Wetherspoons boss sacked after 'pressing wrong button' but has last laugh

A former JD Wetherspoon pub manager who was sacked for allowing a colleague a 50% food discount when he 'pressed a wrong button' has won an employment tribunal, with a judge ruling he was unfairly dismissed.

Peter Castagna-Davies had worked at the company for 22 years and had been shift leader at the Pontlottyn pub in Abertillery, Wales when he was sacked for allegedly breaching company policy. The pub boss gave kitchen worker Noah Gardiner the half-price discount as he put the items - two portions of halloumi fries, two portions of chicken breast bites, and two cans of Monster energy drink – through the till.

With the company "cracking down" on discounts offered to staff at the time, an internal investigation found he had breached policy by allowing Mr Gardiner to buy "excessive products" at the 50% rate and to take the food home, reports Walesonline.

READ MORE: Thief makes off with care home manager's handbag after while visiting gran

READ MORE: Handy teeth whitening gadget shoppers take on nights out that makes them 'so much whiter'

The Cardiff employment tribunal heard that just minutes before Mr Castagna-Davies authorised the order on January 31 last year, Mr Gardiner had used a different manager's till key to process another free meal for himself – chicken breast bites and a can of Monster Punch. Wetherspoon's disciplinary chairman Chris Jenkins decided to fire Mr Castagna-Davies, telling him: "Shortly before you processed Noah's 50% on-shift discount he had processed through the till his own staff feeding meal, some two hours after his break when he had consumed it, which you had no knowledge of him doing so or even going on his break.

"I find this both worrying and surprising that, as the duty manager with so few staff to manage on the shift in question, you had no knowledge or control over what was going on."

At the time the chain had internally circulated rules stating only one item from the food menu and one soft drink were available for free to employees on a shift. Extra items could be purchased with a discount of 50%, while food being taken home would get a discount of 20%.

Wetherspoon's witnesses said during the tribunal that there had been "a crackdown on the 50% discount because staff had been caught taking food home to feed their whole family". They claimed the business had suffered "significant" costs, which led it to adopt a "corporate zero-tolerance attitude towards abuse of the staff discount".

The transaction approved by Mr Castagna-Davies was flagged by Wetherspoon's IntelliQ system, which is used to flag potential staff fraud. Pontlottyn manager Sarah Newton had told the shift leader "mistakes happen" but that he should be careful because the company "really were cracking down on it". Mr Castagna-Davies responded that he was disappointed in himself for the mistake.

An investigating manager, Keri Blanchard, interviewed Mr Gardiner, who said he had cooked the food himself. Asked if he had eaten his initial free meal on-site, he replied: "I should’ve yeah, I don’t take food home any more.” He then admitted he had taken home the items put through by Castagna-Davies.

When he was interviewed about the incident, Castagna-Davies admitted he may have mistakenly "pressed the wrong button" in applying a discount of 50% rather than 20%. He denied being aware Mr Gardiner planned to take the food home.

Mr Jenkins dismissed the shift leader without notice despite his clean disciplinary record over 22 years. He cited Wetherspoon had been "vigorous" in communicating its zero-tolerance approach.

Mr Castagna-Davies argued via four witnesses that Mr Gardiner "had ordered the food in a deceptive way". But Wetherspoon area manager Dannie Stephens upheld the dismissal, telling him he had "failed to lead, manage and organise your shift sufficiently to prevent the breach".

At the tribunal Judge Rachel Harfield concluded it was not reasonable for Ms Stephens to conclude this was a case of "gross incompetence or gross negligence, as opposed to being simple negligence that falls within the misconduct category of the respondent’s policy".

The judge added: "There is no evidence that Dannie Stephens gave any thought to that at all. She seems simply to have operated on the basis that the claimant should have managed the shift better, that if he had done so the breach would not have happened, therefore the claimant should be held responsible for the breach, and it was possible under the policy to dismiss for a single act.

"There was no weighing of the actual seriousness of the claimant's actions in their actual context. Dannie Stephens seemed to have viewed the claimant as diligent in other areas. It was one incident on one shift that he could have managed better. He was an employee with long service and a clear disciplinary record. The decision to uphold the dismissal at appeal stage was not within the reasonable range. In my judgement that rendered the whole dismissal unfair."

A payout is yet to be decided. Judge Harfield encouraged the parties to attempt a settlement before a remedy hearing takes place.