I've spoken to a few people about the treatment I received from Stirling University. The general response is one of surprise that a university would behave that way. It's natural to think that a university comprises the smartest brains in the country, and that they would lead the way in employment matters. In reality, however, they are still in the dark ages where they believe that employees should have no rights and that they should be able to dismiss employees on a whim.
If their accounts department was run the way they run their Human Resources department, they would still be using books and quills instead of computers.
Fortunately, there are laws to protect employees from rogue employers like Stirling University. You need a genuine reason for dismissing someone, and it is not a genuine reason to dismiss an employee for whistleblowing. Of all employers, universities should be encouraging whistleblowers, not sacking them.
There is a test that Employment Tribunals use to decide if a dismissal for misconduct was fair or not.
1 The employer believed that the employee was guilty.
2 They had reasonable grounds on which to sustain that belief.
3 They carried out as much investigation as reasonable in the circumstances.
4 Where there was conflicting evidence, real attempts were made to determine what happened by locating independent witnesses and evidence.
The law does not allow an employer to perform a sham investigation and to ignore all of the evidence that doesn't help them achieve their aim to dismiss a whistleblower. The oppressive nature of my dismissal, and because the university generally shows contempt for employment law means that I am seeking an award of exemplary damages as well as the normal uplift applied to compensation when an employer fails to carry out grievance and disciplinary procedures appropriately. There is no upper limit to the compensation awarded for detriment caused by acts in response to making protected disclosures. Sex discrimination also attracts an award for injury to feelings. A person or persons may have to spend some time in jail for perverting the course of justice with the fraudulent document. Others who lie in court also risk a prison sentence. The publicity of justice may cause the university to reconsider its behaviour; alternatively it may become worse, but less obvious.
1 The university carried out an extremely contrived investigation, light years from the reasonable one that is required.
2 They did not believe I was guilty. Indeed, they absolutely knew I was innocent, and that was the motive for conducting such a contrived investigation.
3 It immediately followed a sham grievance investigation which was so absurd that they had to invent an investigation a year later to make it look like there had been an investigation. But even the invented investigation is absurd.
4 It also followed malicious complaints from employees that I had already complained about. My complaints were basically ignored while they carried out their sham disciplinary process.
5 The malicious complaints arose as a direct result of an act by the university in response to my protected disclosure, and that equates to detriment.
6 Independent witnesses were avoided at all costs despite my pleas.
7 The university has a very poor track record with regard to employment law.
If Stirling University can convince the tribunal that my dismissal was fair, then we would be as well scrapping all of the law books and making everything legal. I doubt if I'd want to live in a world where the treatment I received is legal.
Showing posts with label fraud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fraud. Show all posts
Wednesday
Sunday
My Letter to Gerry McCormac
I wrote to Stirling University Principal and Vice Chancellor, Gerry McCormac recently to find out from him what action the university has taken with regard to the fraudulent document they sent to Glasgow Employment Tribunal. I also asked him who gave instructions for that fraudulent document to be created.
On 6 December 2011, I received the following letter from Kevin Clarke
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The Principal has passed your correspondence of 25 November 2011 for me to reply.
It is the policy of the University not to correspond on matters whilst they are the subject of proceedings of the Employment Tribunal which have yet to be concluded.
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I don't know if this is a policy that the university has published anywhere, or if it's one they've made up on the spur of the moment. What surprises me, if this is a university policy, is that it is a policy they are actually working to, unlike their policies on bullying, grievances and disciplinary matters. What is their policy on committing fraud and perverting the course of justice?
I would hope that if PC Plod comes knocking at their door, they may have to consider letting him in on their secret.
Gerry is to appear as a witness at the tribunal hearing. Will he refuse to answer my questions then, I wonder? Will he say that he hasn't bothered to investigate a possible crime that has been reported to him? How does this compare with my own experience of being suspended from work in a flash to accommodate a sham investigation? Even if I was guilty of everything that I was accused of, it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans compared to criminal fraud. If there's an innocent explanation for this, then why not tell us? Why leave everybody thinking that there's a possibility that Stirling University has perverted the course of justice? Surely the only reason he would want a criminal to retain their job at the university would be that the criminal is one of the untouchables or was following instructions from one of the untouchables.
His secrecy also offers little confidence to staff and students who are considering raising grievances. Surely he should be shouting loud and clear that the university will take swift action to remove the criminal element that carries out sham grievance and disciplinary processes. If he doesn't, staff and students would have every right to believe that he is somehow involved in it.
It began with bullying and sex discrimination by the Finance Director's wife, Kathy McCabe; then we had a sham grievance process to cover that up; then we had a sham disciplinary process to get rid of me for blowing the whistle on the bullying and sex discrimination; then we had criminal fraud to cover up the sham grievance process. And now we have the Principal of Stirling University covering up criminal fraud by his staff. Where will it end?
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25 November 2011
Dear Professor McCormac
I wrote to you on 23 September 2010 with a list of thirteen formal grievances I have with Stirling University employees. You replied saying that mechanisms had been exhausted, and my grievances were not processed.
Would you please explain why my grievances were not processed in accordance with the university’s grievance policy which states that an employee may raise grievances up to three months after leaving the university.
I now refer you to the very serious matter of criminal fraud. In relation to the claim I lodged with Glasgow Employment Tribunal, I asked Stirling University to provide details of how my grievance against Mrs Kathy McCabe resulted in all of my allegations against her being rejected. The university responded five months later with a ten page document. I attach the first page of that document.
I refer you to the first allegation [1] our useless DBA. It states that in order to investigate this allegation, Deputy Secretary, Eileen Schofield and HR Partner, Karen Stark referred to former colleague, Mr F’s statement between 5 and 24 March. In their findings they state that Mr F recalled an incident when Mrs O’Neil was unprofessional and derogatory in her remarks towards me when speaking to a third party supplier on the phone. The document then goes on to state that my allegation was upheld, but that it was not considered to be material.
However, Mr F’s statement, which I have attached, makes no reference to my allegation. The simple reason for this is that Ms Schofield and Ms Stark had not asked him about that, or any other allegation I had made. So when Ms Schofield referred to his statement, she could not have seen what she said she had seen that persuaded her that my allegation should be upheld.
Since Ms Schofield and Ms Stark had not asked Mr F about this allegation, there is no valid reason for them to have referred to his statement in order to attempt to come to any conclusion for this allegation. However, the document that Stirling University sent to the tribunal is a fraud. It is an amateurish attempt to persuade the tribunal that the grievance process, which I described as a sham, was conducted appropriately.
Three weeks after Ms Schofield had concluded her investigation and produced her report for the grievances between me and Mrs McCabe, I contacted Mr F. He clearly remembered the incident with Mrs O’Neil and wrote to me about it. He also informed Ms Stark about it. However, Ms Schofield could not possibly have known about that when she came to her conclusion. She hadn’t asked Mr F or Mrs McCabe or me about the incident. From the sham method that Ms Schofield used to investigate this allegation, she could only conclude that it didn’t happen.
It is now more than seven months since this fraud was committed by Stirling University. Would you please tell me what action you or anyone else at Stirling University has taken in that time in relation to this criminal act. Would you please tell me if you instructed employees to create this fraudulent document? Did University Secretary, Kevin Clarke give instructions for this fraudulent document to be produced?
Since I wrote to you in September 2010, matters have got much worse for Stirling University and I firmly believe it was unwise for you to have simply ignored my letter. To carry out sham internal grievance and disciplinary procedures is very serious, but Stirling University has gone a step further and attempted to pervert the course of justice by committing criminal fraud to deny me justice at the tribunal hearing.
I look forward to your reply.
On 6 December 2011, I received the following letter from Kevin Clarke
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The Principal has passed your correspondence of 25 November 2011 for me to reply.
It is the policy of the University not to correspond on matters whilst they are the subject of proceedings of the Employment Tribunal which have yet to be concluded.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know if this is a policy that the university has published anywhere, or if it's one they've made up on the spur of the moment. What surprises me, if this is a university policy, is that it is a policy they are actually working to, unlike their policies on bullying, grievances and disciplinary matters. What is their policy on committing fraud and perverting the course of justice?
I would hope that if PC Plod comes knocking at their door, they may have to consider letting him in on their secret.
Gerry is to appear as a witness at the tribunal hearing. Will he refuse to answer my questions then, I wonder? Will he say that he hasn't bothered to investigate a possible crime that has been reported to him? How does this compare with my own experience of being suspended from work in a flash to accommodate a sham investigation? Even if I was guilty of everything that I was accused of, it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans compared to criminal fraud. If there's an innocent explanation for this, then why not tell us? Why leave everybody thinking that there's a possibility that Stirling University has perverted the course of justice? Surely the only reason he would want a criminal to retain their job at the university would be that the criminal is one of the untouchables or was following instructions from one of the untouchables.
His secrecy also offers little confidence to staff and students who are considering raising grievances. Surely he should be shouting loud and clear that the university will take swift action to remove the criminal element that carries out sham grievance and disciplinary processes. If he doesn't, staff and students would have every right to believe that he is somehow involved in it.
It began with bullying and sex discrimination by the Finance Director's wife, Kathy McCabe; then we had a sham grievance process to cover that up; then we had a sham disciplinary process to get rid of me for blowing the whistle on the bullying and sex discrimination; then we had criminal fraud to cover up the sham grievance process. And now we have the Principal of Stirling University covering up criminal fraud by his staff. Where will it end?
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25 November 2011
Dear Professor McCormac
I wrote to you on 23 September 2010 with a list of thirteen formal grievances I have with Stirling University employees. You replied saying that mechanisms had been exhausted, and my grievances were not processed.
Would you please explain why my grievances were not processed in accordance with the university’s grievance policy which states that an employee may raise grievances up to three months after leaving the university.
I now refer you to the very serious matter of criminal fraud. In relation to the claim I lodged with Glasgow Employment Tribunal, I asked Stirling University to provide details of how my grievance against Mrs Kathy McCabe resulted in all of my allegations against her being rejected. The university responded five months later with a ten page document. I attach the first page of that document.
I refer you to the first allegation [1] our useless DBA. It states that in order to investigate this allegation, Deputy Secretary, Eileen Schofield and HR Partner, Karen Stark referred to former colleague, Mr F’s statement between 5 and 24 March. In their findings they state that Mr F recalled an incident when Mrs O’Neil was unprofessional and derogatory in her remarks towards me when speaking to a third party supplier on the phone. The document then goes on to state that my allegation was upheld, but that it was not considered to be material.
However, Mr F’s statement, which I have attached, makes no reference to my allegation. The simple reason for this is that Ms Schofield and Ms Stark had not asked him about that, or any other allegation I had made. So when Ms Schofield referred to his statement, she could not have seen what she said she had seen that persuaded her that my allegation should be upheld.
Since Ms Schofield and Ms Stark had not asked Mr F about this allegation, there is no valid reason for them to have referred to his statement in order to attempt to come to any conclusion for this allegation. However, the document that Stirling University sent to the tribunal is a fraud. It is an amateurish attempt to persuade the tribunal that the grievance process, which I described as a sham, was conducted appropriately.
Three weeks after Ms Schofield had concluded her investigation and produced her report for the grievances between me and Mrs McCabe, I contacted Mr F. He clearly remembered the incident with Mrs O’Neil and wrote to me about it. He also informed Ms Stark about it. However, Ms Schofield could not possibly have known about that when she came to her conclusion. She hadn’t asked Mr F or Mrs McCabe or me about the incident. From the sham method that Ms Schofield used to investigate this allegation, she could only conclude that it didn’t happen.
It is now more than seven months since this fraud was committed by Stirling University. Would you please tell me what action you or anyone else at Stirling University has taken in that time in relation to this criminal act. Would you please tell me if you instructed employees to create this fraudulent document? Did University Secretary, Kevin Clarke give instructions for this fraudulent document to be produced?
Since I wrote to you in September 2010, matters have got much worse for Stirling University and I firmly believe it was unwise for you to have simply ignored my letter. To carry out sham internal grievance and disciplinary procedures is very serious, but Stirling University has gone a step further and attempted to pervert the course of justice by committing criminal fraud to deny me justice at the tribunal hearing.
I look forward to your reply.
Friday
The Problem With Women
One of the problems that Stirling University faces in defending the tribunal case is that after I made my protected disclosure, a large number of colleagues were encouraged to report that I had "a problem with women". This included Kathy McCabe, Eric Hall, Eileen MacDonald, Una Forsyth, Selina Gibb And Jackie O'Neil.
I had informed Christine Hallett that my manager, Kathy McCabe discriminated on the basis of gender, but rather than deal with that genuine issue, management performed a switch to make it appear that I was the one who discriminated based on gender. First, Karen Stark caused bad feelings between me and my colleagues by interviewing them about old incidents when they had abused me. Then word was passed down that they should suggest that I had "a problem with women".
The problem they have is that, despite all of these people saying this, there will be no documentary evidence that exists of this prior to my protected disclosure. There will be no record of me having been reprimanded or spoken to or informed in any way about my alleged "problem with women" during my thirteen years of service. How could there be? It hadn't been invented yet. So this is another dilemma the university has. Should they create a few helpful documents that refer to this alleged "problem with women", or do they admit that there is none? All of the allegations of my "problem with women" comes from those colleagues within days of each other. And it is obviously false. It's worse than none!
I have asked the university to produce all documents that refer to me having this "problem with women".
At the hearing in June, we discussed my request for the university to produce the questionnaires that the women, who allege that I had bullied them over several years, had completed about two months before I made my protected disclosure. The questionnaire included questions about bullying, and asked if you were being bullied. I knew that none of them would have said that they were being bullied. I would have been the only member of the team who said I was being bullied. The university's lawyer objected to my request. Clearly he knows it's all a pack of lies. The employment judge said that the questionnaires would not be necessary as the university would be expected to show documentary evidence of me bullying women over time.
What will the university do? It won't be able to produce anything that is timestamped, so will they try and create something that's not timestamped? Unfortunately for them, they won't be able to mention my alleged "problem with women" in my appraisal reports, because I have already seen them. That's a big disadvantage for them. I had an appraisal about nine months before I made my protected disclosure, but of course it doesn't refer to something that wasn't to be invented until nine months later.
So each of these people who referred to my alleged "problem with women" will have to explain why there is no evidence of them having reported it. Going by the number of times it is mentioned in their statements, you would expect there to be a big bundle of documents that refer to it. More importantly, the tribunal will expect there to be evidence of it. There would be lots of emails inviting me to attend meetings to discuss my alleged "problem with women". There would be an audit trail which shows that my alleged "problem with women" was being monitored and reassessed. There would be massive reports written up about all the occasions I had trapped women in the office and went wild with them. There would be plans that show that I was to be separated from women for fear that my alleged "problem with women" escalated.
So when the university responds to my requests for documents, it will be interesting to see all of the evidence of my alleged "problem with women". Will the uni feel that it is still worthwhile to create some more fraudulent documents?
Will Gerry McCormac go for broke, and order some more fraudulent documents to be created? If he does, he should ask them to be more careful this time, and not make it obvious that it's a fraud. By failing to take any action over the fraudulent document, Gerry is making it look like he was involved in it.
It's time you spoke out, Gerry. Did you order the fraudulent document to be created? If not, then please explain why you have taken no action to root out the criminal element in Stirling University.
One problem the university will face if they do decide to produce fraudulent documentary evidence of my alleged "problem with women" is that they are bound to be asked why they didn't produce that very important evidence before the hearing began in June 2011. Mark Toole claims that he dismissed me because I bullied women over time. Why would they not have included all of the documents (that the judge said they would expect to see) at that time?
What did the university tell their lawyer when he asked to see all the documentary evidence of me bullying women? Maybe I should call him as a witness and ask him. He can't produce any genuine evidence of my alleged "problem with women", but he desperately wants to show the tribunal my blog; my blog which didn't exist until after my unfair dismissal and would never have existed had it not been for that unfair dismissal. That can't possibly justify dismissal. He is focusing on my blog because he doesn't have a scrap of evidence that I was guilty of gross misconduct. There's plenty of evidence of gross misconduct by others though.
Where was the evidence that allegedly persuaded Mark Toole that I had a "problem with women"? Why did he not expect that there would be lots of documentary evidence of this? Mark will need answers to questions like those if he is to have any chance of fooling the tribunal that the dismissal was genuine. Mark said he could see no evidence that the complainants had conspired.
What action has Gerry taken over Mark's deliberate unfair dismissal, and Martin McCrindle's sham appeal process? What action has he taken over Eileen Schofield's sham grievance process? What action has he taken over Kevin Clarke's sham grievance appeal process?
If he takes no action over corrupt colleagues, then he is just as corrupt as they are.
That's Gerry McCormac for you; the man who claims to know how to get the best out of people. My arse, Gerry!
I had informed Christine Hallett that my manager, Kathy McCabe discriminated on the basis of gender, but rather than deal with that genuine issue, management performed a switch to make it appear that I was the one who discriminated based on gender. First, Karen Stark caused bad feelings between me and my colleagues by interviewing them about old incidents when they had abused me. Then word was passed down that they should suggest that I had "a problem with women".
The problem they have is that, despite all of these people saying this, there will be no documentary evidence that exists of this prior to my protected disclosure. There will be no record of me having been reprimanded or spoken to or informed in any way about my alleged "problem with women" during my thirteen years of service. How could there be? It hadn't been invented yet. So this is another dilemma the university has. Should they create a few helpful documents that refer to this alleged "problem with women", or do they admit that there is none? All of the allegations of my "problem with women" comes from those colleagues within days of each other. And it is obviously false. It's worse than none!
I have asked the university to produce all documents that refer to me having this "problem with women".
At the hearing in June, we discussed my request for the university to produce the questionnaires that the women, who allege that I had bullied them over several years, had completed about two months before I made my protected disclosure. The questionnaire included questions about bullying, and asked if you were being bullied. I knew that none of them would have said that they were being bullied. I would have been the only member of the team who said I was being bullied. The university's lawyer objected to my request. Clearly he knows it's all a pack of lies. The employment judge said that the questionnaires would not be necessary as the university would be expected to show documentary evidence of me bullying women over time.
What will the university do? It won't be able to produce anything that is timestamped, so will they try and create something that's not timestamped? Unfortunately for them, they won't be able to mention my alleged "problem with women" in my appraisal reports, because I have already seen them. That's a big disadvantage for them. I had an appraisal about nine months before I made my protected disclosure, but of course it doesn't refer to something that wasn't to be invented until nine months later.
So each of these people who referred to my alleged "problem with women" will have to explain why there is no evidence of them having reported it. Going by the number of times it is mentioned in their statements, you would expect there to be a big bundle of documents that refer to it. More importantly, the tribunal will expect there to be evidence of it. There would be lots of emails inviting me to attend meetings to discuss my alleged "problem with women". There would be an audit trail which shows that my alleged "problem with women" was being monitored and reassessed. There would be massive reports written up about all the occasions I had trapped women in the office and went wild with them. There would be plans that show that I was to be separated from women for fear that my alleged "problem with women" escalated.
So when the university responds to my requests for documents, it will be interesting to see all of the evidence of my alleged "problem with women". Will the uni feel that it is still worthwhile to create some more fraudulent documents?
Will Gerry McCormac go for broke, and order some more fraudulent documents to be created? If he does, he should ask them to be more careful this time, and not make it obvious that it's a fraud. By failing to take any action over the fraudulent document, Gerry is making it look like he was involved in it.
It's time you spoke out, Gerry. Did you order the fraudulent document to be created? If not, then please explain why you have taken no action to root out the criminal element in Stirling University.
One problem the university will face if they do decide to produce fraudulent documentary evidence of my alleged "problem with women" is that they are bound to be asked why they didn't produce that very important evidence before the hearing began in June 2011. Mark Toole claims that he dismissed me because I bullied women over time. Why would they not have included all of the documents (that the judge said they would expect to see) at that time?
What did the university tell their lawyer when he asked to see all the documentary evidence of me bullying women? Maybe I should call him as a witness and ask him. He can't produce any genuine evidence of my alleged "problem with women", but he desperately wants to show the tribunal my blog; my blog which didn't exist until after my unfair dismissal and would never have existed had it not been for that unfair dismissal. That can't possibly justify dismissal. He is focusing on my blog because he doesn't have a scrap of evidence that I was guilty of gross misconduct. There's plenty of evidence of gross misconduct by others though.
Where was the evidence that allegedly persuaded Mark Toole that I had a "problem with women"? Why did he not expect that there would be lots of documentary evidence of this? Mark will need answers to questions like those if he is to have any chance of fooling the tribunal that the dismissal was genuine. Mark said he could see no evidence that the complainants had conspired.
What action has Gerry taken over Mark's deliberate unfair dismissal, and Martin McCrindle's sham appeal process? What action has he taken over Eileen Schofield's sham grievance process? What action has he taken over Kevin Clarke's sham grievance appeal process?
If he takes no action over corrupt colleagues, then he is just as corrupt as they are.
That's Gerry McCormac for you; the man who claims to know how to get the best out of people. My arse, Gerry!
Wednesday
The Plan
I've sent the university a list of documents I require ahead of the tribunal hearing.
Item 12 on my list reads: Please provide a copy of the investigation plan produced by Mrs Schofield and Miss Stark before they began investigating the allegations contained in the conjoined grievances. Please also demonstrate that this document existed before the investigation began, by providing emails to which it was attached, etc.
In April, after some considerable length of time, Stirling University sent a document which describes how Karen Stark and Eileen Schofield arrived at the decision for each allegation made by me and Kathy McCabe in our grievances. The document, which I have alleged to be a fraud, doesn't actually deal with every single allegation we made, so I have also asked how a decision could have been reached without considering those allegations.
Under normal conditions, any investigation requires a plan. You can't just start investigating. You need to know what that investigation is going to consist of. For example, who are you going to interview? What documents and other data holding tools are you going to refer to? What questions do you need to ask whom? That plan must already exist because the investigation was carried out by means of following it. There will be no need for Karen Stark and Eileen Schofield to hastily create one. It's just a matter of popping it in the post.
At least, that's the theory. I am particularly interested in one item on this plan. What will it say about the allegation that somehow led to Eileen Schofield seeing weeks into the future?
How will Eileen Schofield describe how she planned to look at a witness's statement in order to come to a decision for a specific allegation when she hadn't even planned to ask that witness anything about the allegation?
I suppose they could try saying that they had planned to ask him about it, but forgot. Then when they were about to make their decision, they referred to his statement having forgotten that they had previously forgotten to ask him about it. Then Karen Stark made an enormous typing error. That's about their most sensible option. Or at least, it would have been, but for at least half a dozen other problems they have.
Personally, I don't see them defending this case in court at all. They would have to be mad. The fake investigation is obvious. The tribunal would definitely want to know why they subjected me to a fake grievance process. And their house of cards falls on its face. They have no case at all.
They should have thrown in the towel long ago, but they are playing with the public's money. It would be different if it was their own.
It will be fascinating to see whether, after having already produced at least two fake documents, they go and create another one. Will they come clean, or will they go for broke? I wonder what Gerry McCormac will advise they do.
Stirling University's management is now turning into a farce. It would be excellent to see them on the TV news programmes running from the cameras. Excellent! Maybe that bloke Naughty could give them a spot on his radio show! He could call them all a bunch of Jeremy Hunts! cough, cough!
Item 12 on my list reads: Please provide a copy of the investigation plan produced by Mrs Schofield and Miss Stark before they began investigating the allegations contained in the conjoined grievances. Please also demonstrate that this document existed before the investigation began, by providing emails to which it was attached, etc.
In April, after some considerable length of time, Stirling University sent a document which describes how Karen Stark and Eileen Schofield arrived at the decision for each allegation made by me and Kathy McCabe in our grievances. The document, which I have alleged to be a fraud, doesn't actually deal with every single allegation we made, so I have also asked how a decision could have been reached without considering those allegations.
Under normal conditions, any investigation requires a plan. You can't just start investigating. You need to know what that investigation is going to consist of. For example, who are you going to interview? What documents and other data holding tools are you going to refer to? What questions do you need to ask whom? That plan must already exist because the investigation was carried out by means of following it. There will be no need for Karen Stark and Eileen Schofield to hastily create one. It's just a matter of popping it in the post.
At least, that's the theory. I am particularly interested in one item on this plan. What will it say about the allegation that somehow led to Eileen Schofield seeing weeks into the future?
How will Eileen Schofield describe how she planned to look at a witness's statement in order to come to a decision for a specific allegation when she hadn't even planned to ask that witness anything about the allegation?
I suppose they could try saying that they had planned to ask him about it, but forgot. Then when they were about to make their decision, they referred to his statement having forgotten that they had previously forgotten to ask him about it. Then Karen Stark made an enormous typing error. That's about their most sensible option. Or at least, it would have been, but for at least half a dozen other problems they have.
Personally, I don't see them defending this case in court at all. They would have to be mad. The fake investigation is obvious. The tribunal would definitely want to know why they subjected me to a fake grievance process. And their house of cards falls on its face. They have no case at all.
They should have thrown in the towel long ago, but they are playing with the public's money. It would be different if it was their own.
It will be fascinating to see whether, after having already produced at least two fake documents, they go and create another one. Will they come clean, or will they go for broke? I wonder what Gerry McCormac will advise they do.
Stirling University's management is now turning into a farce. It would be excellent to see them on the TV news programmes running from the cameras. Excellent! Maybe that bloke Naughty could give them a spot on his radio show! He could call them all a bunch of Jeremy Hunts! cough, cough!
Monday
Karen Stark - An Addiction to Fraud
I an earlier post, I spoke of the fraudulent document that Stirling Univesity gave to the Employment Tribunal to try to mislead them into thinking that all of my grievances against Kathy McCabe were thoroughly investigated. It would have been useful if Karen Stark and Eileen Schofield had produced this document at the time the alleged investigations took place. Not only would it have been useful; it would surely have been natural. Eileen is the university's Deputy Secretary on grade 10. She probably earns around £80,000 per year. Karen is on Grade 8, earning £44,000. This is not a pair of inexperienced juniors fresh from school. Any investigation would surely have been carefully planned and executed, and the findings would have been meticulously recorded BEFORE the outcome was decided. That's how I think most people would expect a proper investigation of their concerns to be carried out. Many of my complaints were of being bullied over several years, and the university promises that such complaints will be taken 'extremely seriously', so you would imagine there would be considerable evidence of this. Some of my complaints were of sex discrimination, and just days before I lodged my grievance, the Principal had written to every member of staff, including Eileen and Karen, emphasising how Stirling University was committed to diversity, and ensuring staff could work free from discrimination and victimisation. Karen even saw and acknowledged the protected disclosure I made to the Principal, in which I describe how senior management and HR had failed in its duty of care by allowing Kathy to continue bullying me to the serious detriment of my health.
In theory, my protected disclosure to the Principal should have raised alarm bells. The Principal should have been concerned that the university's committment, that she had just told us all about, didn't really exist, and that possibly HR and senior management had fooled her into thinking that there ever was such a committment. The question I feel the Principal should answer under oath is "Was she just innocently incompetent, or was she lying when she wrote to every single member of her staff?" I don't know if there is a third option, but she should have the opportunity to explain. I have asked for Christine Hallett to appear at the tribunal for cross examination, but the uni has objected to this. I feel that Christine should have the opportunity to clear her name, if she wants to. Christine is well known for claiming expenses, and I'm pretty sure the tribunal would fully refund any reasonable expenses she may incur in attending.
Obviously, if she was to tell the tribunal that she didn't lie to every single member of staff while being paid £250,000 a year to do so, then I would need her to explain her response to my protected disclosure. Her 'committment' seemed to have somewhat fallen short of what she had described to us all just days earlier. Could she have forgotten so quickly?
Much of what I said in my protected disclosure referred to meetings that took place with Karen Stark attending as the note taker. Most notable during these meetings was the behaviour of one Kathy McCabe. This was the Kathy that my team rarely got to see. It was the same Kathy who behaved in the same way during mediation. She acted like a spoilt little girl accused of stealing and eating all of the chocolate biscuits; screaming that it wasn't her, and blaming her innocent little brother, while the chocolate on her face and on her pretty dress told a different story. During mediation, she defiantly refused to answer any questions; she even left the room in a tantrum! At the time I felt embarrassed for Colin Sinclair; this was his friend who was behaving like a child. Ruth and I had genuinely believed him when he said he had always known her to be honest. We could never have anticipated that he would later make a statement saying that Kathy had answered my questions. Colin and Kathy are both IT managers at the uni. Graham Millar is another. All three are corrupt. David Gardiner is another IT manager at the uni. He is also close friends with Kathy and Colin. To my knowledge, he has played no part in this sham. However, he did stop speaking to me after I lodged my grievance against Kathy. The reason I mention David is because he came over to me and a friend I was with in a pub in Stirling one night, and threatened me; not physically, but with his powers of corruption. He had jumped to the wrong conclusion about me and my friend. He later apologised, blaming alcohol, but the damage was done. And he was so proud of his ability and willingness to abuse his powers that he wanted my friend to hear all about how he could ruin my career. The little shit was trying to scare me and embarrass me. He is an embarrassment to himself. I spent much of another evening with him once. Once again he was the worse for drink, and he described his hatred for his ex-wife's boyfriend, and what he planned to do if the opportunity arose. Many people will recognise David as a friendly, jovial bloke. I think it's a mask, and alcohol removes the mask to reveal the true David. With David, we probably wouldn't need lie detector tests; just alcohol!
So that's four IT managers as well as their boss, Mark Toole and former boss, Peter Kemp. Will the honest IT manager please stand up.
Back to Karen Stark, the note taker! Being involved with grievance and disciplinary procedures, I am always amazed at the accuracy of the notes taken by the note takers. The note taker is generally someone who is drawn from HR who has no prior involvement or emotional investment in the proceedings. The notes are not perfect by any means; that would be impossible without an audio recording device, but I'm genuinely surprised how accurate they are, given how much is said, the speed with which it is said, and that the topic being discussed may include terms the note taker may never have heard before. No meeting was ever stopped in order for the note taker to ask for something to be repeated, or to ask for time to catch up. It is a skill I truly wish I had. There might be little bits that are slightly wrong, but you can always tell that it was a genuine attempt to record what was said. The note taker then takes their handwritten notes, types them up, and files away both copies in electronic format. It's almost bulletproof.
There is but one exception to this, and that is when the note taker is Karen Stark. Karen was the note taker at a meeting attended by Mark Toole, Kathy, Lynn McDonald and my union representative, Dave Edgar. For most of the meeting, Kathy attacked me with malicious criticism. It was an act of desperation because at a previous meeting, Mark had told her that criticism should be delivered privately and it should be evidence based. She had agreed to that, but I could see that she was embarrassed at having basically been told by Mark that she was behaving like a bully. She was out for revenge, and that meant increasing the bullying. It was as if she had totally lost all sense of reason. The things she was criticising me about were things that any normal manager would have thanked me for. Much of this absurd criticism, and my response to it did not appear in Karen's notes.
I pointed out to Kathy that her arms were folded, and that she had told me she had complained to the uni that I had my arms folded during a meeting, and she thinks it's aggressive. She quickly unfolded her arms and said that she hadn't noticed. This didn't appear in Karen's notes.
I highlighted how she treats me differently from other team members, because when I had written to her saying that a colleague had physically assaulted me, she din't even reply. She then amazingly claimed that I had never told her of the assault. I reminded her that I had told her in an email. She denied it, just as she had denied receiving other emails from me. I offered to go and fetch the email, and asked her in advance what she would say once I showed it to her. This was because when I had shown her another email that she insisted she never received, she made up some stupid excuse about it. Dave asked her if she had known about the assault. She admitted that she had known. Dave asked her what she did about it. She said she didn't do anything about it. Dave asked her why she took no action, and she said it was because she wasn't present at the time of the assault.
Karen's notes do not refer to the fact that my manager thought that arm folding, which every single member of the team did, is so aggressive that it warranted a written complaint to the uni, while physical assault warranted no action whatsoever.
This is just a small sample of what Karen's notes do not include. This is particularly important because my grievance against Kathy included her behaviour at these meetings. But when Karen and Eileen came to investigate this complaint, the thorough investigation that I was promised turned out to be a complete sham. None of the witnesses were interviewed. There was a strange rule applied about witnesses. In order for a witness to be interviewed, their name had to appear in the documents that Kathy and I had lodged. But all of the attendees at those meetings were named in the documents, and so could have been interviewed anyway. So they were deliberately not interviewed. The entire investigation for my complaint consisted of Karen looking at her notes. Her notes didn't include anything worthy of complaint, so my complaint was rejected.
Karen's notes may originally have been accurate, but I didn't get to see them until after the grievance process. It is possible that she tampered with the notes to remove anything that was too incriminating for Kathy. I asked Karen for her handwritten version of the notes, but she said she destroyed them after she typed them up. all of the other note takers keep both versions.
Karen will have some explaining to do at the tribunal, about how these notes are so inaccurate, and why she destroyed her handwritten notes, and why the witnesses were not interviewed. This is in addition to her fraudulent investigation details document. She has produced a fraudulent document which, in turn, refers to another fraudulent document that she produced.
This amount and degree of fraud could mean a spell in the slammer for Karen, and I think she fully deserves it. Karen was already aware that her behaviour was damaging my health.
It will be interesting to see if Karen insists her notes are accurate, and that my account of these meetings that were attended by several witnesses, is false. Or will she once again claim that it was just a mistake? God knows where she is going with this, but she certainly has acquired a taste for fraud.
After the grievance decision was announced, Kevin Clarke described Karen as "highly professional". This raises very serious concerns about the University Secretary's judgement. Will he still be saying that when she's on her way to jail? Was Karen working to his instructions? Why is she still in her job where she could be doing this to more and more innocent employees? Is nobody at the uni calling for an investigation into her behaviour?
Regarding Karen's fraud, there could even be more. Watch this space...
In theory, my protected disclosure to the Principal should have raised alarm bells. The Principal should have been concerned that the university's committment, that she had just told us all about, didn't really exist, and that possibly HR and senior management had fooled her into thinking that there ever was such a committment. The question I feel the Principal should answer under oath is "Was she just innocently incompetent, or was she lying when she wrote to every single member of her staff?" I don't know if there is a third option, but she should have the opportunity to explain. I have asked for Christine Hallett to appear at the tribunal for cross examination, but the uni has objected to this. I feel that Christine should have the opportunity to clear her name, if she wants to. Christine is well known for claiming expenses, and I'm pretty sure the tribunal would fully refund any reasonable expenses she may incur in attending.
Obviously, if she was to tell the tribunal that she didn't lie to every single member of staff while being paid £250,000 a year to do so, then I would need her to explain her response to my protected disclosure. Her 'committment' seemed to have somewhat fallen short of what she had described to us all just days earlier. Could she have forgotten so quickly?
Much of what I said in my protected disclosure referred to meetings that took place with Karen Stark attending as the note taker. Most notable during these meetings was the behaviour of one Kathy McCabe. This was the Kathy that my team rarely got to see. It was the same Kathy who behaved in the same way during mediation. She acted like a spoilt little girl accused of stealing and eating all of the chocolate biscuits; screaming that it wasn't her, and blaming her innocent little brother, while the chocolate on her face and on her pretty dress told a different story. During mediation, she defiantly refused to answer any questions; she even left the room in a tantrum! At the time I felt embarrassed for Colin Sinclair; this was his friend who was behaving like a child. Ruth and I had genuinely believed him when he said he had always known her to be honest. We could never have anticipated that he would later make a statement saying that Kathy had answered my questions. Colin and Kathy are both IT managers at the uni. Graham Millar is another. All three are corrupt. David Gardiner is another IT manager at the uni. He is also close friends with Kathy and Colin. To my knowledge, he has played no part in this sham. However, he did stop speaking to me after I lodged my grievance against Kathy. The reason I mention David is because he came over to me and a friend I was with in a pub in Stirling one night, and threatened me; not physically, but with his powers of corruption. He had jumped to the wrong conclusion about me and my friend. He later apologised, blaming alcohol, but the damage was done. And he was so proud of his ability and willingness to abuse his powers that he wanted my friend to hear all about how he could ruin my career. The little shit was trying to scare me and embarrass me. He is an embarrassment to himself. I spent much of another evening with him once. Once again he was the worse for drink, and he described his hatred for his ex-wife's boyfriend, and what he planned to do if the opportunity arose. Many people will recognise David as a friendly, jovial bloke. I think it's a mask, and alcohol removes the mask to reveal the true David. With David, we probably wouldn't need lie detector tests; just alcohol!
So that's four IT managers as well as their boss, Mark Toole and former boss, Peter Kemp. Will the honest IT manager please stand up.
Back to Karen Stark, the note taker! Being involved with grievance and disciplinary procedures, I am always amazed at the accuracy of the notes taken by the note takers. The note taker is generally someone who is drawn from HR who has no prior involvement or emotional investment in the proceedings. The notes are not perfect by any means; that would be impossible without an audio recording device, but I'm genuinely surprised how accurate they are, given how much is said, the speed with which it is said, and that the topic being discussed may include terms the note taker may never have heard before. No meeting was ever stopped in order for the note taker to ask for something to be repeated, or to ask for time to catch up. It is a skill I truly wish I had. There might be little bits that are slightly wrong, but you can always tell that it was a genuine attempt to record what was said. The note taker then takes their handwritten notes, types them up, and files away both copies in electronic format. It's almost bulletproof.
There is but one exception to this, and that is when the note taker is Karen Stark. Karen was the note taker at a meeting attended by Mark Toole, Kathy, Lynn McDonald and my union representative, Dave Edgar. For most of the meeting, Kathy attacked me with malicious criticism. It was an act of desperation because at a previous meeting, Mark had told her that criticism should be delivered privately and it should be evidence based. She had agreed to that, but I could see that she was embarrassed at having basically been told by Mark that she was behaving like a bully. She was out for revenge, and that meant increasing the bullying. It was as if she had totally lost all sense of reason. The things she was criticising me about were things that any normal manager would have thanked me for. Much of this absurd criticism, and my response to it did not appear in Karen's notes.
I pointed out to Kathy that her arms were folded, and that she had told me she had complained to the uni that I had my arms folded during a meeting, and she thinks it's aggressive. She quickly unfolded her arms and said that she hadn't noticed. This didn't appear in Karen's notes.
I highlighted how she treats me differently from other team members, because when I had written to her saying that a colleague had physically assaulted me, she din't even reply. She then amazingly claimed that I had never told her of the assault. I reminded her that I had told her in an email. She denied it, just as she had denied receiving other emails from me. I offered to go and fetch the email, and asked her in advance what she would say once I showed it to her. This was because when I had shown her another email that she insisted she never received, she made up some stupid excuse about it. Dave asked her if she had known about the assault. She admitted that she had known. Dave asked her what she did about it. She said she didn't do anything about it. Dave asked her why she took no action, and she said it was because she wasn't present at the time of the assault.
Karen's notes do not refer to the fact that my manager thought that arm folding, which every single member of the team did, is so aggressive that it warranted a written complaint to the uni, while physical assault warranted no action whatsoever.
This is just a small sample of what Karen's notes do not include. This is particularly important because my grievance against Kathy included her behaviour at these meetings. But when Karen and Eileen came to investigate this complaint, the thorough investigation that I was promised turned out to be a complete sham. None of the witnesses were interviewed. There was a strange rule applied about witnesses. In order for a witness to be interviewed, their name had to appear in the documents that Kathy and I had lodged. But all of the attendees at those meetings were named in the documents, and so could have been interviewed anyway. So they were deliberately not interviewed. The entire investigation for my complaint consisted of Karen looking at her notes. Her notes didn't include anything worthy of complaint, so my complaint was rejected.
Karen's notes may originally have been accurate, but I didn't get to see them until after the grievance process. It is possible that she tampered with the notes to remove anything that was too incriminating for Kathy. I asked Karen for her handwritten version of the notes, but she said she destroyed them after she typed them up. all of the other note takers keep both versions.
Karen will have some explaining to do at the tribunal, about how these notes are so inaccurate, and why she destroyed her handwritten notes, and why the witnesses were not interviewed. This is in addition to her fraudulent investigation details document. She has produced a fraudulent document which, in turn, refers to another fraudulent document that she produced.
This amount and degree of fraud could mean a spell in the slammer for Karen, and I think she fully deserves it. Karen was already aware that her behaviour was damaging my health.
It will be interesting to see if Karen insists her notes are accurate, and that my account of these meetings that were attended by several witnesses, is false. Or will she once again claim that it was just a mistake? God knows where she is going with this, but she certainly has acquired a taste for fraud.
After the grievance decision was announced, Kevin Clarke described Karen as "highly professional". This raises very serious concerns about the University Secretary's judgement. Will he still be saying that when she's on her way to jail? Was Karen working to his instructions? Why is she still in her job where she could be doing this to more and more innocent employees? Is nobody at the uni calling for an investigation into her behaviour?
Regarding Karen's fraud, there could even be more. Watch this space...
The most incredible typing error ever. Fact!
We've all done it. You're in a hurry, and you press the wrong key. My most frequent error is to type an extra 'o' in the word 'would'. I don't know why. But I usually look over what I've typed and correct it. If I intend to print it on paper, I check very carefully.
However, I have never made the incredible kind of typo that Karen Stark from HR claims to have made.
In earlier posts I spoke of how Stirling University faked evidence and sent it to the Employment Tribunal in an attempt to fool them into believing they investigated all of my allegations against Kathy McCabe. It showed that information that didn't exist was used to influence Eileen Schofield's decision on one of my allegations.
The document they sent includes several columns of information relating to each allegation. One column displays the decision that Mrs Schofield came to, and another column displays the facts on which the decision was based. The fact for this particular allegation was said to come from a former colleague's witness statement. However the fact did not appear in the statement. The fact displayed did not exist until more than three weeks after the decision was made, and it was a fact that supported my allegation.
Under oath at the tribunal, Miss Stark explained that this was because the new information had been clipped on to the original statement, and while she was creating the document for the tribunal, she just mistakenly took that new information to be the fact that Mrs Schofield had relied on for her decision. Already the story sounds fishy, but it's the next part of the story that is the stuff that fairy tales are made of.
Karen said that Eileen Schofield's decision was Allegation not upheld, but that she typed Allegation upheld - but considered not to be material by mistake.
Not only is it an incredible typo, but it's also an incredible coincidence that she should make that typo for the same allegation where she has typed the wrong fact. It's also an incredible coincidence that the wrong fact supported my allegation. It is also an incredible coincidence that earlier in the document it warns that this type of allegation was not considered material. It's also an incredible coincidence that no other allegation in the ten page document has a decision of Allegation upheld - but considered not to be material.
Woould you believe it?
However, I have never made the incredible kind of typo that Karen Stark from HR claims to have made.
In earlier posts I spoke of how Stirling University faked evidence and sent it to the Employment Tribunal in an attempt to fool them into believing they investigated all of my allegations against Kathy McCabe. It showed that information that didn't exist was used to influence Eileen Schofield's decision on one of my allegations.
The document they sent includes several columns of information relating to each allegation. One column displays the decision that Mrs Schofield came to, and another column displays the facts on which the decision was based. The fact for this particular allegation was said to come from a former colleague's witness statement. However the fact did not appear in the statement. The fact displayed did not exist until more than three weeks after the decision was made, and it was a fact that supported my allegation.
Under oath at the tribunal, Miss Stark explained that this was because the new information had been clipped on to the original statement, and while she was creating the document for the tribunal, she just mistakenly took that new information to be the fact that Mrs Schofield had relied on for her decision. Already the story sounds fishy, but it's the next part of the story that is the stuff that fairy tales are made of.
Karen said that Eileen Schofield's decision was Allegation not upheld, but that she typed Allegation upheld - but considered not to be material by mistake.
Not only is it an incredible typo, but it's also an incredible coincidence that she should make that typo for the same allegation where she has typed the wrong fact. It's also an incredible coincidence that the wrong fact supported my allegation. It is also an incredible coincidence that earlier in the document it warns that this type of allegation was not considered material. It's also an incredible coincidence that no other allegation in the ten page document has a decision of Allegation upheld - but considered not to be material.
Woould you believe it?
Friday
Stirling University employees may face jail sentences
A company boss was jailed for four months after he faked evidence for an Employment Tribunal in Edinburgh. Story at Deadline News and Northgate Arinso Employer Services.
He would have been jailed for six months, but his sentence was reduced because he admitted his crime of perverting the course of justice.
What he did is similar to what Eileen Schofield and Karen Stark have done for the Employment Tribunal case that I have brought against University of Stirling.
Schofield and Stark faked evidence in order to fool the tribunal that, for a grievance I raised against Kathy McCabe, Schofield had formed her decision to reject my allegations based on evidence. However, evidence that they claim influenced her decision simply didn't exist when she made it. Details here.
He would have been jailed for six months, but his sentence was reduced because he admitted his crime of perverting the course of justice.
What he did is similar to what Eileen Schofield and Karen Stark have done for the Employment Tribunal case that I have brought against University of Stirling.
Schofield and Stark faked evidence in order to fool the tribunal that, for a grievance I raised against Kathy McCabe, Schofield had formed her decision to reject my allegations based on evidence. However, evidence that they claim influenced her decision simply didn't exist when she made it. Details here.
Sunday
Gerry McCormac - Corrupt or What?
Gerry McCormac
Gerry McCormac became Stirling University's Principal in May 2010. He described the university as one of the most respected in the UK. He said his focus would be on providing leadership and "getting the best out of people".
In accordance with the university's grievance procedures, I wrote to Professor McCormac in September 2010 and sent copies of my letter to Alan Simpson, Chair of the University Court, and Dr James Naughtie, University Chancellor. I alerted them to the widespread corruption that exists within the university's senior management.
You might expect that someone who agreed to take up such a responsible position, and who accepts around a quarter of a million pounds a year to perform his duties, would be horrified to learn of this and would be eager to rid the university of corruption as a matter of priority. You might also expect that he would be eager to speak with me to obtain as much information as possible in order for him to fully understand and deal with the very serious problem at Stirling University.
However, you would be wrong. Professor McCormac decided that it would be best to sweep the issue under the carpet.
It is ironic that a university Cleaner earning around £15,000 a year would probably be sacked for sweeping dirt under the carpet. Cleaners are expected to work with integrity; Principals and senior management are not.
Corrupt or what? I see no evidence to suggest that Gerry is anything but corrupt.
Shame on you, Gerry!
Oh dear! Hot off the press; Gerry has been appointed by Education Secretary, Mike Russell to head up a review of teachers' pay and conditions. Labour and Liberal Democrats are worried that the review may be a sham, and that this is just a cost cutting exercise. With Gerry at the helm, I believe they have good reason to be worried.
Gerry is aware that Mark Toole had decided that I should be dismissed because he couldn't deal properly with my grievance against Kathy McCabe's bullying behaviour. It is likely that Kathy's husband, Liam, being the Finance Director was also a factor. I had made protected disclosures about the university's failure to comply with its legal obligations, so the heat was on for the Uni. Mark's lack of integrity caused him to call in well known 'arse licker', Graham Millar, to carry out a sham investigation which was to produce a report recommending a disciplinary hearing be held. Mark would have told Graham not to allow the facts to get in the way of the required report.
Despite all of the evidence that made it obvious I was innocent, Mark dismissed me, and other corrupt directors upheld his decision.
Immediately prior to this, Mark had arranged for Deputy Secretary, Eileen Schofield to carry out a sham investigation relating to my allegations that I had been bullied by my manager, Kathy McCabe, for several years, including bullying that took place in Mark's presence. Amazingly, despite all of the evidence, Eileen produced a report stating that I had not been bullied, but that I had bullied my manager. At appeal, University Secretary, Kevin Clarke upheld her incredible decision.
Gerry knew about all of this when he shrugged off my complaints of corruption. Interestingly, he offered no evidence to refute my claims that senior management is corrupt.
Not satisfied with being paid £250,000 a year and ruining an innocent man's career, Gerry will be hoping to be recommended for inclusion in the honours list for carrying out this review. In my opinion, he should be in jail.
Gerry has a wife and three sons. I suppose he is 'lucky' not to have a conscience.
I suppose it's unfortunate from Gerry's and other corrupt people's point of view, that we now have the internet. The world is becoming more transparent. Corrupt dinosaurs, like Gerry, will hopefully become a feature of the past.
My parents were born more than 70 years before most people had even heard of the internet, but that didn't stop them from raising me to be honest, hard working and ethical. Gerry is the type of person they warned me not to mix with.
I feel sorry for his sons who have been deprived of a normal non corrupt life in which they could achieve their goals based on their own genuine desires and honest abilities.
15 April 2011
He's not been in charge for a year yet, but as well as bullying and corruption, Gerry is now proud to add fraud to his list of skills.
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