United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT


 


MR JUSTICE LINDSAY: In this matter which is now called on at 11.20 a.m., having been listed at 10.30 a.m., there is no attendance by the Appellant Mr Idlbi. The only communication the office has received was a communication in November indicating that he would attend. We have heard nothing to suggest that he is on his way, or has fallen ill, or in any other respect that he has not chosen but has been obliged not to attend. In that circumstance we simply go ahead with the appeal in his absence.

The Industrial Tribunal against a decision which Mr Idlbi appeals is dated 8 May 1996. The Respondent indicated that Mr Idlbi had been dismissed for gross misconduct and that the dismissal was fair. The Industrial Tribunal addressed itself to the three-part test in the Burchell case. It was plainly right to do so. The Industrial Tribunal held that the employer had satisfied each of the three parts of that test and, moreover, that dismissal was within the range of responses open to a reasonable employer.

The misconduct that was laid at Mr Idlbi's door was that he had been changing money for guests at the Respondent's hotel on his own account, rather than as part of the Hotel's business, as should have been the case. He claimed that changing money was a hobby of his and he produced some receipts from a Bureau de Change in an attempt to prove that he had been making purchases privately of foreign currency. He had not referred to those receipts either when he was interviewed by the Police, nor when he was interviewed by Mr Weston, the Respondent's manager, nor had he referred to them at a disciplinary hearing which the Respondents had organised on 11 September 1995.

The Industrial Tribunal dealt with that point by saying this at paragraph 9 of their Decision:

"However we look on both receipts with some suspicion since we cannot understand how if Mr Idlbi was innocent of the allegations made against him, he could fail to produce those receipts to show that he had come by the foreign currency legitimately."...

Mr Idlbi claims that he had not produced the receipts earlier because he did not know that they would be required, but it was plainly a matter which could be drawn to the attention of the Industrial Tribunal and from which they could draw inferences as to the reason for his failure. We see no reason to think that there was any error of law involved in the Industrial Tribunal drawing the inference that they did, namely that it was remarkable that Mr Idlbi had not earlier referred to the receipts.

A similar response could be given to the finding of the Industrial Tribunal as to five slips. Again, without going into detail, it is a matter for the Industrial Tribunal to draw inferences from primary fact. We see no error of law in relation to the inference that they drew in relation either to the receipts or to the slips.

Mr Idlbi claims that Mr Weston, the manager, was biased, and that the Industrial Tribunal failed to recognise that bias. Plainly the Industrial Tribunal preferred the evidence of Mr Weston to the evidence of Mr Idlbi. That is essentially a matter for them. We do not deal other than with errors of law. We find no error of law and accordingly we dismiss Mr Idlbi's application.