Husband lost his job. His fault but he had good intentions. We are both deeply upset. Please help.

[user1471433754]

My husband's boss phoned him a fortnight ago, and told him to stand down and to hand his laptop in to HQ the following day. My husband was so shocked, we didn't know what was happening. We were in a distressed state as he's contract and won't get paid either.
After over a week, of not sleeping, eating, desperately worried, we received a very aggressive lawyers letter from the company. It accused him of downloading documents to his private e mail to read. Husband did do this, they weren't sensitive but he did do it so he could read them at night, and deleted them right after. He honestly didn't realise he was doing wrong. He was doing his best to help his team and get the work done. He's always known for getting jobs done and been told he's a great asset.
Back story to this is, I've been very ill the last year. I nearly died, also lots of illness on my part, mental breakdown, 2 operations, serious illness. He was trying to look after me and do his job at the same time in the evening. He's now been dismissed. Looks like we are going to have to pay both sides legal fees, but he has no job, I can't work. We speak to a lawyer tmro.
He has been foolish, but he did it with the best of intentions to get the work done. We are early sixties and so distressed, I'm worried he will have a heart attack. He's cried non stop, he is horrified, ashamed, embarrassed. Please be kind x

He had the work laptop at home because he mainly worked from home which is why his explanation to email and use his personal laptop doesn't make sense.

He worked from home I believe. He just liked using his own laptop in bed instead of the work laptop. The whole scenario is unbelievable. I do feel very sorry for @user1471433754 who is suffering ill health and is obviously very worried.

Any legal advice given on mumsnet is often completely wrong and useless. This is not an area I know about so all I'm going to say is check whether you have any legal insurance cover anywhere - we have it as part of the house insurance. Then check the small print to see if this would be covered.

You need specialist legal advice, not mumsnet. If he can show he made no profit from this and nothing has gone outside your home then hopefully they will leave it at dismissing him. I agree that they are covering their own backs with the heavy handed approach, you need to do what you have to reassure them,

It's not heavy handed of it is proprietary data or allowing a security breach

That’s what I thought but I thought I must have gotten it wrong as there’s no way he’d need to download and transfer it to his personal laptop, unless their was an ulterior motive.

I’m not sure whether OP is being naive or thinks we’re stupid.

If he's a contractor, he should have liability insurance. That would at least deal with any financial implications. They would usually offer legal advice as well.

Op, do you know what data he downloaded? That's the first step.

If it's personal data (personal data is any data that identifies a living person) then it's likely he didn't have consent to view the data for non work purposes. This can be criminal activity as there are laws to protect personal datam

If they state it's civil then likely to be commercial sensitive or personal. He needs to confirm what his intention was and assure them the data no longer exists on any device or email server.

Have you paid off your mortgage? Can you manage financially for a while?

I think he’s trying not to worry you and doesn’t want you to think badly of him,.

but you’re unwell and I think it doesn’t affect your mind, so knowing the truth is better,

it is highly improbable he sent a lot of information to himself so he could use his own lap top in bed rather than his work one. I think deep down you know this.

the level of crying he’s done indicates he’s been caught in something bad, as does the volume of the data and handing everything over to a lawyer. Otherwise it would be oh shit it was just a couple of docs can’t I do that. It’s the volume here and the fact he has a second job which is a conflict of interests.

all company emails are monitored, they will know exactly what he sent and how much of it, over what period. What they now need to do is check what happened to that data. What he did with it. His contract had to be terminated immediately as they can’t risk he would take more. They had to remove him immediately from their networks.

honestly it’s good he will give access to his tech, I assume he’s handed it over to a lawyer as he is fully aware of what he’s done and what could happen here. I think preparing you better though is next step.

Thank you so much for your kind words. It's a horrendous situation, I know it's his own doing but honestly there was never any dishonest intent.
We have support from friends who know him, and even his work colleagues are horrified because they know him too. We've had many calls of support. But it's just awful 😞

You'll get through it OP. Take a deep breath!

You've had the worst bit - the short, sharp shock - and now you can focus on helping the company to tick all the boxes they need to tick.

Why are you talking about GDPR? We have no idea whether the documents held personal data.

Yes it's the volume. But he was trying to work around things, never any bad intent as to what he was doing. For him, it was on his own laptop so he didn't feel he was taking work to bed. He's distraught because in his head he was doing the right things by his company. His side line is non profitable, it's more a type of hobby.

How many documents was it op?

I've been very ill. In his head he's been trying to look after me and do his work too.

What do you mean work around things?

is the sideline related to the job? Did he use any of the downloaded to personal laptop data for it?

No one can guess how all this will play out without that information. And you have the legal side covered now so not sure what else anyone on MN can say to reassure you.

Easier said than done, but try not to let barbed questions whip you into a frenzy OP. I'm sure things will look a lot clearer soon. 🌸

This has no relevance to what he did or didnt do with company documents though

You sound like you are saying hes never lied, we all lie,.its aweful to be sacked even tho its his fault and yes he knew what he was doing but still upsetting,.but you are 2 seperate people and hes not been.honest with you and thats ok , its ok that you dont know everything about each other

OP - you’ve not given much info and you are just caught in a cycle of being over-dramatic because you don’t really understand what happened.
i think your husband understands more than you. Please go and speak to him to get a clearer picture. Then come back here and EXPLAIN CLEARLY.
at the moment this thread is pointless.
its just getting you caught between waffling aimlessly about what the situation is and you defending him and going on and on about him being a good man.
get some clarity before you drive everyone nuts, including yourself and your husband.

It also depends if they insist he hands over his own laptop so they can check tho legally i shouldnt think they can but hes probably worried about whats on there!

That is absolutely irrelevant.

What type of contractor is he?
For example, was he on a fixed term contract issued by the company?
Was he a day rate contractor operating through his own limited company or through an umbrella?
Was the contract inside or outside IR35 and how long had he been on it? This is important because if it’s outside IR35 and had gone over 2 years, he may be viewed more as an employee than a contractor and therefore have more rights.

He needs to discuss all this with his lawyer, but, as other PPs have said, as a contractor his contract can be terminated immediately and he potentially has very few rights (they don’t even need to give a reason).

The fact that they have terminated immediately and cited gross misconduct does indicate that they are taking it seriously, so I think he should not be discussing this with any of his former colleagues until he’s spoken to his lawyer.

From what you’ve posted the issue is potentially two-fold - the sending proprietary information outside of the organisation and the side business (particularly if it’s related to the business he was working for).

It’s really important that your DH discusses this with a lawyer and not his former colleagues and I would suggest maybe asking for this thread to be removed if there’s any chance the organisation could identify themselves.

Echoing what others have said, I don’t expect your DH is telling the whole truth here. Otherwise he’d be speaking to you sanely and not crying and in bed. Like PP’s have said see your solicitors tomorrow, hopefully it’ll all be sorted out.

I also don’t understand how you can be so naive about a sideline which is a hobby.

What do you mean “work around things”.