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

Nothing work related should be saved to personal devices/accounts. Basic rules of IT these days.

I totally get it actually, I knew instantly thats why someone would do that, not sure why people dont understand that intent

However its gross misconduct if you get caught. There may be costs applicable to the company of course because of what may or may be the implications of the act

Its all very well fr him to say they werent sensitive documents but the company may feel they are

If they're not and if there arent any financial implications to whats happened then Im not sure what legal costs would be incurred

Also , when you say you have to reply in 3 days, reply in what way, whats being asked of you?

OP take some breaths. It’s absolutely understandable for you to be shocked and upset but if you post asking for help there has to be some identifiable need for help and no one can understand what that is.

civil action is obviously not criminal. The letter must say what the legal action is for? Being dismissed isn’t legal action. You don’t pay legal fees for someone sending you a letter.

If he’s a contractor he hasn’t even been dismissed.
I’m afraid as a contractor you have no job security so I assume your extreme shock is relate to the bad luck of this happening on top of your health worries.

It doesn’t sound like the OP has the actual letter with her to check what it says as she says they’ve “handed it all over” to a solicitor.

@user1471433754 you both really need to try to calm down, clearly easier said than done. You both sound too distressed and confused to make any forward progress with this, and certainly on a Sunday there is little that you can practically do. Better to focus on how you are going to handle this on Monday morning. Come up with a plan of action between you, and then whenever either of you starts to feel overwhelmed or upset, go over what your plan is so that you know you have the next steps planned out.

Just spending the day spiralling isn’t going to help your or your DH.

Did he sign the Official Secrets Act when he was first employed? Or a NDA?

Retire from what? They’re both unemployed.

Is it a civil service role or similar? Straight to dismissal is very harsh, but it does rather depend on the content. I’ll sometimes forward stuff home to print or something but not the kind of material that would cause huge problems if it was intercepted.

You don't need to be employed to take early retirement.

Clearly @365RubyRed meant don't seek further work and access any pensions they may have. What was the point of your post?

They may have private pensions they can access, or occupational pensions from previous employment.

I'll admit to doing this in the past but I really wouldn't nowadays. I don't think the fact that you don't think it would cause huge problems would be a valid excuse.

There is no way anyone working nowadays wouldnt know you shouldn’t do this.

in my current role I can access 365 in the cloud from my own laptop, but there’s an audit trail. And I’m not allowed to save except into the company OneDrive / share point.

in previous roles I couldn’t do that and had to access everything on the work laptop.

You really should not do this.

You need to calm down OP, nobody has to pay to have their contract terminated. I was a contractor for many years, they will invent any nonsense/technicality if they want to get rid of a contractor, often more a financial than a personal decision or a new broom has come in saying we have too many contract staff. In your husband's case it was most likely face no longer fits/ageism from a younger manager in his 40s, they often clear out the older guys to prop up their own position.

This job is over, nobody needs to pay anything, look for a new job. There is no need to get into such a state (or pay for an employment lawyer, why are you doing that?).

Ok you’re not making a lot of sense so need to take a deep breath and calm down,

what does the letter say exactly? A lawyers letter doesn’t mean they are taking action, it will ask for him to do something though.

secondlh if you’ve employed a lawyer then that’s the fees you pay, unless it goes to court and you lose, and costs are awarded, there is nothing to suggest this is going to court.

thirdly was he not trained? Where this is policy employers normally train people so they Know,

if it’s not contested just do what the letter asks, likely confirm deletion etc. but I’d assume these were sensitive, as no one sends aggressive letters for not sensitive docs, they will know what he sent himself.

and I’m sorry but sending them so he can read on his own lap top in bed makes no sense and isn’t believable,

Lawyers often threaten that they will seek to recover legal fees as a way to intimidate you, so please try not to worry too much until you’ve got advice. The letters are designed to be threatening but it sounds as though it’s really not justified in your case.

I don’t know why posters are telling him he shouldn’t have done it it’s done now. People do it all the time, as others have said it’s harsh to dismiss. He’s only a contractor, they likely went looking for a reason to get rid of him

OP him working all night is an example of why you shouldn’t martyr yourself to a company without accepting the reality that they’ll treat you like this when they want/ need to.

In your husband's case it was most likely face no longer fits/ageism from a younger manager in his 40s, they often clear out the older guys to prop up their own position

eh, no, it is likely exactly what she said, he sent himself documents to download to his private email against company policy. If this was just any excuse there would be no legal letters after.

It’s not harsh depending on the type of documents and the company policies.

If he has definitely been straight with you about what’s happened, then on the face of it this sounds harsh (misunderstanding, non-sensitive info, or similar). However it is against Policy in most places these days to do what he did so I would check did he see a Policy in relation to this - even if not, if he is in certain industries and has been for years, they might argue he should know the score re home PCs too. Does it come down to the nature of what he sent/received, eg commercially confidential info. The language they are using, and the mention of costs sounds odd to me if this is as innocent as he says. Which may just be the language they use in all cases like this though. You are seeing a lawyer I believe, which you urgently need to do to check this is being done fairly and legally (which you need to accept it may be, even if it was an innocent mistake). You need to discuss it all with them and take it from there. We can all hear how upset you both are re this, and I’m really sorry you are going through this op.

I understand you are are very distressed but do you think it might be wise to wait until you know what his former company are actually proposing? There might not be a need to pay for a lawyer.

As others have said - contact ACAS and have a good study of their website in the meantime.

Obviously. But I was replying to a comment about retiring early which requires a job to retire from and is not the same as accessing a pension before the normal pensionable age.

It’s not harsh if it was proprietary documents, and the fact fhere is a legal letter after inductes the documents he sent himself to download are proprietary and they need to ensure they don’t go elsewhere as it will damage the company,

could be anything from profit margins, costs to staffing issues, to future strategy,

we would fire for this. And the fact there is such a strong reaction indicates these were very sensitive even though he doesn’t recognise it, and he would have been trained,

I read it as he was flexing his hours to be around for his wife (the op) and working evenings coz he hadn’t done his full hours during the 9-5 standard hours?

This. We would fire for this too.