For the employer it can often be very difficult to obtain the evidence to prove that employee misconduct has been going on. This is particularly so when the workers in question are out and about.
In a recent case an employer was sure that a couple of his home care workers were “fiddling” their time sheets. The patients however were pretty much totally “ga-ga” and couldn’t give reliable evidence as to whether there had been anybody with them at the time or not.
So, the employer retained a private detective to keep watch, and sure enough the evidence was there. They were both dismissed without notice.
One of them chanced his arm and made a complaint to the Employment Tribunal that the evidence against him had been obtained in breach of his human rights (the right to privacy) enshrined in the European Directive on Human Rights (clause 8). The case ended up in the Court of Appeal who found that his human rights had indeed been breached, however this did not invalidate the fairness of the dismissal.
