We have has a particularly nasty incident reagrding an employee at one of our bases. The employee is on a final written warning and has allegedly defrauded the company by fasifying his timesheet and claiming for hours he did not work. When invited to a meeting to discuss the matter he became very abusive to the managers involved and also threated physical violence. The situation became so bad the Police were called to remove the employee. The employee was informed that he was to be suspended on full pay pending an investigation in to the alleged fraud and abusive and threatening behaviour.

A thorough investigation has taken place and the allegations have been found to be true. We want to summarily dismiss the employee without having a hearing as the likelihood of further verbal and possible physical abusive is quite high.

I would prefer to write to the employee confirming the outcome of the investigation, that he has been dismissed and giving him the right of appeal. I know this is outside the usual 3 step procedure, but I am mindful of our duty of care to other employees and want to protectthem from any further verbal threats or abuse. Am I within my rights to do so?

Thank you

It is unclear if the employee has in excess of 12 months' continuous service, which would be the qualifying requisite for a claim of automatic unfair dismissal should there be a failure to follow the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures.  If he does not, then you could consider the proposed course of action with more security -as long as there are no underlying issues such as discrimination etc.

If the employee has qualifying service, you could still consider the proposed course of action via the modified statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedure.  This would entail writing to the employee clearly stating the misconduct he is accused of and providing your reasons as to why you believe he is guilty of this (i.e. the details of your investigation and copies of all evidence obtained in the process).  A right of appeal must be included; however, in any instance, if the employee does appeal then you would be obliged to hold a hearing with him before reaching a final decision.

Good practice would entail holding a duly convened disciplinary hearing with the employee in the first instance, so that he would have an opportunity to present his own case.  You would therefore have to be able to there are show genuine and reasonable grounds not to do so.  A Tribunal would certainly expect to see this and it is always an arguable position; therefore, use of the modified procedure should only be in exceptional circumstances.

Verbal abuse/threats would not really be sufficient justification, but a fear of violence could be if there was a distinct possibility of another incident.  However, in my experience, this would be rare in a formal hearing scenario.  It would be easy to argue that your fear of further verbal and physical abuse is only a presumption.  Therefore, holding a duly convened disciplinary hearing would be the most prudent course of action, as it would preclude any argument over a failure to follow the usual '3-step' requirements without good reason.  I would also suggest that as an alternative to holding the disciplinary hearing on company premises, you could consider holding the hearing at a neutral venue (i.e. in a hotel function room). 

I have been in a similar situation concerning the threat of violence against me and my general manager holding a disciplanry hearing for a senior manager. We ended the meeting with the help of the police and rescheduled it unfortunately the manager in question did not show, this was repeated a further 3 times. We then summarily dismissed him on the grounds of the evidence we had and he appealed. He refused to turn up for 4 scheduled appeal hearings and then made an application to the tribunal for unfair dismissal, onto which he tacked racial discrimination. Throughout the whole issue we received independant legal advice and yet the tribunal found our dismissal to be unfair because we were the same 2 at the initial disciplinary meeting and we were the ones who invited him the rescheduled meetings and the ones to make the decision to dismiss him!!! take heed!!! be really careful I would really strongly suggest involving as many different and independant senior managers at any subsequent disciplinary hearings.......