Driver did not report crash
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• A Manchester Industrial
Tribunal has A, rejected a claim for reinstatement by van driver Graham Tolley after he was sacked by Home Express Network because it believed he had been involved in an accident which he had failed to report.
Tolley had claimed that his summary dismissal for misconduct was unfair.
For the company, Richard Bradley said Tolley had reversed a company van into a car belonging to a parked car in Netherton and drove away without informing anyone. The company considered this had damaged its reputation and amounted to gross misconduct.
An investigation was carried out and witnesses said that after the accident Tolley got out of his vehicle, looked at the damage, and drove away.
When faced with the witness
es' allegations Tolley had said that if there had been an accident he was not aware of it.
The company preferred the evidence of the two witnesses, because they had given a full description of Tolley, of his vehicle and of the clothes he had been wearing, and because the damage to the two vehicles was consistent with the story they gave.
The Tribunal said there were ample grounds for the company to decide that it preferred the evidence of the witnesses to Tolley's denial.
This meant Tolley was not only guilty of breaches of the rules of his employment, and also possibly of a criminal offence, but also of conduct which damaged the reputation of the company—and that was grounds for dismissal for gross misconduct.
Tolley accepted that it was part of the rules of his employment that he could be dismissed if he failed to report an accident.