Hi All, I am looking for advice for a family member of mine who out of the blue has been handed a disciplinary hearing letter today to attend the hearing on Monday at 10am. Ok so let me tell you all the story so far - This lad has just turned 19 years old and has been employed by a financial advice business as an administrator since September 2014. He was taken on with the promise of further training to further his career in the finance world - as yet no training whatsoever. This Monday just gone out of the blue they had a new lady start with the business - it is a small business with around 6 employees in total with approx 3 in the office at a time including him but typically none of the management are in the office as they are out visiting clients. There have been numerous times when he has been left on his own in the office with nobody doing any lone worker checks throughout the day to see if he is ok and not hit his head and in need of urgent medical attention. So the new lady started Monday and has been for the whole of this week telling him how she wants to learn all of his work he does and he had no idea so has been happily showing her what it is he does - so basically training her in his role unbeknown to him. Then today as soon as he walked in his boss took him outside and said to him that he had a letter for him and it was very very very serious - bit of scaremongering thrown in to the mix here - obviously thinking because he is young he might get scared and just hand his notice in. Anyway he has opened the letter in front of his boss and had a bit of a chuckle and said you cannot be serious etc and told him to his face the answers to each charge on the letter. He remained at work for the rest of the day. So the content of the letter goes like this - I am writing to inform you that you are required to attend a disciplinary hearing on Monday 27th of July (Less than 48 hours notice given) at 10am at blah blah (names not shown for obvious reasons) The purpose of the hearing is to consider whether disciplinary action should be taken against you in respect of the alleged misconduct or gross misconduct. The allegation is that - You failed to turn up for work until 11.30am on Wednesday 14th of July and you did not notify me or anyone else of your absence You were asleep at your desk when I came in to the office on Thursday 15th of July I understand that following an alleged assault on you last week you took money from the assailant in return for withdrawing a statement to the police. You were then seen counting rolls of cash at your desk during working hours. (He was assaulted outside of the work place - at the weekend and nothing to do with work and the lad that did it offered a good will gesture of £200 if he didn't go to the police as he was on bail at the time of the assault. No proof of cash changing hands as he has done nothing and left it to the police - the money he had was his birthday money which was the day before this alleged incident which he was counting during his dinner break at his desk) You have on numerous occasions fabricated information which has led to various problems including invoices being unpaid I have previously spoken to you about comments you made to blah blah (former co - worker left the business 3 months ago) that were deemed inappropriate You have been seen on numerous occasions visiting non business websites during working hours. In particular you were warned about this on 29th of April and 05th of May If there are any documents you wish to be considered at the hearing please provide copies as soon as possible. If you do not have those documents please provide details so that they can be obtained. The hearing will follow the disciplinary procedure which is attached. If you are found guilty of misconduct we may decide to issue a written warning or a final warning or dismiss you with notice, or pay in lieu, however if you are found guilty of gross misconduct you may be dismissed without notice or pay in lieu of notice. Now for me I would say they are cutting costs and just going straight for gross misconduct. The case they have is pretty pathetic and has no real substance. This appears to be an underhand tactic to get rid of him via gross misconduct on Monday. I have his responses here to the allegations and will await a response to the initial post before posting his response. It is key that you all know that not once have they advised they are investigating him nor have they given a verbal written or any form of warning to him. they have had an informal chat nor addressed any of these issues they have been investigating with his knowledge. Thanks for your input