united-kingdom criminal-law employment employer
UK: perverting the course of justice and employment tribunals
<p>Suppose a person in the UK takes his/her employer to an Employment Tribunal.</p>
<p>Some time after, the person finds that the employer fabricated evidence that was important to the outcome of the case.</p>
<p>Can the person take the employer to a criminal court, or does the case have to be taken back to the Employment Tribunal?</p>
<p>Surely, perverting the course of justice is serious enough to warrant a criminal case? It seems odd that it should be treated differently to, say, lying to a police officer over a motoring offence.</p>

<p>In 2006, an employee of a Scottish taxi firm brought a claim for unfair dismissal against the owner. She complained that he had sexually harassed her. His response was to dismiss her. She had no written contract of employment. At the tribunal he presented documents that he had falsified - an employment contract and disciplinary warning letter. These contained the claimant's forged signatures. She denied having seen these, and produced documents containing her genuine signature, which differed from those on the employer's submitted documents. The police were involved, and the employer, having admitted falsifying the documents, was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to four months in prison (reduced from six due to an early guilty plea) for perverting the course of justice.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sheriff Isabella McColl said the case was one of the most serious
cases of attempting to pervert the course of justice she had seen.</p>
<p>She told Robinson that the system of justice relied on honest evidence
and to produce forged documents at an employment tribunal undermined
the whole system.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8359390.stm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Boss jailed for lying to tribunal (BBC News)</a></p>
