Unfair dismissal exposed • Fraserburgh-based Lovie has been ordered to
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pay £3,685 to a driver it sacked after he was charged with indecent exposure.
An industrial tribunal at Aberdeen was told that two charges against the driver were dropped after it emerged that he had a medical condition.
Ian Anderson, of Backhill, Allothan, Near Deer, Turriff, was given an absolute discharge by a court after a medical report indicated that he suffered from an irritable bladder.
Lovie's managing director, William Lovie, said he had received a complaint in 1992 that Anderson had exposed himself to a young girl. Anderson had said that it had not been deliberate. He had been in urgent need of relieving himself, and, with some hesitation, Lovie had accepted that explanation. 6 6 Anderson denied that, saying that he had been trying to signal the car driver to overtake. He understood that the matter was resolved after a telephone conversation between Anderson and the com plainant, said Lovie.
Last October police told Lovie that Anderson had exposed himself to women twice, in a lay-by on the Banff-Turriff road.
Anderson said he had been relieving himself in the lay-by on the dates in question. When he asked why he was not on his direct route, he made no reply. He suspended Anderson without pay and sent him home. Anderson was then charged with two offences of indecent exposure and Lovie sacked him.
The tribunal said that the mere fact that an employee had been charged with an offence did not amount to reasonable grounds for an employer to dismiss without further information or any investigation.
Reducing the amount of compensation it would otherwise have awarded by 50% on the grounds of contributory fault, the tribunal said that it might be that each case had been one of medical necessity but, given the evidence about the unusual route and about the amount of concealment available at the scene which he did not use, they considered that Anderson had contributed significantly to his own dismissal. Although he was unfairly dismissed, his medical condition did not explain those matters.