Jurassic row sparks café firing

Monday 15 May 2017

A man has been awarded over £3,000 in compensation after it was alleged his boss's “temper got the better of him” and sacked the man for building a model dinosaur during his working hours.

Ashley Johnson was sacked from his managing role at St Ouen beachfront takeaway, the Line Up, and the Employment Tribunal ruled his boss, Nigel Oxenden-Wray, didn't follow a fair process.

The Tribunal heard that Mr Johnson had worked there for several years on and off, and had been mentored by Wray in how the business worked after he expressed an interest in purchasing the Five Mile Road café. But after Mr Johnson’s desire to do so apparently started waning, Mr Wray said that, “...his work deteriorated too”.

From that point, a series of events fuelled his growing discontentment with Mr Johnson’s efforts. Mr Johnson had apparently started failing to adequately clean the kitchen, placed stock orders “at the last minute”, did not prepare staff rotas in a timely fashion and ignored portion size instructions.

In a bid to tighten up the business practice, Mr Wray introduced a daily reports system, which he later accused Mr Johnson of having falsified.

Pictured: The Line Up, the café from which Mr Johnson was dismissed. (Photo: Google Maps)

He also became aware that Mr Johnson had been playing games at work – of which he obtained video evidence – and found a model dinosaur constructed by Mr Johnson in the kitchen space, while he should have been cleaning up.

But the catalyst for the firing was noting Mr Johnson’s apparent failure to adequately put up windbreaks around the café one Sunday in August 2016, which left him feeling “frustrated” as it was one of the first jobs Mr Johnson was required to do each morning.

“Mr Wray said that he then waited for all the food orders to be finished and he went inside and shut the serving hatches… Mr Wray was in a complete rage at this time and was screaming and shouting at the Applicant... [He] then found the model dinosaur and asked the staff who it belonged to three times… only on the third request did the Applicant acknowledge that it was his model,” the recently-published judgement stated.

Mr Johnson was later sent home, with Mr Wray intent on firing him for, “...extreme gross misconduct the following day."

But the Employment and Discrimination Tribunal ruled in Mr Johnson's favour last month, claiming that Mr Wray’s “…temper had got the better of him” and that he had failed in his, “…obligation to act with dignity and respect towards an employee in a disciplinary situation.”  

“Quite simply, there was no fair process followed at all in this case. This was not the action of a reasonable employer and the Tribunal finds that the Applicant’s dismissal did not fall within the band of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer in all the circumstances of this case. Accordingly the Tribunal finds that the Applicant was unfairly dismissed,” the Tribunal concluded.

Mr Johnson was subsequently awarded over £3,023.43 in damages - £2,658.43 in compensation for the unfair dismissal, and an additional £364.72 for his employers’ failure to provide notice.