Cash point dismissal
Page 19
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A GLASGOW bus driver, suspected of tampering with his vehicle's cash box with a knife, claimed he was only sharpening a pencil. But the point was not taken by plain-clothesinspectors who caught him.
And his story was also rejected by an industrial tribunal which ruled that Strathclyde PTE was justified in dismissing driver Hugh McCusker. The tribunal heard that when the two inspectors boarded McCusker's bus they noticed a E1 note lodged in the viewing panel of the cash machine.
The note was still there when the bus reached the terminus, where the inspectors took up an observation position in a nearby phone box. They saw McCusker leave his cab, withdraw an implement from his packet and approach the cash machine. He inserted something in it and proceeded to make a "scooping movement".
The inspectors then boarded the bus and asked McCusker to surrender the implement. He handed over a bunch of keys to which was attached a small penknife with its blade open. They immediately told him he was suspended from duty.
At a subsequent disciplinary hearing, McCusker denied he had made the scooping motions described by the inspectors and said he was sharpening a pencil. He also denied having seen the jammed £1 note while he was driving. But his evidence was rejected by the district traffic superintendent and he was dismissed.
The industrial tribunal was told that drivers were under instruction to radio for an inspector if money became jammed in the machine.
The tribunal said there were substantial grounds entitling the PTE to conclude that McCusker had been guilty of misconduct.