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Below is my brother's case. But I dont know what court to proceed in whether it be as a Employment Tribunal or via MCOL or both?
A Partnership Agreement was agreed in August 2018 by myself the Claimant, Joshua, Claire and Kevin the Defendant.
The Claimant left the Portsmouth Tennis Centre extremely disgruntled as he was fed up with the treatment he received from the Defendant and his mental health was suffering due to this fact. The Claimant never resigned from the Partnership he was expelled by the Defendant and Claire Overton. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the Defendant could only offer the Claimant 19 hours a week and consequently couldn't pay him the £1,200 a month which is stipulated in the contract.
There is a clause in the contract which stipulates,
‘9.2 Once the accounts are drawn up in accordance with clause 9.1, the Partners shall approve the accounts and following such approval, the accounts shall be binding on each of the Partners’
The Claimant and Joshua have both stated that they gave no verbal or written approval of the year end accounts for both years ending 2019 and 2020. Nigel is the Business Partner and has accepted that the Defendant made the decision to approve the accounts (Y/E 2019) so they were binding on each of the Partners, without getting the approval of the Partners.
The Defendant was legally obliged to supply the accounts to the Partners so they could approve the accounts so they could be legally binding on them. This is serious malpractice and illegal. A clause in a contract such as this is there to make sure transparency prevails and to put it bluntly to stop corruption.
The Claimant and Josh have agreed that the Defendant had a lot of unauthorized holiday. The Claimant has stated that the Partners had to complete time sheets. If you dispute the holiday the Defendant took could you supply us with his time sheets.
Defendant’s Holiday according to the Claimant and Josh.
October 2018
November2018
2 weeks for Christmas
March 2019
April 2019
May 2019
2 weeks in July 2019
2 weeks in June 2019
2 weeks August 2019
He had a staggering 28 weeks off as holiday, no wonder he did not seek the approval of the Partners. During some of this time he had off, an extra coach had to come in to cover him. The Claimant assumes the money for the extra coach came from the Partnership as the Defendant never made any adjustment to his Drawings or Profit.
The Defendant is a partner and there is no exemption clause which states the Defendant is allowed more holiday than the rest of the partners. Profit and Loss Accounts show there was no adjustment made in his monthly drawings for the periods that he was away for. The clause I am referring to is;
'14 Each Partner shall be entitled to 3 weeks holiday in each calendar year...'
(c) no partner takes more than 10 consecutive working days' holiday without the prior consent of the Partners.'
It also describes a partner as;
'Partners: the parties to this agreement, so long as they remain partners and all other people who are or become parties to this agreement at any time.'
This is exactly the reason that the Defendant did not get the approval of the accounts from the Partners. If he had supplied the Profit and Loss account to the Partners he would not have got the approval from them as he violated clause 14.2. Then he went on and paid himself without making any adjustment to the money he illegally took out of the Partnership. This is a case of honour and greed. The Defendant has shown he has a lot of one and none of the other.
This is why breaching 9.2 is serious malpractice and illegal. This clause is to stop crooks doing whatever they want.
The Claimant and Joshua Barrett have stated they gave no written or verbal consent for the Defendant to take this amount of holiday. They certainly didn't know that the Defendant decided to pay himself his full drawings as the Profit and Loss Account was only supplied to the Claimant and Joshua in September 2020.On a lot of these holidays no one in the Partnership knew when the Defendant was coming back.
The Claimant has the opinion that the Defendant should have over only taken two weeks money for the time he took off as stipulated in the legal binding agreement. The honourable and fair thing to have done with the money taken by the Defendant would have been to have equally shared the money out between the partners, as they were honouring the agreement by working unlike the Defendant.
Clause 14 states,
'Any holiday taken in addition to the prescribed amount will result in a reduction to that partner's profit. The calculation of reduction will be agreed by the partners.'
The Claimant and Josh have stated there was no agreed reduction in the Defendant’s profit. Why was this condition not adhered to?
The Defendant had 28 weeks off, take 6 weeks off as holiday. The Defendant literally received 5 and a half month’s worth of money he was not entitled too. This equates to £16,500. Divide that by the 3 partners each should receive £5,500.
In the profit and loss account there are salaries and expenses which I now know has been taken out for two of the Reception team. The Claimant and Joshua Barrett have no idea they were paying for these two members of staff who actually work for Portsmouth Tennis Academy Limited. Which by chance is the Defendant's other business. The Claimant and Joshua Barrett did not give any verbal or written consent for such a leakage of money. Nor were they given the accounts so they could have contested these costs as the Defendant proceeded to sign off the accounts without the approval of the Partners. The salaries and wages are £8,250 in FY18/19 and £24,862 in FY19/20. The Claimant believes he is entitled to 16 percent of these costs and these costs should have been attributed to the Defendant’s other company Portsmouth Tennis Academy. They are the receptionists for the Portsmouth Tennis Academy and the Claimant and Joshua have stated their roles are with the Portsmouth Tennis Academy. They have very little to do with the Absolute Tennis Partnership. This is another reason why the Defendant did not get the approval of the Partners, to try and hide these costs.
There is no mention of any wages or salaries to be paid by the Partnership in the contract nor was there any amendment to the contract stating so. There was no meeting between the Partners to discuss who will be doing admin, how much time would be attributed to admin and how much will be coming out the Partnership account? Consequently, there was no verbal or written agreement among the Partners to let the Defendant distribute money in such a way.
To say they do admin for Absolute Tennis is absolute rubbish. The truth is that the Defendant passed this on as an expense to Absolute Tennis so the money never came out of Portsmouth Tennis Academy accounts. The Defendant collects all the proceeds from the Portsmouth Tennis Academy whereas he has to share with the Partners any profit that comes out of the Absolute Tennis accounts. It is just another Kevin Baker swindle. The facts are there to see.
Could we have the two names of the reception staff whose salaries were paid by Absolute Tennis. The Claimant nor Joshua have any idea who either one is. Could you please provide a detailed expense account from the accountant showing who these people are. The Claimant would contact the accountant on this matter but the accountant refused to deal with his requests when he was in the Partnership and so there is no point in contacting the accountant whether he was in or out of the Partnership.
The Defendant is enforcing clause 9.4 which basically states that Josh and the Claimant are not in the Partnership so they don't have to approve the accounts. There are two reasons why clause 9.4 shouldn't be enforced.
Firstly, a legal binding agreement doesn't work like this the Defendant can't freely choose to break clause 9.2 because it suits him ie the Defendant will approve the accounts himself to make them legally binding and then to say he is upholding clause 9.4 because it suits the Defendant's interests. Considering both clauses are in relation to the accounts one could interpret that the Defendant wants to approve the accounts himself.
Secondly the clause is highly unethical and is an unfair term in the Partnership agreement. A judge may argue that clause 9.2 should be upheld relating to this situation as the Claimant and Joshua were partners during that time period and the accounts are legally binding on them. A judge may rule that it is insignificant that they are not in Partnership now and this is just more of the Defendant abusing his position as Managing Partner.
Furthermore, the Defendant should be looking for their approval not like last time, in order to see if any of the Partners and former Partners want to raise any issues with the accounts. More importantly the Defendant can't be accused of not being transparent.
The Defendant took out £47,551 as drawings, £36,000 as stated in the agreement and £11,551 as profit I will assume. He was also carrying forward a profit of £9,601 whereas Josh, the Claimant and Claire were carrying forward losses of £587, £503 and £503. It baffles me how the Defendant was able to accrue £9,601 when he had 14 weeks off as unauthorised holiday and the Partners accrued losses. Please enlighten me.
The Claimant would ask the accountant himself for this information and for other information documented in this letter. In the past the accountant refused to deal with the Claimant when he previously requested information from him, when he was in the Partnership. The Claimant literally demanded the information from the accountant explaining to him that he was only one of four Partners and he had a duty to supply him with the information he requested. The accountant was uncooperative and unwavering in his protection of the Defendant by refusing the Claimant’s request, the accountant stated,
‘We take our instructions from the partners as a group, or from Kevin who holds a majority stake in the business.’
The Defendant had complete control. There is something seriously wrong when you own 16 percent of a company and you can’t contact the accountant for simple information. How do you act when you are left in total darkness? The Claimant can produce these emails if the court wishes them.
The Defendant had 28 weeks off and has accrued a profit of £21,152 this is one reason he had no intention of getting the approval on the 2020 year end accounts. Serious questions would have been asked and he wouldn’t have got the approval he needed. Further evidence is that he did it before he will easily do it again, he is enforcing clause 9.4 so he doesn’t have to get the approval of previous partners and he conveniently expelled Oliver so he can enforce clause 9.4. A judge is a highly intelligent and diligent person who will be able to see through the Defendant’s deception as do I.
The Claimant believes that the Defendant should be deducted 5 and a half months of the profit as this was the amount of unauthorised holiday the Defendant took. The Partnership had only been operating for 19 months.
Divide 21152 by 19 then multiply by 5.5. Gives you a total of;
£6,123 divided by 3 partners. The Claimant is entitled to £2041.
The Defendant is trying to stop the Claimant with this expulsion letter from working. The Claimant was not working down the PTC because of his mental health. The Claimant’s mental health was suffering due to the bullying received by the Defendant. The Defendant and Claire Overton expelled the Claimant from the Partnership. Now they are trying to stop Claimant’s freedom to work when the Defendant is guilty of serious malpractice and corruption.
Furthermore, how can the Defendant expect the Claimant to adhere to the clauses in the expulsion letter when the Defendant has blatantly ignored the terms and conditions in the legal binding agreement without facing any sort of reprisal. I have demonstrated this breach in this letter. A legal binding agreement does not work like this. You can’t pick and choose which clauses you want to implement based on whether it suits a certain person’s interests. If you do it's hypocritical that certain parties are forced to honour the agreement and others can do what they like, and no court would uphold these terms on this basis. I would happily argue the Defendant has abused his position as managing partner to suit his own interests showing complete disregard for the Partners he was bound to.
How can the Defendant try and uphold any clause over the Claimant baffles me. Considering the Claimant's money should have been 1200 pound a month. The Claimant was told that the Defendant couldn’t honour the £1200 a month and therefore he couldn't honour the agreement. How can you expect the Claimant to honour the agreement now you have expelled him when you couldn't honour the agreement when he was in the partnership.
If you persist with holding the Claimant to these unfair and unreasonable clauses as put in this expulsion letter. I will ask a judge for £14,400 pound as you are stopping the Claimant from working and moving on with his career. The £14,400 equates to 1200 pound for each month you hold the Claimant to these clauses. If you do not withdraw this pressure you will force my hand on continuing to get a court order for the payment of £14,400 as you are stopping the Claimant’s right to be able to work. Considering the Defendant has freely broken the legal binding agreement to suit his own interests, how you can enforce any such clauses is beyond me.
The Defendant coached his Partners since they were kids and has been there superior all of this time. The Claimant has been under his wing since he was 12 years old. He was his role model and trusted friend. The Defendant and his family came to my wedding as sit down guests. He has totally exploited all the partners to suit his own interests. The Defendant has completely changed as a person. He has become a bully, unapproachable, intimidating and uncompromising. He knowingly didn’t have a meeting seeking the approval of all of the Partners as he knew it was too risky as he would have faced a lot of difficult questions and wouldn’t get the approval he needed, to sign off the accounts to make them legally binding.
The Defendant was fully aware that no Partner would have come to him and said we need to approve the accounts because of his powerful position he held. He was the Claimant’s superior, mentor, Head Coach, Managing Partner and is a bully. He also leases the Portsmouth Tennis Centre of the Royal Navy so he has the power to stop certain people using the Portsmouth Tennis Centre. He was essentially all the Partners boss. I’ve stated numerous reasons why they didn’t go to the Defendant to approve the accounts but the truth is that the Defendant had a duty to supply the accounts to the Partners for their approval.
One other cost the Claimant is asking for the Defendant to pay for is the actual breach of 9.2 itself. The Defendant made the decision to approve the accounts so they were binding on each of the Partners. He has caused this entire mess, intentionally may I add, to deceive and defraud money from his partners. Causing the Claimant, a lot of anger and emotional distress. You have forced the Claimant to take legal action against you which has caused him a lot of anxiety. We would like you to offer the Claimant something for the reasons mentioned above.
The Claimant received his end of year profit on the 10th of September and it was only part of what he should have received. He received £1, 750 which he was delighted about as this is a lot of money to him but unknown to the Claimant, it was only part of what he should have been given and he was supplied with no documentation with this payment. He gave no verbal or written consent for the Defendant to keep the rest of his money in the business. This is another reason why the Defendant never showed the accounts to the partners for their approval. The Defendant liked to control everything even the partner's own profit they were entitled to. For this abuse of the Claimant's right to take out money which was his, we would like the £1,383 rewarded to Claimant as damages which is the rest of the money he should have been given.
For the Claimant and all of the Partners to choose to leave their profit in the business there should have been a formal meeting where minutes should have been taken. In this same meeting this would have been ideal for the approval from the Partners of the accounts. This meeting never took place informally or formally according to the Claimant and Josh Barratt.
The argument has been recently put to the Claimant that the money remained in the business as the accountants strongly advised not to distribute the full profit at the end of any Financial Year, because that would be poor practice by leaving virtually no funds in the bank. This was never put to the Claimant or Joshua as they never knew they were only receiving only part of the money they were entitled to.
Secondly this argument holds no truth as the Claimant was paid this money on the 10th of September 2019 and considering the end of the financial year ends in the beginning of April. There would have been money in the bank as the Partnership had been trading for another 5 months.
Plus, the Defendant decided to leave his profit share in of £12,583. So, there would have been plenty of cash at the bank. Also, the main expense is the Coaches but you only pay the Coaches if you have revenue coming in. The whole argument is flawed and nonsense. It’s just a poor excuse after the fact that the Defendant did not want to give the Partners the money they were entitled to.
Further evidence showing that the Claimant never knew he only received part of the profit was the fact that the Defendant knowingly never gave the Claimant the Absolute Tennis Notes to the Accounts. The Absolute Tennis Notes to the Accounts shows the profit of each partner. If he disputes the fact that the Claimant knew. Why didn’t he disclose this document to Oliver? There can only be one reasonable explanation why he kept this document from all of the Partners. So, they never had a choice of whether their money stayed in the business or not. The Claimant received the Absolute Tennis Notes to the Accounts in September 2020.
The Claimant has been bullied by the Defendant and is being continued to be bullied by the Defendant even when he is not in the Portsmouth Tennis Centre. One kind of bullying received from the Defendant is being totally isolated by the Defendant on all coaching decisions. On the one occasion the Defendant did approach the Welfare Officer and Business Manager to the Partnership about being isolated his response was to tell the Claimant this is the way the Defendant wants it. The Welfare Officer has admitted this in writing. The Welfare Officer chose to say nothing to the Defendant and swept it under the carpet. The Welfare is a close friend to the Defendant and even joined him on holiday.
Another kind of abuse was verbal abuse. The Defendant told the Claimant on numerous occasions in an aggressive and intimidating manner,
“I should have sacked you when I got back from America!”
This was only said to the Claimant to belittle and demean him with the intention of causing him psychological harm to make him quit as the Defendant couldn’t sack him as he never employed him.
During lockdown the Claimant was stripped of his key to the Tennis Centre and told he wasn’t ‘trusted’ by the Defendant. He had been there since he was 12 years old and suddenly, he can’t be trusted. It was purely said for the reason to try and bully the Defendant. While all other Partners were allowed to keep the keys and were freely able to use the facilities as they wished, the Claimant had to use the outdoor courts. The Defendant knew the Claimant had no access to a toilet and I can only assume he took great pleasure in knowing that the Claimant would have to find a bush or something to urinate or poo next to. Degrading the Claimant in such a way was unacceptable. The Defendant couldn’t have lunch inside like the Defendant and Claire (business partner) but had to have it out on the bench.
The Defendant also aggressively and intimidatingly refused the Claimant access to the Partnership tennis balls and in turn told him ‘he was on his own now’. This couldn’t be further from the truth as the Partnership was, and still alive. This is just the Defendant bullying the Claimant. The Defendant and Claire were allowed to use the tennis equipment and the Claimant had to buy his own equipment.
The Claimant was deducted 15 minutes of his drawings every week by the Defendant as it was impossible to make it to a tennis court on time. The Claimant has only recently found out that the Defendant had took as much holiday as he wanted and paid himself without making any adjustment to his drawings and year end profit. Every week the Defendant used to make the Claimant finish off group lessons while the Defendant used to say to the Claimant I can’t be ‘bothered’ and leave early. The Claimant now knows that the Defendant used to pay himself in full while he held the Claimant to ransom on any time he missed.
The Defendant told the Claimant his lessons he taught were ‘shocking’. The Defendant told the Claimant this in an aggressive and intimidating manner. The Defendant took his role as mentor to tormentor. The Defendant’s only intent was to degrade Oliver.
After the Claimant left due to his mental health and couldn’t bring himself to go back in the PTC, he was expelled from the Partnership. The Defendant and Claire were aware he was off due to his mental health but expelled him regardless. What would have been the classy thing to do would have not expelled him but to let him have as much time off as he needed to recover. The Defendant and Claire could have also offered to buy him out but it was easier to expel him and the Defendant had wanted the Claimant out for a long time.
The Defendant also has made it clear in his expulsion letter that he had to adhere to certain clauses. One such clause is that the Claimant can’t work within 20 miles of the PTC for a year. Is this some sort of joke? The Defendant expels him when he is suffering with his mental health due to being bullied by the Defendant and then tells him this. The Claimant lives 2 miles from the PTC and has bills to pay and a family to support. This is the Defendant using the contract he freely broke to try and bully the Claimant.
The Defendant used the Claimant as a scapegoat for losing tennis players. The Defendant took unauthorized holiday when he wanted and for how long he wanted. The Claimant just carried out the program the Defendant set. If anyone is to blame it’s the Defendant as he set the program and he should have been here, as he is the Managing Partner.
To put the Defendant’s failures on the Claimant is unfair and to do it on numerous occasions in his usual bullish aggressive intimidating fashion. Which can only be described as to shame and demean the Claimant as a person and a tennis coach was completely out of order. Putting unfair blame on the Claimant caused him serious distress which he took home with him. The Defendant should be ashamed and man up to his own failures.
When the Claimant did try and stick up for himself, the Defendant told him in to shut up and not to argue with him. He also demoted the Claimant for no other reason than to harm the Claimant and told him ‘whatever Claire wants just do it’.
The Claimant offered to help off the court but the Defendant said, ‘your rubbish at it so I don’t need you’. He then went onto making a stinging unprovoked verbal attack on the Claimant saying to him, ‘you will never be Head Coach and you haven’t got the tools.’ This sudden outburst was just the Defendant being nasty and trying to break him.
For the Claimant to receive his 1200 pound a month he needed to work 25 hours. The Defendant offered him 19 hours and told the Claimant, ‘if he doesn’t like it, he will give the 19 hours to someone else.’
The Claimant is now depressed and receiving help from the doctor. The Claimant fully holds the Defendant responsible for this decline in his mental health due to the treatment received from the Defendant.
A Partnership Agreement was agreed in August 2018 by myself the Claimant, Joshua, Claire and Kevin the Defendant.
The Claimant left the Portsmouth Tennis Centre extremely disgruntled as he was fed up with the treatment he received from the Defendant and his mental health was suffering due to this fact. The Claimant never resigned from the Partnership he was expelled by the Defendant and Claire Overton. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the Defendant could only offer the Claimant 19 hours a week and consequently couldn't pay him the £1,200 a month which is stipulated in the contract.
There is a clause in the contract which stipulates,
‘9.2 Once the accounts are drawn up in accordance with clause 9.1, the Partners shall approve the accounts and following such approval, the accounts shall be binding on each of the Partners’
The Claimant and Joshua have both stated that they gave no verbal or written approval of the year end accounts for both years ending 2019 and 2020. Nigel is the Business Partner and has accepted that the Defendant made the decision to approve the accounts (Y/E 2019) so they were binding on each of the Partners, without getting the approval of the Partners.
The Defendant was legally obliged to supply the accounts to the Partners so they could approve the accounts so they could be legally binding on them. This is serious malpractice and illegal. A clause in a contract such as this is there to make sure transparency prevails and to put it bluntly to stop corruption.
The Claimant and Josh have agreed that the Defendant had a lot of unauthorized holiday. The Claimant has stated that the Partners had to complete time sheets. If you dispute the holiday the Defendant took could you supply us with his time sheets.
Defendant’s Holiday according to the Claimant and Josh.
October 2018
November2018
2 weeks for Christmas
March 2019
April 2019
May 2019
2 weeks in July 2019
2 weeks in June 2019
2 weeks August 2019
He had a staggering 28 weeks off as holiday, no wonder he did not seek the approval of the Partners. During some of this time he had off, an extra coach had to come in to cover him. The Claimant assumes the money for the extra coach came from the Partnership as the Defendant never made any adjustment to his Drawings or Profit.
The Defendant is a partner and there is no exemption clause which states the Defendant is allowed more holiday than the rest of the partners. Profit and Loss Accounts show there was no adjustment made in his monthly drawings for the periods that he was away for. The clause I am referring to is;
'14 Each Partner shall be entitled to 3 weeks holiday in each calendar year...'
(c) no partner takes more than 10 consecutive working days' holiday without the prior consent of the Partners.'
It also describes a partner as;
'Partners: the parties to this agreement, so long as they remain partners and all other people who are or become parties to this agreement at any time.'
This is exactly the reason that the Defendant did not get the approval of the accounts from the Partners. If he had supplied the Profit and Loss account to the Partners he would not have got the approval from them as he violated clause 14.2. Then he went on and paid himself without making any adjustment to the money he illegally took out of the Partnership. This is a case of honour and greed. The Defendant has shown he has a lot of one and none of the other.
This is why breaching 9.2 is serious malpractice and illegal. This clause is to stop crooks doing whatever they want.
The Claimant and Joshua Barrett have stated they gave no written or verbal consent for the Defendant to take this amount of holiday. They certainly didn't know that the Defendant decided to pay himself his full drawings as the Profit and Loss Account was only supplied to the Claimant and Joshua in September 2020.On a lot of these holidays no one in the Partnership knew when the Defendant was coming back.
The Claimant has the opinion that the Defendant should have over only taken two weeks money for the time he took off as stipulated in the legal binding agreement. The honourable and fair thing to have done with the money taken by the Defendant would have been to have equally shared the money out between the partners, as they were honouring the agreement by working unlike the Defendant.
Clause 14 states,
'Any holiday taken in addition to the prescribed amount will result in a reduction to that partner's profit. The calculation of reduction will be agreed by the partners.'
The Claimant and Josh have stated there was no agreed reduction in the Defendant’s profit. Why was this condition not adhered to?
The Defendant had 28 weeks off, take 6 weeks off as holiday. The Defendant literally received 5 and a half month’s worth of money he was not entitled too. This equates to £16,500. Divide that by the 3 partners each should receive £5,500.
In the profit and loss account there are salaries and expenses which I now know has been taken out for two of the Reception team. The Claimant and Joshua Barrett have no idea they were paying for these two members of staff who actually work for Portsmouth Tennis Academy Limited. Which by chance is the Defendant's other business. The Claimant and Joshua Barrett did not give any verbal or written consent for such a leakage of money. Nor were they given the accounts so they could have contested these costs as the Defendant proceeded to sign off the accounts without the approval of the Partners. The salaries and wages are £8,250 in FY18/19 and £24,862 in FY19/20. The Claimant believes he is entitled to 16 percent of these costs and these costs should have been attributed to the Defendant’s other company Portsmouth Tennis Academy. They are the receptionists for the Portsmouth Tennis Academy and the Claimant and Joshua have stated their roles are with the Portsmouth Tennis Academy. They have very little to do with the Absolute Tennis Partnership. This is another reason why the Defendant did not get the approval of the Partners, to try and hide these costs.
There is no mention of any wages or salaries to be paid by the Partnership in the contract nor was there any amendment to the contract stating so. There was no meeting between the Partners to discuss who will be doing admin, how much time would be attributed to admin and how much will be coming out the Partnership account? Consequently, there was no verbal or written agreement among the Partners to let the Defendant distribute money in such a way.
To say they do admin for Absolute Tennis is absolute rubbish. The truth is that the Defendant passed this on as an expense to Absolute Tennis so the money never came out of Portsmouth Tennis Academy accounts. The Defendant collects all the proceeds from the Portsmouth Tennis Academy whereas he has to share with the Partners any profit that comes out of the Absolute Tennis accounts. It is just another Kevin Baker swindle. The facts are there to see.
Could we have the two names of the reception staff whose salaries were paid by Absolute Tennis. The Claimant nor Joshua have any idea who either one is. Could you please provide a detailed expense account from the accountant showing who these people are. The Claimant would contact the accountant on this matter but the accountant refused to deal with his requests when he was in the Partnership and so there is no point in contacting the accountant whether he was in or out of the Partnership.
The Defendant is enforcing clause 9.4 which basically states that Josh and the Claimant are not in the Partnership so they don't have to approve the accounts. There are two reasons why clause 9.4 shouldn't be enforced.
Firstly, a legal binding agreement doesn't work like this the Defendant can't freely choose to break clause 9.2 because it suits him ie the Defendant will approve the accounts himself to make them legally binding and then to say he is upholding clause 9.4 because it suits the Defendant's interests. Considering both clauses are in relation to the accounts one could interpret that the Defendant wants to approve the accounts himself.
Secondly the clause is highly unethical and is an unfair term in the Partnership agreement. A judge may argue that clause 9.2 should be upheld relating to this situation as the Claimant and Joshua were partners during that time period and the accounts are legally binding on them. A judge may rule that it is insignificant that they are not in Partnership now and this is just more of the Defendant abusing his position as Managing Partner.
Furthermore, the Defendant should be looking for their approval not like last time, in order to see if any of the Partners and former Partners want to raise any issues with the accounts. More importantly the Defendant can't be accused of not being transparent.
The Defendant took out £47,551 as drawings, £36,000 as stated in the agreement and £11,551 as profit I will assume. He was also carrying forward a profit of £9,601 whereas Josh, the Claimant and Claire were carrying forward losses of £587, £503 and £503. It baffles me how the Defendant was able to accrue £9,601 when he had 14 weeks off as unauthorised holiday and the Partners accrued losses. Please enlighten me.
The Claimant would ask the accountant himself for this information and for other information documented in this letter. In the past the accountant refused to deal with the Claimant when he previously requested information from him, when he was in the Partnership. The Claimant literally demanded the information from the accountant explaining to him that he was only one of four Partners and he had a duty to supply him with the information he requested. The accountant was uncooperative and unwavering in his protection of the Defendant by refusing the Claimant’s request, the accountant stated,
‘We take our instructions from the partners as a group, or from Kevin who holds a majority stake in the business.’
The Defendant had complete control. There is something seriously wrong when you own 16 percent of a company and you can’t contact the accountant for simple information. How do you act when you are left in total darkness? The Claimant can produce these emails if the court wishes them.
The Defendant had 28 weeks off and has accrued a profit of £21,152 this is one reason he had no intention of getting the approval on the 2020 year end accounts. Serious questions would have been asked and he wouldn’t have got the approval he needed. Further evidence is that he did it before he will easily do it again, he is enforcing clause 9.4 so he doesn’t have to get the approval of previous partners and he conveniently expelled Oliver so he can enforce clause 9.4. A judge is a highly intelligent and diligent person who will be able to see through the Defendant’s deception as do I.
The Claimant believes that the Defendant should be deducted 5 and a half months of the profit as this was the amount of unauthorised holiday the Defendant took. The Partnership had only been operating for 19 months.
Divide 21152 by 19 then multiply by 5.5. Gives you a total of;
£6,123 divided by 3 partners. The Claimant is entitled to £2041.
The Defendant is trying to stop the Claimant with this expulsion letter from working. The Claimant was not working down the PTC because of his mental health. The Claimant’s mental health was suffering due to the bullying received by the Defendant. The Defendant and Claire Overton expelled the Claimant from the Partnership. Now they are trying to stop Claimant’s freedom to work when the Defendant is guilty of serious malpractice and corruption.
Furthermore, how can the Defendant expect the Claimant to adhere to the clauses in the expulsion letter when the Defendant has blatantly ignored the terms and conditions in the legal binding agreement without facing any sort of reprisal. I have demonstrated this breach in this letter. A legal binding agreement does not work like this. You can’t pick and choose which clauses you want to implement based on whether it suits a certain person’s interests. If you do it's hypocritical that certain parties are forced to honour the agreement and others can do what they like, and no court would uphold these terms on this basis. I would happily argue the Defendant has abused his position as managing partner to suit his own interests showing complete disregard for the Partners he was bound to.
How can the Defendant try and uphold any clause over the Claimant baffles me. Considering the Claimant's money should have been 1200 pound a month. The Claimant was told that the Defendant couldn’t honour the £1200 a month and therefore he couldn't honour the agreement. How can you expect the Claimant to honour the agreement now you have expelled him when you couldn't honour the agreement when he was in the partnership.
If you persist with holding the Claimant to these unfair and unreasonable clauses as put in this expulsion letter. I will ask a judge for £14,400 pound as you are stopping the Claimant from working and moving on with his career. The £14,400 equates to 1200 pound for each month you hold the Claimant to these clauses. If you do not withdraw this pressure you will force my hand on continuing to get a court order for the payment of £14,400 as you are stopping the Claimant’s right to be able to work. Considering the Defendant has freely broken the legal binding agreement to suit his own interests, how you can enforce any such clauses is beyond me.
The Defendant coached his Partners since they were kids and has been there superior all of this time. The Claimant has been under his wing since he was 12 years old. He was his role model and trusted friend. The Defendant and his family came to my wedding as sit down guests. He has totally exploited all the partners to suit his own interests. The Defendant has completely changed as a person. He has become a bully, unapproachable, intimidating and uncompromising. He knowingly didn’t have a meeting seeking the approval of all of the Partners as he knew it was too risky as he would have faced a lot of difficult questions and wouldn’t get the approval he needed, to sign off the accounts to make them legally binding.
The Defendant was fully aware that no Partner would have come to him and said we need to approve the accounts because of his powerful position he held. He was the Claimant’s superior, mentor, Head Coach, Managing Partner and is a bully. He also leases the Portsmouth Tennis Centre of the Royal Navy so he has the power to stop certain people using the Portsmouth Tennis Centre. He was essentially all the Partners boss. I’ve stated numerous reasons why they didn’t go to the Defendant to approve the accounts but the truth is that the Defendant had a duty to supply the accounts to the Partners for their approval.
One other cost the Claimant is asking for the Defendant to pay for is the actual breach of 9.2 itself. The Defendant made the decision to approve the accounts so they were binding on each of the Partners. He has caused this entire mess, intentionally may I add, to deceive and defraud money from his partners. Causing the Claimant, a lot of anger and emotional distress. You have forced the Claimant to take legal action against you which has caused him a lot of anxiety. We would like you to offer the Claimant something for the reasons mentioned above.
The Claimant received his end of year profit on the 10th of September and it was only part of what he should have received. He received £1, 750 which he was delighted about as this is a lot of money to him but unknown to the Claimant, it was only part of what he should have been given and he was supplied with no documentation with this payment. He gave no verbal or written consent for the Defendant to keep the rest of his money in the business. This is another reason why the Defendant never showed the accounts to the partners for their approval. The Defendant liked to control everything even the partner's own profit they were entitled to. For this abuse of the Claimant's right to take out money which was his, we would like the £1,383 rewarded to Claimant as damages which is the rest of the money he should have been given.
For the Claimant and all of the Partners to choose to leave their profit in the business there should have been a formal meeting where minutes should have been taken. In this same meeting this would have been ideal for the approval from the Partners of the accounts. This meeting never took place informally or formally according to the Claimant and Josh Barratt.
The argument has been recently put to the Claimant that the money remained in the business as the accountants strongly advised not to distribute the full profit at the end of any Financial Year, because that would be poor practice by leaving virtually no funds in the bank. This was never put to the Claimant or Joshua as they never knew they were only receiving only part of the money they were entitled to.
Secondly this argument holds no truth as the Claimant was paid this money on the 10th of September 2019 and considering the end of the financial year ends in the beginning of April. There would have been money in the bank as the Partnership had been trading for another 5 months.
Plus, the Defendant decided to leave his profit share in of £12,583. So, there would have been plenty of cash at the bank. Also, the main expense is the Coaches but you only pay the Coaches if you have revenue coming in. The whole argument is flawed and nonsense. It’s just a poor excuse after the fact that the Defendant did not want to give the Partners the money they were entitled to.
Further evidence showing that the Claimant never knew he only received part of the profit was the fact that the Defendant knowingly never gave the Claimant the Absolute Tennis Notes to the Accounts. The Absolute Tennis Notes to the Accounts shows the profit of each partner. If he disputes the fact that the Claimant knew. Why didn’t he disclose this document to Oliver? There can only be one reasonable explanation why he kept this document from all of the Partners. So, they never had a choice of whether their money stayed in the business or not. The Claimant received the Absolute Tennis Notes to the Accounts in September 2020.
The Claimant has been bullied by the Defendant and is being continued to be bullied by the Defendant even when he is not in the Portsmouth Tennis Centre. One kind of bullying received from the Defendant is being totally isolated by the Defendant on all coaching decisions. On the one occasion the Defendant did approach the Welfare Officer and Business Manager to the Partnership about being isolated his response was to tell the Claimant this is the way the Defendant wants it. The Welfare Officer has admitted this in writing. The Welfare Officer chose to say nothing to the Defendant and swept it under the carpet. The Welfare is a close friend to the Defendant and even joined him on holiday.
Another kind of abuse was verbal abuse. The Defendant told the Claimant on numerous occasions in an aggressive and intimidating manner,
“I should have sacked you when I got back from America!”
This was only said to the Claimant to belittle and demean him with the intention of causing him psychological harm to make him quit as the Defendant couldn’t sack him as he never employed him.
During lockdown the Claimant was stripped of his key to the Tennis Centre and told he wasn’t ‘trusted’ by the Defendant. He had been there since he was 12 years old and suddenly, he can’t be trusted. It was purely said for the reason to try and bully the Defendant. While all other Partners were allowed to keep the keys and were freely able to use the facilities as they wished, the Claimant had to use the outdoor courts. The Defendant knew the Claimant had no access to a toilet and I can only assume he took great pleasure in knowing that the Claimant would have to find a bush or something to urinate or poo next to. Degrading the Claimant in such a way was unacceptable. The Defendant couldn’t have lunch inside like the Defendant and Claire (business partner) but had to have it out on the bench.
The Defendant also aggressively and intimidatingly refused the Claimant access to the Partnership tennis balls and in turn told him ‘he was on his own now’. This couldn’t be further from the truth as the Partnership was, and still alive. This is just the Defendant bullying the Claimant. The Defendant and Claire were allowed to use the tennis equipment and the Claimant had to buy his own equipment.
The Claimant was deducted 15 minutes of his drawings every week by the Defendant as it was impossible to make it to a tennis court on time. The Claimant has only recently found out that the Defendant had took as much holiday as he wanted and paid himself without making any adjustment to his drawings and year end profit. Every week the Defendant used to make the Claimant finish off group lessons while the Defendant used to say to the Claimant I can’t be ‘bothered’ and leave early. The Claimant now knows that the Defendant used to pay himself in full while he held the Claimant to ransom on any time he missed.
The Defendant told the Claimant his lessons he taught were ‘shocking’. The Defendant told the Claimant this in an aggressive and intimidating manner. The Defendant took his role as mentor to tormentor. The Defendant’s only intent was to degrade Oliver.
After the Claimant left due to his mental health and couldn’t bring himself to go back in the PTC, he was expelled from the Partnership. The Defendant and Claire were aware he was off due to his mental health but expelled him regardless. What would have been the classy thing to do would have not expelled him but to let him have as much time off as he needed to recover. The Defendant and Claire could have also offered to buy him out but it was easier to expel him and the Defendant had wanted the Claimant out for a long time.
The Defendant also has made it clear in his expulsion letter that he had to adhere to certain clauses. One such clause is that the Claimant can’t work within 20 miles of the PTC for a year. Is this some sort of joke? The Defendant expels him when he is suffering with his mental health due to being bullied by the Defendant and then tells him this. The Claimant lives 2 miles from the PTC and has bills to pay and a family to support. This is the Defendant using the contract he freely broke to try and bully the Claimant.
The Defendant used the Claimant as a scapegoat for losing tennis players. The Defendant took unauthorized holiday when he wanted and for how long he wanted. The Claimant just carried out the program the Defendant set. If anyone is to blame it’s the Defendant as he set the program and he should have been here, as he is the Managing Partner.
To put the Defendant’s failures on the Claimant is unfair and to do it on numerous occasions in his usual bullish aggressive intimidating fashion. Which can only be described as to shame and demean the Claimant as a person and a tennis coach was completely out of order. Putting unfair blame on the Claimant caused him serious distress which he took home with him. The Defendant should be ashamed and man up to his own failures.
When the Claimant did try and stick up for himself, the Defendant told him in to shut up and not to argue with him. He also demoted the Claimant for no other reason than to harm the Claimant and told him ‘whatever Claire wants just do it’.
The Claimant offered to help off the court but the Defendant said, ‘your rubbish at it so I don’t need you’. He then went onto making a stinging unprovoked verbal attack on the Claimant saying to him, ‘you will never be Head Coach and you haven’t got the tools.’ This sudden outburst was just the Defendant being nasty and trying to break him.
For the Claimant to receive his 1200 pound a month he needed to work 25 hours. The Defendant offered him 19 hours and told the Claimant, ‘if he doesn’t like it, he will give the 19 hours to someone else.’
The Claimant is now depressed and receiving help from the doctor. The Claimant fully holds the Defendant responsible for this decline in his mental health due to the treatment received from the Defendant.
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