Misconduct meeting despite resignation

[Guest]

Good morning

Please can you help?

My daughter, a police civilian employee with 11.5 years service was in May charged with misconduct. The allegation is that as a front line 101 adviser, her conduct in her own home towards a fellow civilian employee renders my daughter unfit for her employment. At the root of this is that two police officers assured us that an incident in February was being looked at as assault on my daughter and public order on me, the civilian investigator insisted the incident was civil and nothing to do with the police and no charges were brought. My daughter vented on Facebook (took her comment down a long time ago) that the police had let her down again. After the decision to bring no charges, the assailant pursued a harassment campaign against my daughter and is to go to trial in January on Section 4a Public Order act.

The protracted and on-going misconduct procedure, together with comments made by the civilian investigator that she is not fit to do her job and was the cause of the February incident made my daughter ill. She is diagnosed with stress, anxiety and depression, which she feels would not have happened had her employer actioned her request at the end of June to allow her to temporarily be transferred to another department.

Her GP advised that she has known patients never recover in this kind of situation and that my daughter could best help herself by walking away and looking for employment elsewhere. So my daughter resigned on 29 November (had to give 4 weeks notice).
Yesterday she was informed by email that the misconduct meeting is to go ahead as planned on 4 December. My daughter does not want to attend; she is probably not well enough in any case to attend. Her Unison representative essentially says that she MUST attend, that "they" will take her non attendance very seriously. My daughter has already sent a full statement controverting the employer's evidence.

Given that she has already resigned and the worse they can do is sack her, for which she would have to be given 11 weeks notice, can she be sacked when she has already resigned?

How is she likely to compromise herself by non-attendance at the meeting?

Given that HR have previously told her Unison rep that if she resigns, any reference will say "resigned pending misconduct" but have now told my daughter any reference will simply say "resigned", what should she expect if the meeting (one person only to decide the outcome) finds her guilty since it seems unreasonable to expect that any comment on a reference would be restricted to "resigned".

Given that her health is wrecked by the allegations and although on the face of it she may have a case for constructive dismissal, she just wants a peaceful life back; she really does not want the unwelcome intrusion into her life that would be expected from a tribunal.

Any advice please? Thank you.

[Kati]

Re: Misconduct meeting despite resignation

[MENTION=26290]mariefab[/MENTION]??

[mariefab]

Re: Misconduct meeting despite resignation

Your daughter's GP could provide a note stating that she's not fit to attend the hearing.
Your earlier thread implied that you were present when the PSI's interviewed your daughter. If that's the case, you could also provide a witness statement to the person holding the hearing.

In your daughter's place I'd be asking whether it's appropriate that a PSI reporting on a potential assault calls into question the victim's ability to do their job based on the PSI's perceptions of her reactions at a time when she was understandably distressed, vulnerable and in her own home.
I have very little knowledge of police procedures but I, perhaps naively, thought that such reports contained facts not personal opinions.

[Guest]

Re: Misconduct meeting despite resignation

Thanks for your opinion.

I've conveyed to her your advice about a GP note. She has perked up at hearing what you've written in the second paragraph.

I have already provided a witness statement. I have also shredded the evidence that is being used to discredit my daughter. It just doesn't hold up but unfortunately you can't sue the police for negligence! Interestingly, up until my daughter received the evidence pack, we believed the police professional standards department had started the misconduct procedure on the basis of the PSI's report - and advice from the Information Commissioner's Office was that this was contrary to data protection. What I now know is that the PSI went whinging to her Sergeant who told her to write the report and then himself complained about my daughter's fitness to do her job. What the PSI has not disclosed is that I told her to leave my house when I had heard enough of her bullying my daughter.

Anyway, thanks for the info. You have raised a point that certainly hadn't occurred to me and my daughter and doesn't seem to have occurred to her union rep either, so many thanks.

[Guest]

Re: Misconduct meeting despite resignation

Hallo

I would be grateful for any further opinion and/or advice please.

My daughter lost out at the misconduct meeting, is to be given a written warning (her union rep advised her to appeal and to seriously consider taking her employer to a tribunal).

When she knew several months ago that the police investigator wrote that "It concerns me that someone with her aggression and general behaviour is employed by HC to deal with members of the public", my daughter was so shocked that she was totally unable to do her job - she and her union rep made a number of requests for her temporary redeployment to another department, but all requests were refused, with the result that this affected her psychologically, she has been unable to work because of diagnosed stress, anxiety and depression, and last week - with no prospect of ever returning to her job - she resigned. At the misconduct meeting it came to light that she could have been transferred with no problem but her requests were blocked by the male Inspector who had pushed the complaint through to professional Standards dept. So given that the Inspector knew about the allegation that she wasn't fit to do her job, had not dealt with it himself but had sent it up the line for further investigation, knew that my daughter had herself tried to step away from the environment in which she was alleged to be unfit to work by asking for a temporary transfer, yet he took steps to ensure she had to keep working in the department in which she was alleged to be unfit to work, (except that she became so ill that she couldn't come to work, kept breaking down and eventually resigned), has the Inspector behaved unreasonably and could his behaviour be seen as bullying?