Husband been sacked

[missyell]

My husband has literally just been sacked from work. Im devastated. We have 4 kids aged 17, 12, 6 and 3. I only claim the tax credits and child benefit, other than that the income was from my husbands wage. I feel sick and I cant stop crying. What do we do now? x

I think it's very important your husband clearly documents the exact chain of events right away- if he led you to believe that he'd already been sacked when that's not actually the case- he might be getting other parts of the sequence of events wrong too.

It's so tricky isn't it. From a company point of view, it doesn't look good. They realise that £40 is missing and the person who had the money hasn't called in to say they have it and only mention they have it when asked.

At the very least,what he did was extremely foolish - that is, the not letting them know immediately he realised. I think that will be the thing that he is sacked over - it looks like he stole the money, because he didn't say he had it before being asked. Im sorry to say that, but I think it is a realistic assessment. And I'm sorry to ask too, and hope you won't be terribly offended, but are you absolutely sure too that he didn't take the money? Did he mention to you that he had the money by mistake when he realised he had it? So sorry to ask that and regardless, I know you will want to support him.

Yes to getting legal advice, yes to asking the colleague to corroborate that they told him the amounts balanced that night and yes to him being very contrite and acknowledging that he did the wrong thing by not ringing in immediately with it.

I hope you get some good news moving forward with this and the colleague is willing to corroborate his story. Regardless of what happens, knowing that will help your DH and it will be goof door colleagues to know he just made a big mistake rather than anything more sinister.

If he had been at work for a little while before being called in, or failed to go in early to have a chance to give the money in, the case does look worse.

I suspect technically he shouldn't have had cash in his apron pocket ( even if in reality it is widespread practice) because these kind of mistakes can occur. However, failure to voluntarily announce the money at the earliest possible opportunity is the thing that makes him look guilty and will be very difficult to deal with in a way to bring about a good outcome for him. Surely he realised that having £40 cash at home was bad and however tired would have taken steps to address this by phone that night, first thing in the morning and then in person early before the shift began - 3 opportunities to be the one to address the issue, rather than waiting for it to be brought to him by others.

Very sorry for your situation.