dedja wrote:Squawk wrote:heater31 wrote:Clearly they had to wait until the verdict was handed down. Innocent until proven guilty. Would have been a bigger debacle if they arsed him last season when they discovered the allegations then to have a not guilty.
Actually, under employment law it is possible to sack someone on the balance of probabilities, and therefore the club could have dismissed him once the 30 charges were laid on the basis that evidence existed to lay charges and that this brought the employer's reputation in to disrepute.
The thing that surprised me the most was that if they weren't going to sack him when he was charged, the club should have suspended him as soon as he was charged.
All conjecture unless we can all review his employment contract. I think you are trying to reference unfair dismissal laws, which are murky and difficult to interpret and adjudicate at the best of times, and would also potentially involve significant legal expenses.
I'm very comfortable with the way the issue was handled.
OK Dedja, I'm eating humble pie. I spoke to the criminal lawyer in my household and have been advised that the Bays probably took the right approach with the only possible exception being they could have suspended him when the charges were laid (probably on full pay).
Apparently DV cases are VERY hard to prove, (child sex offences and rape are apparently the only two harder charges to prove). So regardless of the number of charges (30) there was always going to be a battle in the courtroom. As we know, 18 were dismissed.
Also, the nexus between the charges and his employment as a football coach is relevant but likely not strong enough to say his employment is immediately untenable at the time the charges were laid and sack him at that time.
The balance of probabilities test is a principle of employment law but is more complicated than simply being applied as "more likely than not" (as opposed to guilty beyond reasonable doubt), because it has to be assessed against the allegations raised in the criminal case. In this case the case was of alleged DV. It would have been easier to dismiss him when he was charged if the charges were possession of drugs for example, because possession is easier to prove. A DV case is largely determined on the basis of the credibility of testimony and the ability to particularise the offences.
So in short, there are a lot more legal and other complexities to this which means people like me who want to make assessments from reading a newspaper are often wrong when they make their assessments. Mind you, my source only had the facts I gave her too but she does have 15 years experience in criminal law and needless to say she tore my arguments to pieces in minutes.
So your comfortability with the way it has been handled sounds well placed at law, with that one exception that they could have considered suspending him when the charges were laid. That said, they may indeed have considered that and elected not to do so. Besides, it may have saved them money by not having to pay a salary to an interim coach and also meant that any interim coach was not working under the uncertainty of an unfolding legal case.
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 5:35 pm
