Suspended on full pay, can we drag this out?

[wubbzy1981]

Dp was suspended 2 weeks ago for aggressive behaviour.

He absolutely did not do this, the person who has supposedly alledged this has claimed to someone that it is a management set up. In addition another witness claims that a manager told him that he had a hit list and dp was on it.

This suspension is almost certainly going to be dropped and they just wanted dp out of the way for a bit esp. since he was due to be a witness to someone else in their hearing.

DP does not want to go back after all of this which is understandable. I have a new job that starts in 3 weeks. Ideally he would hand his notice in one weeks time.

ACAS said that we can raise a grievance and that all suspension investigations will be put on hold while they deal with the grievance. Is this right? his union boss says that is rubbish.

Can his work just phone tomorrow and say investigation dropped come back to work?

The employer can put disciplinary investigations on hold if a grievance is raised and deal with the grievance, or they can decide to deal with them together if that's appropriate.

Even if they do put the disciplinary stuff on hold to deal with his grievance, that doesn't mean his suspension will automatically continue.

And yes if they decide to drop the disciplinary investigation they can and will require him to come back to work.

But if he's planning to resign in a week's time anyway, if they do drop the disciplinary and require him to come back to work, could he not manage to do that for a couple of weeks? He can't force them to keep him suspended unfortunately but most things are bearable for a very short time if you can see the end in sight.

Thank you for your quick response.

I think he may need to go back but it is such a volatile situation. He has actually raised grivances already (one day prior to suspension) as a supervisor threatened him with physical violence for refusing to lift something on H&S grounds. That supervisor has not been disciplined in any way and the next day dp is is suspended over this.

There's always being signed off by the GP owing to stress-related illness if all else fails.

Sounds awful if he has really just been set up like this. Hope more experts come along soon.

Also if they drop case, can it be a phonecall to say be back at work tomorrow?

He doesn't have to wait for a letter if that's what you mean. If they decide to drop it they should write to him confirming that but if they ring him first to let him know he can't refuse to go in until he's received a letter.

Can he just phone them up and instead of not facing the problem and trying to worm around it using doctors and suspension just say "I'll hand my notice in if you stick me on garden leave for 4 weeks".

Job done.