LEGAL NEWS III
Page 19
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• A Glasgow industrial tribunal has upheld the sacking of five security attendants employed by Strathclyde Regional Council for allegedly stealing fuel from its Hampden depot in Aikenhead Road.
Missing fuel supplies were uncovered by an audit inquiry at the depot, which found that documents recording the issue of fuel had been falsified. The tribunal was told that drivers were supposed to sign fuel issue sheets to certify they had received the fuel shown.
The auditors, however, found that two sets of sheets were being used — one recording issues accurately, the other containing false entries and forged signatures to cover the theft of fuel.
An investigation was sparked off by the Hampden depot's plant control assistant, who found that much more fuel was being used than was justified by the number of trucks based at the depot.
Douglas Knape, the senior engineer at the Hampden depot, sacked the five men after carrying out his own investigation. He believed there was a pattern of falsification of records by the five security attendants and that they had manipulated a fuel tank to give false readings.
The five all claimed they had been unfairly dismissed, but the tribunal ruled that there had been a thorough investigation and that all the dismissals were fair. The members of the tribunal found there was nothing in the evidence of the five men to dispute the findings of Knape and the audit staff and decided that all five had been fairly dismissed by the council.