Employment Tribunal - witness

[Susan56]

Dear Forum,

Hope you are all well.

I have a tribunal coming up next year.
I am representing myself....

A chain of events happened and I was suspended, investigated and unfairly dismissed (in my opinion).

I need to request to have the investigation officer and other people employed by the company who were involved in the disciplinary process to be present to cross examine at the tribunal.


These people I want were not witnesses but a part of the process which should have found that I was unfairly dismissed. Under cross examination at court this will come out.
I will be able to prove lies and deceit as long as they are honest in court.

1. How do I request these people to be present at court as they are a necessity to prove my innocent to the case otherwise it would be deemed an unfair process.
I do not know the technical legal term for this and need help.
What if one of those people have moved on to another company? Who has to find them and get them present at court to cross examine?

I need to write to the other parties solicitor to request this.

I would be very grateful if anyone could provide any guidance please?

Also, do I need to write a witness statement for myself? I already put all my points in the investigation / meetings we had and in the document bundle for the tribunal.

Thank you all in advance!

S

[echat11]

Hi Susan56

You need to ask the Tribunal in writing (this is a pretty good guide), read page 5, make sure after you've written to them (the Tribunal) you get confirmation of their attendance.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...1/t425-eng.pdf

[Susan56]

Hi Susan56

You need to ask the Tribunal in writing (this is a pretty good guide), read page 5, make sure after you've written to them (the Tribunal) you get confirmation of their attendance.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...1/t425-eng.pdf

Hello ECHAT11

Thank you for your time.
I do not know where the witnesses live as they were employed by the company I worked for. What is the best process to move forward?

Should I just request their solicitor to make sure those witnesses are present as they are essential for the cross-examination process of the case?
Thanks in advance.

S

[echat11]

Hello ECHAT11

Thank you for your time.
I do not know where the witnesses live as they were employed by the company I worked for. What is the best process to move forward?

Should I just request their solicitor to make sure those witnesses are present as they are essential for the cross-examination process of the case?
Thanks in advance.

S

The process is on page 5, you need to write to the Tribunal with the information you have, add extra information like they were employed between such and such date. If you have a full name you can track their address down, lots of online resources. You need to follow the guidance.

[ULA]

The link provided is very useful for the process via the Tribunal to ensure that a reluctant witness appears at the hearing. However there are many practical actions you need to take first.

They need to be witnesses that have the ability to support the claims you are making, they will need to be prepared to write a witness statement which if they are your witness you will need to include as part of the hearing bundle. So the first action you need to do is to speak to them about whether they are prepared to be a witness. I appreciate you have also already stated that you to no know how to get hold of them other then potentially via the company.

The tribunal issuing a witness order is the last resort and part of your justification to try and get that order is to state why they are a "reluctant" witness and would not attend voluntarily. Unless you have tried to approach them to agree to be a witness, provide a statement and attend the hearing you would not be in a position to provide that information to the Tribunal. You also have to set out what that witness will say and why it is relevant to your case, without discussing with them being a witness, again you will not have the knowledge to know what they are going to say to support your case.

You say you need to ensure "... those witnesses are present as they are essential for the cross-examination process of the case?" You can only cross exam these individuals if they are witnesses for the respondent.

So you need to decide whether they are your witnesses, whose statement supports your claim or you rely on the respondent having them as witnesses and who can be cross-examined by you at the hearing based on their witness statements they have prepared for the respondent.

In regard to you producing a witness statement yes you will need to provide one. Witness statements are normally the last documents to be exchanged before the hearing.

[Susan56]

Hi, Thank you for all the replies.
We have a witness however the person is scared to put their name on a template and help as they are worried about the employers causing them trouble.

The employers are that bad that they will cause trouble.

Is there a way to get the witness to write a statement anonymously ? Will that count?

Basically, the employer are saying I left me post unattended. We asked them to backup the cctv as evidence and they didn't and let it expire... then said "ooops"

But we have a witness to say the post was not left unattended and they were covering however if they say that the employer will cause future hell for them (this is what they are like).

What can be done?

This one template will destroy the whole case.

Please could someone help.

Kind regards.

Susan56

[echat11]

I don't think that is possible, but the Witness (Witness Statement) on your behalf is protected against 'victimization' because they've appeared (or provided a Witness Statement) on your behalf.

All they need to do is keep a diary of incidents / harassment.

[ULA]

Anyone who writes a witness statement needs to go to the hearing to allow then to be asked questions by the Tribunal and to be cross-examined by the other party.

The tribunal will usually ignore a statement from someone who is not there, because of the fact they cannot ask questions about their statement. So a witness statement from someone cannot attend the hearing is not really of much help to you.

[Susan56]

Dear All,

Hope you are all well.
I need some more help here.

I the claimant have been working with the defences solicitor on the document bundle for tribunal.

We have found they have put in documetns and not notified us via email of these new documents going into the bundle.

Should the solicitors be doing this? Is it not wrong?

Whenever I wanted to add a document they would ask why we wanted and how we would address it in court yet with theirs... they put in new docs and not told us.

this is under handed and unfair.

Can the case be thrown out on this?
I know this is called disclosure of documents however are they allowed to sneak documents in and not clearly state they have?


Hopefully someone can help

Kind regards

Susan

[ULA]

You say you have been working on the bundle with the repondents solicitor, who is the "we" you are referring to in regard to finding newly added documents, given you are a litigant in person.

When did you agree the main bundle?

Is it because they have sent you a revised bundle that you have found the further documents? If so then yes they should ideally have provided you details of the additional documents that they have added into the updated bundle just in order for you to easily identify them.

I suggest you should email the respondent's solicitor and explain you believe additional document have been added and please can they identify exactly in the bundle they have been included and what is the relevance of their inclusion.

Not something that I believe you can ask for a strike out for.