Suspension from work over 2 complaints received

[ULA]

Thanks for the update. Sounds like your research and preparation really helped the outcome.

[tickymicky]

These are the documents I used:- UK police on line.1 p.c.on the forum quotes this,"Threats can be calculated and pre-meditated,or said in the heat of the moment.The defendant does not have to have the intention (to kill), but there has to be an intent that the person the threat has been issued to would fear that it would be carried out. This can be a difficult offence to prove".

I also found another document,but can't remember where it came from on the internet.It states,Threatening behaviour is where a person intentionally puts another person in fear of imminent bodily injury.

I argued in my disciplinary that there was no threat of imminent bodily injury,and if the manager believes there was,then they need to go down the Public Order Act 1986, section 4,sub section 1A which mentions about "Immediate Unlawful Violence"against another person.Hence why the threatening bahaviour offence was dropped.

With regards to bringing the company into disrepute,I used a few documents from various solicitors, and an excerpt from a case study.

From:- Ask The Expert.Regarding facebook comments.This post was written by James Major and Emily knight, and published on Thomas Reuters accelus on 18th february 2015...."Unfortunately,there is no hard and fast rule as to what facebook posts concerning an employer would constitute grounds for disciplinary action and,as with all conduct issues principally,it will depend on the specific content and circumstances surrounding the employees post".

The next document I used was from www.clydeco.com....."The key issue is wether the content of the post relates to the employees work or employer"....I argued that it was neither, but that it was aimed at an employee other than myself.

Lastly I used an excerpt from Witham V Club 24. An employee was dismissed for a facebook comment which allegedly brought the company into disrepute.She took her employee to an Employment Tribunal and won.The tribunal stated this:- "The claimant wasn't complaining about volkswagen but about her working conditions and the people she was working with".....I suggested to the manager that if they replace the name volkswagen with the company name that I work for, and change the name Witham to my name,then it is the same scenario,but different names.The manager couldn't dispute it.

I argued that the post I made, did not contain any threats of violence to anyone, no imminent fear of bodily injury, no threats to cause injury at a later date etc, and as such there was no threatening behaviour.It was an off the cuff remark,that I should have worded better than it sounds.That was agreed by the manager as well.
I was expecting nothing greater than a 6 month warning for the content of the post .That is what I got.

[ULA]

Thank you for the details of the research documents you used. This will be useful to other people using the forum.