Anger as killer takes Royal Mail to tribunal... for sacking

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/An ... 6663973.jp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The father of murdered Paula Poolton has condemned her killer after he launched legal action against the Royal Mail - for sacking him.
Roger Kearney was convicted of killing his 40-year-old lover and sentenced to life in prison.

But the 57-year-old yesterday took a case to an employment tribunal claiming £8,225 in lost earnings.

Kearney says the Royal Mail breached his human rights by sacking him in January - before he was found guilty of murder in June.

Paula's father, Phil Cross, of Spring Road in Sarisbury Green, said: 'If he gets away with this it's a miscarriage of justice of some sort.

'My feelings about him haven't changed - I hope he rots in jail.

'He doesn't deserve a penny from this and he shouldn't be able to keep his pension or anything else.

'I can't understand why he's doing this, maybe he's just trying to keep himself in the limelight for some reason.'

Kearney, formerly of Painswick Close, Sarisbury Green, was represented at the tribunal in Reading, Berkshire, by his daughter.

In a statement, Kearney said: 'I believe Royal Mail decided that I was guilty of the crime and wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible.

'If Royal Mail felt that they could no longer trust me, they must have believed that the allegations against me were true and after 34 years of loyal service, a clear conduct record and no previous convictions, I am extremely disappointed that they came to this conclusion as it had no affect on my ability to perform my job and is a clear breach of my human rights.'

Royal Mail denies Kearney was unlawfully dismissed.

Southampton Mail Centre manager Keith Finch said he sacked Kearney because he felt there could be a 'risk' to the public because the murder of Ms Poolton, from Titchfield Common, was 'particularly violent'.

She had been stabbed several times and her body dumped in the boot of her car near Swanwick railway station in October 2008.

He said Kearney was also on bail and unable to enter Hampshire at the time.

Chairman of the tribunal Raymond Trickey reversed judgment in the case until January 19 and adjourned the hearing.

[norbert]

http://ukemployerlawyer.blogspot.com/20 ... istic.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

" Whilst one cannot help but wonder whether there is more to this than meets the eye, at face value this does not seem to be the strongest case ever to be presented to an Employment Tribunal."

" It is not clear from the report whether Royal Mail are deploying the alternative argument that the Claimant was not dismissed but instead the contract ended through "frustration." This is when the contract becomes impossible to perform because of an act outside the control of the parties, such as one of them being sent to prison (which is of course in one sense within the Claimant's control, but ultimately is something imposed on him from without by the state.) Tribunals are not keen on the concept of frustration because it ends the contract without the employee being entitled to legal rights like notice and written reasons but if there was ever a case where it might be said to apply then this is surely it. "

http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/ro ... ntract.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

" Frustration of a Contract

Frustration of a contract occurs when a contract becomes impossible to perform, or is capable of performance only in a manner substantially different from that originally envisaged. Under these circumstances and in the absence of any express provision by the parties to the contract, further performance is excused under the common law doctrine of frustration.

You will often find in contracts ‘force majeure’ provisions which essentially set out the circumstances in which a party to a contract can be excused from performing its contractual obligations, if performance is hindered or made impossible by circumstances beyond that party’s reasonable control.

In many foreign contracts a party will be automatically excused performance of the contract if a force majeure factor exists. There is no such automatic right under English law and therefore if there is no force majeure provisions in the contract then the common law doctrine of ‘frustration’ of the contract may still apply.

Reliance on this doctrine may be in neither party’s interests, for a number of reasons:

(a) The doctrine of frustration only operates where the frustrating circumstances are not due to the fault of either party. However, it does not follow that in all contracts any act of negligence will deprive a party of the defence of frustration.

(b) If the contract is frustrated, a party may still be entitled to compensation for work that it has undertaken prior to the termination, and to retain any payments previously made under the contract.

(c) Termination of the contract may not be in either party’s interests. They may prefer the contract merely to be suspended for the duration of the frustrating event. Also to mitigate ones loss it would be sensible to take this approach.

(d) Because there is no definite list of frustrating events, and since the doctrine has developed on a case-by-case basis, it is not always possible for a party to know whether an event would be considered by the court to be a frustrating event!

Michael Coyle "

We used to get this with another union , they used a thing called redumption ? of contract ....the gist was you're not in a position to fulfill your contract at present ...so therefore you have effectively sacked yourself ...you'd get staff with injuries or serious illnesses being phoned up by AM's and told you will go back to work on Monday or we'll sack you so then .......because the " modernised " negotiation machinery had been so weakened , staff rep ...profit centre rep ....he or she would have to get the Union's paid Area Organiser in and then and only then would that manager back off . The other one was let us sack you ....you'll get your benefits



He may just win on a technicality ( s ) ....but I'm afraid RM have brought all this on themselves as had they done it properly he'd have gone quietly ...it possibly sounds contradictory ...one minute it's standards then it's gross misconduct & then it's frustration ....shock horror http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -LOSS.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; it's got 'em frothing at the mouth here