So Mr Simon Cremer (the boss) of Essex thinks “it’s absolutely disgusting” that Mr Mark Gilbert (ex-employee) “was even able to sue me after he had stolen from me”.

Here’s the link to The Telegraph’s report – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8327528/13000-for-thief-who-was-frogmarched-to-police-by-his-boss.html – you need to see the image.

Whatever it was that Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee) did, being paraded through the streets deserves comment. Adverse comment.

It appears that Mr Gilbert (the-ex employee) admitted writing to himself a cheque on the business cheque book. Foolhardy and dishonest, no doubt. Although there was more to this story than just this because clearly Mr Cremer (the boss) wasn’t that good at paying his workforce – or if he was, Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee) didn’t think he was.

However, the combination of vigilante behaviour and out-and-out ritual humiliation, is surely never going to be acceptable either inside or outside workplace.

It is not hard to see why a person who has been wronged becomes irrationally furious. This is an ordinary human emotion. It is the centre point of stacks of crime novels. And, even works of great literature.

The very dark classic novel The Beast Within (La Bete Humaine) by Emile Zola – here’s a link to a reviewing website – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28417.La_B_te_humaine – starts off with a man murdering his wife when he loses all self-control because he believes that he finds appears to prove that she is having an affair.

Obviously, here we don’t have murder. But character assassination we certainly do have.

No one, not even people who do things as stupid as those done by Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee) of Essex, go to work in order for their bosses to hang a sign around their necks saying THIEF, and to then be paraded through the streets for the world to see. This is not the stocks. This is the revenge Roman-style!

Is there a legal point? Yes, there certainly is!

Mr Cremer (the boss) thinks the legal system deserves his unalloyed contempt. He thinks that because Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee) did something so stupid as to merit, in any sensibly run business, dismissal on grounds of gross misconduct, then Mr Cremer (the boss) should be entitled to suspend all Mr Gilbert’s (the ex-employee’s) rights – which appear to all pass (in the mind of Mr Cremer – the boss) into the vengeful hands of Mr Cremer (the boss).

Therefore, he, Mr Cremer (the boss) clearly believed he was completely within his rights to do everything he wanted to Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee) short of a public flogging.

It did not occur to Mr Cremer (the boss) that dismissal and prosecution for theft would be sufficient to punish Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee). He needed to do more so the public knew everything that was to be reviled in Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee).

Well, I, for one, support Mr Gilbert!

Any boss who behaves as Mr Cremer did – and those who supported Mr Cremer including, his brother and other thuggish associates/colleagues – is (are) a disgrace.

Whilst the red-tape culture of our employment law may well be more burdensome and more intrusive than is acceptable, bullying of the kind illustrated here was outlawed decades ago. This has nothing to do with the New Labour infantilism. Or even the Human Rights Act. It has to do with conduct recognized in the law as wrong as long ago as the great industrial era – when Britain still had an Empire!

The fact that Mr Cremer (the boss) had to make an out of Court settlement with Mr Gilbert (the ex-employee) is a burden entirely of his own creation.

Article posted on Friday, February, 18th, 2011 at 11:40 am

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