- Target:
- Theresa May Home Secretary
- Region:
- United Kingdom
My husband was an Immigration Officer based in Paris. In 2010 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My husband supported me throughout my treatment. He applied for leave to travel with me to the UK for surgery.
He was told by his line manager that he should take time off to resolve the immediate problems and to keep in touch. My husband intended returning to work, but was instead suspended and accused of going AWOL (for 2 days), and being dishonest over my breast cancer. In fact they said I did NOT have breast cancer.
After months of investigation this was upheld by the investigating officer, and my husband was dismissed. We were evicted from the property provided by the Home Office, just a few short months after the end of my treatment. It was an intensely harrowing time for us all, we all suffered emotionally including our son. We then lost our home in the UK as we could not pay the mortgage.My husband was very ill with depression. We took the matter to tribunal which cost us the last of our money, and apparently the wrong issues were argued.
The Home Office admitted they had been wrong to believe that it was untrue about my breast cancer and accepted that my husband had not been dishonest. The judge's verdict was that the Home Office genuinely had believed that my husband was lieing and upheld the dismissal. Everyone was astounded at the result.
Our barrister said afterwards, well you didn't expect one government department to award 500,000 against another government department did you? This is not justice, this is evidence of a closed shop and the old boy network still going strong, no matter what cost to the individual, we cannot be the only ones being penalised in this way!
We the undersigned are calling for fairer employment tribunals, with a level playing field. Particularly with regard to access to all Employment Tribunal Judges and Benchmens notes relating to cases.
We need a note taker in court whose notes are accessible to both parties. A more accessible, user friendly and flexible EAT system. At the present time there is no access to any notes made by the Judge or Benchmen, which makes it very difficult to make an appeal to the EAT as "an appeal must be on a point of law, i.e. it must identify flaws in the legal reasoning of the original decision".
Experience shows that events in court are not recorded in summing up and conclusion and cannot be verified, or used at EAT process.
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The Home Office Employee Injustice petition to Theresa May Home Secretary was written by Anne Smith and is in the category Employment at GoPetition.