Ex making false allegations to employer

[ForAFriend123]

Apologies upfront if this post is incoherent. Still in a bit of shock and need urgent advice.

So to be brief DB left his alcoholic, abusive wife last year and after a horribly long court case now has full custody of his DC. There is a court order banning her from having any contact with the DC until such time that she seeks help for her addiction and mental illness and it is safe.

Sadly she continues to make his life as difficult as possible for DB (refusing to engage with family court, divorce process or the CSA, drunk, incoherent phone calls to his office colleagues, vile FB posts etc etc). He left the family home with nothing except the DC and is currently living with us as without a financial settlement he can't afford his own place.

He finally seemed to be turning a corner and moving forward with his life and his ex backing off until today. This afternoon DB had call from his manager (he works for a bank) to say that "an allegation had been received into the bank" and that DB is to have a meeting with HR tomorrow morning. No other details given.

DB us distraught and petrified he is about to lose his job. He has absolutely no idea what he is supposed to have done. He has worked there for 20 years and has a completely clean record.

I firmly believe this is the work of his ex (or one of the few friends who have hung around) but won't know more details until tomorrow. This is probably all that's left in her arsenal to trash DB's life.

Unfortunately he doesn't belong to a union but guess at this stage just looking for advice on how DB should handle tomorrow's video meeting. Assuming this is the work of his ex am a bit at his manager at the absence of any detail/reassurance especially given the know full well what he has been dealing with

I understand the pressure he was under but that is not excusable. Unfortunately this is a highly serious offence.

Your title is also misleading as he does appear from what you have posted that he allegations are true not false - he accessed her accounts

Their hands might be tied as he has admitted that he has broken a very important law. A complaint has been made against him which he has admitted. If they didn't investigate and discipline then the bank would be in bigger trouble.

His reasons for accessing her account might not matter.

From your update, it isn't a false allegation, regardless of what his thoughts were, he illegally accessed her private banking details, and has admitted that he did this. I hope the union is able to support him with whichever way that goes, but that's a pretty massive breech

I don't know what the outcome of the hearing will be but accessing someone's account without the authority to do so is a serious offence. The problem is that it's not entirely in his employer's hands either. There's a reportable data breach and a regulator will expect that it is dealt with appropriately. If his employer does not deal with it appropriately they could be subject to enormous fines and even a loss of license. The regulator might not even want them to provide a reference to your DB; in fact, they might not even want him working in financial services anymore.

There are lines you don't cross in certain professions no matter how desperate you are and in banking this is a big one.

I've been trained, re-trained to within an inch of my sanity on GDPR and know that the penalties for my employer are huge. This wasn't a vexatious allegation at all, he access her accounts which is a breach and unfortunately there are consequences to this / steps that now have to be followed to the letter as his employer is held to account in the same way he is. The consequences for his employer are potentially huge as other posters have said.

I have every sympathy given my ex made outrageous allegations against me when I was also dealing with child protection issues caused by his behaviors. I understand the stress, it nearly broke me - actually it did break me in many ways, I will never be the same as I was. however his claims were pure fabrication and eventually proved as such.

I understand he was under a lot of stress but I can't see how accessing her accounts in any way supported child protection efforts on his part. In view of the issues his ex has, SS etc would have been involved and would have been the correct channel.