Aggressive Friday night email from ex-employer with Monday deadline – help!

[strangerthongs]

I am sitting here feeling quite panicked and would really appreciate some advice from anyone with legal or HR experience. I resigned with immediate effect from a small mission-led limited company earlier this month after a very difficult period involving disability discrimination and a failure to provide reasonable adjustments. They have agreed in writing to pay my notice period and accrued leave at the end of April, and I am currently on a doctor-certified fit note for work-related stress.
While my employer knows I am a member of a union, they do not yet know that I am preparing a potential legal claim with their help, though they are aware that I have an active Subject Access Request in progress with them. They have not yet seen my full internal log of evidence, which includes about 13 pages of notes and screenshots documenting the issues I faced.
About 10 minutes ago on a Friday evening, I received a formal email from the directors demanding that I acknowledge a confidentiality reminder and confirm that I have securely deleted all company information and files by first thing Monday morning. They are threatening legal action for any breach of these obligations. They quoted the confidentiality clause from my contract but notably left out the part that says these provisions do not affect my right to make a protected disclosure or my duty to disclose information for legal or regulatory reasons.
I want to be clear that I have not retained any information I am not entitled to, nor do I have any intention of misusing any information. One of the main reasons I left the company was because all work was conducted on personal devices using shared emails and folders, and despite me repeatedly raising concerns about these security practices, nothing was ever done.
I am very concerned that if I provide a blanket confirmation of deletion, I would be forced to destroy evidence that is essential for my legal claim and for checking their SAR response when it eventually arrives. It feels like this sudden Friday night deadline and legal threat might amount to victimisation since they know a dispute is ongoing and I have filed a SAR. I cannot reach my union representative before their deadline on Monday morning, so I really need a sanity check. Is such a short weekend deadline even enforceable, and does their demand for deletion override my legal right to keep evidence for a tribunal or for reporting regulatory breaches like their data security failures? It feels like a blatant attempt to intimidate me into destroying my own case and I am not sure how to handle it.

An email on Friday night? You obviously haven’t seen it, and won’t see it until Monday

Tell them on Monday that you have only just seen the email, and your understanding is that you are entitled to a reasonable amount of time to take advice.

What are your working days? On your next usual working day I would say ‘email received, will need to consider this before replying. I’ll get back to you within two weeks.’

I wouldn't even acknowledge it until I'd spoken to the union.

I'm not working, I resigned with immediate effect and have been signed off wiht work related stress although pilon wont be paid til end of this month.

You need to be clear, for yourself and everyone else, which one of these it is. You either don't work there anymore or you do and are signed off. If you don't work there, don't check your work emails!

It was sent to my personal email. Sorry if that was not clear.

How did the agreement to pay PILON come about - Was there any sort of negotiation or did they just offer?

Anyway as others have said ignore the email until you have spoken tonight your union, there’s not much they can do and their demand is unreasonable.

Oh, FFS. No, it’s not illegal for employers to contact staff while off sick - it’s expected in most contractual terms for occupational sick pay.

it isn’t legal to harass them through.

If your resignation was with immediate effect, you are no longer their employee and don’t need to be signed off sick.

I resigned and provided my fit note which covered my 1 month notice period. I asked in my resignation email if they would kindly consider pilon or gardening leave. they replied the same day saying they accepted my resignation and would arrange for pilon.

Again, you're talking about two different states of employment here. Either you're off sick for your notice period OR you finished working there that day and are receiving PILON. They're two different things and you need to be crystal clear as to which state you're in. It'll matter in terms of access to documents, accessing email, your length of service etc.

the latter. I believe I clarified this already.
I was signed off sick but they accepted my resignation and agreed to pay pilon the same day so the sick note no longer applies althought I am still stressed.
Be kind.

I'm not trying to upset you and I didn't believe I was being unkind but if I've stressed you further I'm genuinely sorry. Quick responses can definitely come across as abrupt so I apologise.

I didn't find your last post did clarify things completely and the point I was trying to make - in an effort to genuinely help you be clear in your position and how you communicate it - was that this is a really important point and you'll want o make sure both you and your former employers know where you stand.

No it’s not automatically illegal. OP please be careful about relying advice from people who are not lawyers and do not know the law. I am also not a lawyer, and I wouldn’t rely on MN for legal advice.

I agree with those saying ignore it until you can get Union advice. Standard bullying tactics sending an email on Friday night!

Ignore the email. They seem to think they own you.

thanks, i will report back next week, once union guy gets back to me, he's rather slow though

No. They can contact you to ask if you're okay, if you have a sick note or fit note or whatever they're called at the moment, things like that.

It would be harassment if they contacted you to say, "how can you let us down like this?" "I know you're off sick, but you have to complete this piece of work." "This will count against you for your chances or promotion." "If you're not in the office by Friday, don't bother returning at all." Or even if they are contacting you too frequently to ask how you are and for the reasonable sickness absence stuff, because they should be able to sort all that out in one or two calls over a week, rather than three or four every day.

When you work with someone for sometime, you do build a bit of a relationship, but you can always ask, "are you okay with me checking in once a week?" or whatever.