Law & Justice

Dundee Transport Manager Wins £34,326 After Unfair Dismissal Over Pothole Repair Bills

By TOI World Desk

A Dundee transport manager was dismissed after his company questioned more than £21,000 spent on pothole repairs and has now won £34,326 in compensation. The employment tribunal found that Joinery and Timber Creations Ltd (JTC) treated him unfairly and did not conduct a proper investigation before firing him.

S Shaw had worked for the furniture company for over 24 years and rose to the position of transport manager. In 2024 he was asked to arrange repairs to potholes in JTC’s factory yard in Dundee. The factory manager, Mr Freeman, instructed Shaw to contact HB Roadways, a contractor with which JTC had a long‑standing relationship. Shaw was not asked to obtain competing quotes or check the prices before arranging the work. The company’s health and safety manager had previously dealt with the contractor but had since left.

The issue came up during an accounts meeting in December 2024. Management questioned the amount paid to HB Roadways for the repairs and ordered an investigation. The invoices for October and November 2024 were worth £10,710 and £10,650, taking the total to £21,360. Shaw was suspended while his line manager, Ms Patterson, investigated the matter. He was told that the company was concerned about an excessive charge for the work and whether the spending amounted to an “inappropriate use of company funds”. The investigation found no wrongdoing. Ms Patterson spoke to several employees and concluded that Shaw had not done anything wrong, instead identifying “deficiencies in authorisation procedures” within the company. She was later removed from the investigation and did not prepare the final report. Other employees put the report together.

Shaw was not told about Patterson’s conclusion when he attended a disciplinary hearing with company director Mr Mulholland in January 2025. During the meeting, several allegations were raised against him, including claims that he had denied having previous contact with HB Roadways and had deleted messages exchanged with the contractor. Shaw became extremely upset during the meeting, telling Mulholland not to come closer or he would “knock his block off”, or words to that effect. The judge noted that Shaw had recently experienced a family bereavement; January 22 was also the anniversary of his mother’s death. He was emotional during the meeting and felt that the company was treating him badly despite his 24 years of service. JTC subsequently dismissed him. His attempts to appeal the decision were unsuccessful.

The tribunal found serious problems with the way JTC handled the investigation and disciplinary process. It accepted Patterson’s conclusion that the company’s own authorisation procedures were inadequate and criticised the involvement of HR manager Ms Shand in several stages of the case, including Shaw’s suspension, investigation, disciplinary hearing and appeal. The tribunal described her as a “guiding hand” in the process. The company director was unaware that the report placed before him had not been written by Patterson, who had conducted the investigation. He believed she had prepared it and did not know that her actual finding was that Shaw had done nothing wrong. As a result, Mulholland entered the disciplinary hearing without information that could have supported Shaw’s case. The tribunal also described the appeal hearing as “no more than a tick box exercise”.

In its ruling, the tribunal said the company had decided early on that too much money had been spent with HB Roadways and that someone had to be held responsible. It said, “A narrative was created that it must have been the claimant, and after LP had indicated that she did not believe that the claimant had done anything wrong, the respondent sought to interpret any evidence it had before it in such a way as to prove the claimant’s guilt rather than consider that evidence with an open mind.” The tribunal concluded that the decision to dismiss Shaw was “both substantively and procedurally unfair”.

JTC argued that Shaw’s compensation should be reduced because he would have been dismissed even if the company had followed a fair process. The tribunal rejected this argument, saying there was no evidence of misconduct or wrongdoing. It found that a proper investigation would likely have cleared him. The company also argued that Shaw’s own conduct had contributed to his dismissal. The tribunal rejected this claim, finding that he had followed the procedures established by JTC.

The tribunal ordered the company to pay him £14,350 in compensation, £500 for the loss of statutory rights and a further £19,476 as a compensatory award, for a total payout of £34,326.