employer had me arrested after I brought tribunal case

[cantcarryon]

This has upset me so much, I am having suicidal thoughts.

Basically, I was accused of gross misconduct and dismissed because me employer alleged that I claimed for false overtime hours. This despite the fact that he signed all the payments off over several years. His motivation is that my job is to make financial reports to head office and I made a report which showed a deal he had put together had achieved really appalling results. He threatened me and ordered me to change the report and I refused.I am bringing a tribunal case against him and have been advised by my solicitor that I have a really strong case.

I received a call out of the blue from the police. They had received an allegation from my former employer, they wanted me to make an appointment to go down and talk to them about it. I went down, was promptly arrested, put in a cell for over an hour waiting for the duty solicitor, then spent over 4 hours consulting solicitor and being interviewed. Solicitor says case a load of rubbish but police are obliged to investigate all complaints. So basically, anyone can walk into a police station, make a completely false allegation against you and have you arrested and detained for hours, even days, and you can do absolutely nothing about it.

I've now been bailed and have to return in a month. I now have to worry for weeks that I may go to prison, i may lose my family. I feel so powerless, I can't even leave the house, never mind look for work. I feel my life has ended and don't know how to carry on.

Why are employers allowed to destroy people's lives and get away with it?

Please, can anyone offer me any comfort?

Just wanted to add my support as I took employer to tribunal years ago and won. Completely different circumstances as was made redundant unfairly, but...

I knew what was being said in their meeting as I had remained friendly with someone who was involved and she was telling me the complete lies which were being made up. I told my lawyer and he was very reassuring. he told me that one person can maybe keep a lying story going, but when there are a few involved then it's easy to pick holes.

The tribunal lasted for 2 days, I was 7 months pregnant by then ( not pg when made redundant- it took ages) 2 other colleagues had also taken them to trib and won( don't mess with us) but it was truly horrible to hear the things that were said.

However every time my ex boss alleged that I was at fault in some way, my lawyer simply asked for evidence- of course there was none as it was lies!

At one stage the big boss sat back on his seat, put his hands behind his heads, and am sure would have put his feet up on a table had one been handy- he was so arrogant!! The panel saw through them.

The sweet thing was that I got the result 2 days after dd was born, and they had to shell out for missing mat pay, loss of my car etc. That's what enabled me to return to uni and retrain as a teacher- couldn't have afforded it any other way!

So stick to your guns, he will have to prove things and if they're not true he will be found out very easily.

What a wanker! So angry for you

Thanks again everyone for all the support.

Just finished a lengthy document for my solicitor taring apart all the spurious arguments idiot ex-employer came out with in his Response to my tribunal submission. It cheered me up quite a bit. I was left thinking "if that is the best you can do, pal, you really are in serious trouble".

And if he can't prove a civil case, he certainly can't prove a criminal case.

I'm staring to see some hope. You have all helped me to drag myself out of utter depression. Thankyou all so much.

Sorry to hear of the stories of other bastard employers. There are some real pieces of work out there. But you all beat them in the end which really gives me hope.

I will keep you all posted on any develpments.

It's so good to hear you echoing the outrage about this wanker's behaviour! Depression and fear are so paralysing, and I must say, you did sound so depressed it is amazing you managed to get through the work on the document for your solicitor. Now you have done that, hopefully you will not sink back into that earlier state. But now that you are feeling better, every piece of work you do for your case - or every normal, everyday activity, performed without feeling fear - should take you further away from a relapse.

You're right, WV, working through that document turned out to be a real therapy. As I knocked down his weak-as-water arguments one by one I realised what a pathetically weak case he is putting forward and how much evidence I have against him.

My solicitor has already told me "if he takes this to a tribunal he will be laughed at".

Feeling a lot more positive now. Feeling more hopeful that the police case will be quickly dropped, but until i hear something it will still nag away at me.

It's very unusual for a police investigation to be started. The police will often say this is civil not criminal go away but I suppose if it's put like possbile "fraud" they have to. I still think it is very ery unlikely anything will come of it and getting the evidence I listed on my post above would help generally too.

Xenia - i just don't have the money to start paying IT experts to extract info from my computer - I don't have a job! Also can't rack up solicitors bills for this criminal case going into putting together complicated proof of my every working hour. I had to use the duty solicitor at the police station as I cannot afford any more legal bills on top of the ones for the tribunal case.

The duty solicitor basically said to make a case they have to prove conclusively that I did not work the hours, I do not have to prove that I did. My employer signed off the payments and no reasonable person would expect him to have done this without checking what he was signing.

I am going to stick with this approach - it is impossible to prove exactly what i was doing in those hours now almost a year later, especially as a lot of them were non-computer work which doesn't leave a trail.

cco was just thinking about you, how are you doing?

yay just read your most recent posts and pleased to see you are (with reason) feeling more positive Please please update us and let us know whether he's just sacked or whether he gets charged with wasting police time as well

Will let you know if any developments. Going to see solicitor dealing with tribunal case on Thursday so will see what he makes of it all.

Thanks for your support everyone.

good luck for thursday

Nice follow-up, StealthPolarBear. Yes, good luck, cantcarryon

Wishing you all the best CarryOn

Ask the solicitor whether you can also bring a victimisation claim. You may have a second ET case if you believe that reporting the matter to the police was because of you bringing the original ET claim.

Also, your solicitor will as others have said be able to ask for copies of all the IT audit trails showing all emails etc. They are obliged to disclose them. That may not give the whole story but it will support your case that at least some extra work was done.

Good luck.

Good luck carryon!!

victimisation, unfair dismissal on account of whistleblowing, bullying, harassment and defamation of character.

Methinks your boss has far far more things to worry about than you do.

FWIW when I was 20 I worked in a student bar and used to record my hours and pay myself from the till, leaving a receipt. The bar mgr gave me an 'annual' pay rise and I duly started taking the extra rate. Roll on 3 months, there's £40,000 missing, and he denies there was any pay rise, and I am taken in for questioning because there is a clear record showing me taking cash every week that I am not entitled to (around £80 in total over the period, something like that). He had obviously known that someone would spot stock/money going missing at some point and so dreamed up the 'pay rise' scam in order to pin me down for fraud and probably take the rap for the £40k. So I can empathise - it hung over me all the way through my finals. Fortunately the police never believed a word of what he had said and eventually they got him convicted. You are innocent, you will be ok (and your case nowhere near as bad to start with)

And FWIW I have also pursued an employer for a year over sex discrim and went through a miserable year before they rolled over - it is very disheartening to hear things said about you that you know are untrue. But do keep the faith in all of this - you haven't done anything wrong, your employer has, and it will all come out. I ended up negotiating access to my HR records where I found out that lots of my colleagues had been backing me to the hilt and in all their HR interviews had confirmed that my oppressor was a sexist arse. It felt really good. As did spending the settlement form them on a huge annexe in the garden (which has a plaque outside proclaiming it the 'ABC Ltd suite', on accocunt of the fact that they paid for every brick).

Had meeting with solicitor today. He expects police case will be quickly thrown out and police will verylikely take action against w**ker for wasting police time.

Interestingly, he had an offer to settle out of court from other side's solicitors - though rejected it as very low. But he expects they will negotiate as very early in the process for them to start talking about deals.

Fingers crossed, looks hopeful.

SS - your stories are an inspiration - really cheered me up. Well done for beating the b**tards!

That is good news - I think you should namechange to CarryOnRegardless!

don't give in to a settlement to easy. i think they have a lot to loose.

Moocow - no intention of accepting this paltry offer, as my solicitor said, it is a start but they have a long way to go before they come anywhere near an amountthat would be acceptable.

Any update? Have been thinking about you.
Hope the bullshit fraud case against you has been dropped.

Fanjolina - was due to answer bail last Tuesday. Had call from my solicitor to say the police had told me they had dropped the case and no need to attend the police station.

So I thought, that is over, now I want to make sure the police are taking action against my s**thead ex boss for making false allegations. So i rang the PC who was in charge of the investigation - who tells me the case has not been dropped at all and he is now going to have me arrested for failing to answer bail! In a panic I rang my solicitor who finally got the police to admit they had given out wrong information and they grudgingly agreed not to arrest me! An apology was later made to my solicitor, but not to me! It seems the PC has not yet finished his file and is extending bail. He now wants me to send in documentary evidence to prove I worked all my hours. have already told him this is an impossibility over a year after the event but it seems he is determined to nail me as he sees me as a posh bitch. He has no interest in the fact that all my time was signed off by boss, I have no motivation to do this as the hours i was forced to work prevented me from taking on another better paid part time job. So it seems he is determined that i will have to go through a trial - though my solicitor has said that if this ever went to a trial it would be immediately thrown out. But he wants to make sure it gets in all the local papers so I am thoroughly humiliated.

Sorry if this offends any police officers reading, but i think that those involved in this case at least are petty little hitlers who have no interest in the truth and just want to teach the posh cow a lesson. They have treated me like s**t throughout and it seems I have no comeback against them.

So much for British justice.

God that sounds awful.

It is ridiculous to expect you to come up with such evidence. Surely the ONLY documentary evidence is the signed off timesheets? I work from home frequently and would be hard-pressed to remember what I worked on last month, never mind a year ago!

Do you have access to anything from your old job? Or did you perhaps have a meting calendar you accessed at home? That might help you recall what you worked on.

Hold your head up - you have done nothing wrong. It is awful to be going through this, but your evil ex-boss will pay!

Oh and remember the onus is on the CPS to prove you committed a crime.

It is not your job to prove you are innocent. Tell the PC in charge of the investigation that.

What has happened with your personal emails? It was a non-work account they have got this information from, yes? I would bring a counter-claim to the police immediately about that. It is a criminal offence to hack into your emails, I'm sure.

Actually you can get hold of all the documents and email you need. And any memos ot other documents that are flying about amongst colleagues.

Under the Data Protection Act you are entitled to a copy of absolutely anything that has your name/address/phone number associated with it, for the princely sum of £10.

They have 40 days to comply, otherwise you can take them to the Information Commissioner. If you think anything is missing, you can take them to the Information Commissioner as well.

I would suggest you go to the MD with your subject access request, to bypass this manager.