Employers duty of care

[Pandaface]

I worked for 10 years for a local authority as a carer within a sheltered housing complex .
At the end of 2009 I was implicated in a fraud case involving an elderly customer and was subsequently arrested at my home and questioned by investigators before spending several hours in a police cell.
I was then released on police bail pending further investigation.
Next day I was suspended from work.
I was on bail for 10 weeks and it was only the day before I was due to answer bail that I was informed no further action would be taken
When my employee contacted me and asked me to return to work I just fell apart from the shock of what I had been through and spent a further three months off sick with work related stress .
I wanted to leave but wanted to show my innocence in this appealing accusation so I stuck the job out right up to my 10th year service .I couldn't bare the stress of the workplace any more and have now handed in my notice and will take early retirement at 55 from Jan 31st.
my employer failed in its duty of care to me as they neglected their policies on ensuring financial records were in place for each customer and they should have picked up discrepancies through their internal auditing systems.
I was thrown under the bus for their failings and have suffered so much psychological damage the experience haunts me.
I have to live with the fact that my Dna and fingerprints are now held on a police database when I did nothing wrong
My employer has also failed to fulfill my implied terms of employment contract by not arranging my training to nvq2 l in social care so I no have no formal qualification to take forward .
They have tried every trick in the book to make my working day as challenging as possible and if I didn't have bills to pay and a family to support I would have left a long time ago
I received no apology no explanation and no management were held accountable for their failings which put care staff such as myself in this position.
.

[Law Student 1]

Hello

In regards to what you have mentioned above, I can provide some information on the issues you have experienced:

You are correct in saying that your employer owes you a duty of care as employers have a moral and ethical duty not to cause, or fail to prevent, physical or psychological injury (ACAS guidelines). In addition, they should have the correct records in place and as they do not, which has caused you stress, you may be able to bring a claim for breach of duty of care.

It appears that you may also have a strong claim for breach of contract if the implied term was not fulfilled. However, the training that you were expecting must be an obvious term of the contract and something that 'goes without saying' for it to be classed as an implied term. Therefore, this may be more difficult to prove.

Did your employer support you at all throughout the proceedings?

You also mentioned that they are making your day as challenging as possible, what exactly are they doing to do this? It may be worth also considering a claim for unfair dismissal (constructive dismissal) as depending on their actions, you may be able to claim that you feel leaving the company is your only choice (as it seems to be the case).