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After being a couple together for 5 years my partner decided to break up our relationship over Easter. This would also mean me losing my job as she employed me in her small company to help run it with her.
I think she expected me to just assume that the job would cease along with our relationship and I'd walk away. However due to reasons stated below this isn't going to happen and she has had to turn to an outside HR company to advise me of an upcoming disciplinary hearing where I would hear evidence of gross misconduct which will potentially end with me being dismissed.
The misconduct happened outside of the workplace over the Easter weekend when the police were called to our home a number of times and I was arrested for common assault against my partner and subsequently placed in a cell for 18 hours, I was later released on conditional bail which was later changed to released Under investigation with conditions ceasing.
The HR company told me that I couldn't attend the hearing in person (as my partner mistakenly believes that I can’t be within 200M of her, this isn’t the case) , and I had seven days to provide any mitigating evidence which would be considered on the 6th of June and a decision would be made by my partner who was heading up the investigation and a decision given to me within 5 days of the hearing.
I told the HR company that I wasn’t at all happy with the setup.
Firstly, how can the supposed victim be heading up the hearing? Plus not allowing me to attend was not fair and I also asked for additional time because of the extended weekend, they came back giving me an extra 2 days to gather documents, but didn’t address my other concerns.
I contacted them again and got a reply that now said the meeting would be remote and that my ex would not be present and that the hearing date had changed, but they omitted to tell me when this was.
A minute after the first email arrived, a second longer one came in and this was to offer me the idea of coming to a mutual agreement where there would be no need for a disciplinary hearing, basically I guess that means accept an offer and walk away and stay quiet.
My ex is/was a lovely woman, but incredibly daffy (her own words) when running her company. She can sell her product, but has no idea as to how HR works in a company, so there are no contracts, no employee handbook, though I am now on the books offically and I think her accountant has told her that there could be the potential for tribunals etc. if she thought she could just expect me to walk away, hence her using an outside HR company for the first time. A couple of years ago she had to dismiss a staff member for theft and that was done in 5 minutes with no outside help.
I’m really looking to find out what my rights are, although I accept that I won’t be working with her anymore, can I be dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct?
It was away from work, no customers or other employees saw this happen and the police have yet to formally finish their investigations.
I am now homeless, jobless and have lost all the contacts I had who had become friends and my mental health has deteriorated, to the extent that I’ve used crisis lines and I now have a mental health team helping me cope with this massive change to my life.
I can’t just walk away from this with the bare minimum as she has ruined my life and I want to make her realise that she has to face some consequences of what she has done to me. Can anyone offer me any further advice on where I stand, should I just resign before the hearing takes place and consider a case for constructive dismissal?
I can’t afford and don’t feel I should have a dismissal for Gross misconduct on my CV.
Below is how we got to this situation, but it’s a bit TLDR so you don’t have to as it doesn't add anything apart from context.
Very long story short, as well as living together we also worked together, for the first 3 years I wasn't on the books or paid, the company is a tiny food manufacturer and I felt that I could help make it stronger, by putting in a small amount of money for cashflow reasons and I was looking at it for both of us a long term commitment.
Just before Covid, her accountant suggested putting me on the books and paying me a minimal salary, which would help with my NI contributions as well as giving me "pocket money".
Last year believing that we were both committed to a long term relationship away from work we started to build a brand new home together.
This was not the best time to build a house, Covid, Brexit, supply prices going through the roof led to a lot of stress and her adult son 20 (mental age of a 10 year old) took it upon himself to start a campaign of hatred towards me, hoping that I would split with his mum.
Come March this year, the house was completed and we moved in and the campaign stepped up a gear, numerous items of mine disappeared and he'd deliberately block my car in and generally verbally abuse me (have been putting up with this for a year, with my partner promising to stop it, but refusing to actually do anything about it.)
For the previous year my partner's attitude to me was put up, shut up, or get out and any form of affection was not shown. I put it down to stress of running the business during covid (hit us hard), and building the house. Over the Easter weekend things took a turn for the worse when I confronted her son for blocking my car in yet again and it became quite heated, nothing physical, just childish swearing on his behalf, which wasn't unusual for him.
However he phoned his mum and she took his side and we ended up having a few massive rows. Here the ugly spectre of my mental health popped up and feeling disraught I threathened to kill myself if she wasn't prepared to help me and not kick me out of our house. Subsequently the police were called 3 times that weekend, twice to basically check that I was ok and not in immediate danger of harming myself, but the 3rd time was different, the son had called them after me and his mum were having another row about her lack of empathy and refusing to talk to me, I basically stood in front of her car so that she couldn't drive away (though there were numerous occasions when she could have).
Anyway I ended up being arrested for Common assault, my partner had suddenly said to a police officer that on the night of when the police were first called I had pushed her during an argument (I didn't and none of this was mentioned to me during the first 2 police interventions).
So I was kept in a cell for 18 hours, my keys to my house removed from my keyring and not given back and my partner instructing a solicitor to offer me compensation for the money I put into the house and a payment at a later time for the money I invested into the company, all for me signing over my rights to the house and removing my belongings.
So moving on a few weeks I have rejected that offer on the advice of a solicitor and asked her solicitor for my status as an employee of her company and as a creditor too.
I have literally lost everything now and I'm officially homeless, and will lose my job soon and if things were to take a turn for the worse I could get a criminal record too (though solicitors believe the case will eventually be dropped)
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