A former prison service boss who suffered from stress and anxiety following claims colleagues were stealing from his desk has won his case for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal.
Stewart Lamond, a sales manager for the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), began to feel stressed when paperwork started to go missing and colleagues told him he was “losing the plot” and “it must be an age thing”.
The 66-year-old, who worked at the service’s Fauldhouse depot which despatches goods made by prisoners, was eventually told by another staff member that other workers went through his desk and stole paperwork after he left each day.
He reported the issue to management but ended up being suspended and disciplined for falsely accusing his colleagues of theft.
Throughout this time he suffered very poor mental health, as well as a painful hip condition, and eventually asked bosses if he could take partial early retirement and work part-time.
SPS refused his request and instead sacked him on capability grounds.
An employment tribunal has now found that he was unfairly dismissed and discriminated against due to his disability.
Employment judge Mary Kearns found that the prison service failed to make reasonable adjustments to allow Mr Lamond to carry on working and that the outcome of his hearing on capability was “predetermined”.
She said: “We consider that the failure by [SPS] to make the reasonable adjustment of permitting the claimant to reduce his hours… when he requested to do so in January 2019, taken together with the apparent predetermination of his case, take his dismissal outside the band of reasonable responses that a reasonable employer might have adopted in this case.”
The tribunal heard that Mr Lamond began working for SPS Industries, the firm which facilitates the sale of goods, in April 1995 and became a manager at the site in 2006.
In spring 2017, he began to notice that despatch notes and sales invoices and orders he was working on were going missing from his desk and cupboard after he left the office at 4pm.
The tribunal judgment states: “He would come in the next day to resume working on them and they would be gone. The claimant remarked on it with colleagues and people started to say things to him like: ‘I think you’re losing the plot’ or ‘it must be an age thing’.
“The claimant became very stressed. A note would come through from despatch or a sales order would come in. He would lock it in his desk or his cupboard and the next day it was gone.
“An articulated lorry would turn up to collect the goods and the claimant would not be able to find the paperwork. The claimant knew he had done the paperwork and had got it ready, but it had disappeared.”
Then in June that year, he was approached by the stores manager who told him that a junior colleague wanted to speak to him.
When they met, he was told that when he left the office, other staff members would “rummage around in his desk and take his papers away”.
Mr Lamond reported what he had been told to management and an investigation was carried out which resulted in no action being taken against the workers accused of taking the items.
Soon after this, he was signed off with work-related stress but when he returned, the paperwork no longer went missing.
He had several other periods of sickness leave due to stress and his hip condition, which caused him a lot of pain.
In March 2018, he was called to SPS headquarters and told he was being suspended pending investigation into an allegation of gross misconduct.
He received a letter stating: “It is alleged that in 2017 you created a false allegation into alleged theft within the main office at Central stores and further to the allegation of theft, alleged inappropriate behaviours by your colleagues within Central stores and HQ, with the intention for those colleagues to be investigated.”
Mr Lamond suffered a mental breakdown following his suspension.
When he eventually began to feel better, he decided to apply for partial retirement and reduced hours but this was refused.
He met with occupational health who advised that he was unfit for work.
However, in January 2019 he began to feel better and met with his GP who wrote a report stating that he wold be fit for part-time work.
Despite this, the manager was called to a capability hearing by SPS. During the process an HR adviser claimed there was “no evidence” that he would be able to return to work - despite the GP’s report – and he was dismissed.
SPS was approached for comment.
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