedure). She is the manager but her deputy has been off sick for 6 months due to a bad back, no one has come in to assist and my friends workload has increased so much she dropped one of the balls she was juggling.

On Friday she has to attend a disciplinary and she is allowed a witness, the only person she would like is her deputy (who has knowledge of how difficult the area is to manage in which she is under investigation for) but friend is unsure if she is allowed to bring her because she is on long term sick.

TIA

[MissLegal02]

I don't see that there would be an issue with it in principle as she is a colleague but it might cause issues for her friend on long term sick.

I say this because if the Company see that the employee who is off sick is in fact fit enough to come to a meeting for an hour, they may well argue that she is fit enough to do other jobs for the Company, I.e. it would undermine the fact that she is not fit to do any duties at work, if she is able to do this.