Man claims he was dismissed for "not cutting enough corners"

Monday 06 August 2018

A man has claimed at an employment tribunal that he was unfairly dismissed from his job with FW Rihoy & Son because he "asked too many questions" about the safety of the businesses' operations.

Kevin Driscoll told the tribunal on Friday that he was hired by the firm's owner, Quentin Hubbard, to act as a handyman, not only for FW Rihoy & Son, but also for Mr Hubbard's numerous other businesses.

Mr Driscoll said he worked across all of these different businesses fulfilling a number of roles, but his contract was officially with FW Rihoy.

However, Mr Driscoll's pay record showed he was paid from a total of five different businesses across the several years of his employment. He said this was because Mr Hubbard paid his staff from whichever business account had money in at the time. 

During the tribunal, Mr Driscoll represented himself as the applicant, but there was no representation for Mr Hubbard, and he also did not attend.

The panel heard Mr Driscoll claim he was made redundant in November 2017 because of "friction" between himself and Mr Hubbard.

This started after Mr Hubbard had various members of staff working on a building project where allegations of asbestos arose.

Mr Driscoll queried Mr Hubbard over this, and was told there was a report that proved there was no asbestos in the building. But Mr Driscoll was never actually shown this report, despite asking repeatedly. He said every time he asked to see it, Mr Hubbard would change the subject or refuse. Before long, Mr Driscoll was transferred onto another project, but he kept asking questions because of concerns over his fellow staff members' safety.

It eventually came out that the building did indeed contain asbestos and the site was seized by authorities, but this was after the termination of the applicant's employment. 

Mr Driscoll received an email telling him he was being made redundant in the first few days of November of 2017. At that time he had just taken two days off sick, and he also noticed he had not received his salary for October.

Soon after, the applicant met Mr Hubbard for a meeting, where he said he was told the redundancy was "business not personal", but when Mr Driscoll asked for a job in one of Hubbard's many other businesses, he was told there were no vacancies.

Pictured: The Tribunal was held at Les Cotils Christian Centre. 

The applicant claimed in his statement that he knew there were vacancies, and that he had proved through his years employment to Mr Hubbard that he was a versatile worker, having filled numerous different roles. He thus drew the conclusion that he was being denied any further employment because of how he had potentially annoyed Mr Hubbard over repeatedly querying the asbestos until authorities became involved and the project halted.

Mr Driscoll also pointed out other occasions where the two men's relationship had started to break down, for example when he had refused to reinstall a gas boiler because he was not legally qualified to do so, and when they had disagreed on the type of material needed for safe roofing to be installed on a house. 

Because Mr Hubbard was not represented at the tribunal, he had no opportunity to put his side of the allegations across.

A judgement will be delivered in the next few weeks online and in the Royal Court.