The thing you have to understand is that employment law is NOT like criminal law - its not a set of rules that you must follow, rather a set of guidelines on how to do things. In criminal law, if you nick a car, thats that, you are guilty according to the law. In employement law, there are no hard and fast rules - the tribunal determines if what happened was unfair dismissial/discrimination etc, using the guidelines. If you followed the guidelines, then there is a good chance that you will be ok, and if you didn't follow them theres a good chance you will get bent over - BUT - there is nothing to say that you "must" follow the guidelines, and you are not automatically (in most circumstances) in breech of employment law if you fail to follow them.
In this case the guidelines were not followed by the sounds of it, however, assuming they hear the same story as we have, they might well find in favour of the company anyway.
In this case the guidelines were not followed by the sounds of it, however, assuming they hear the same story as we have, they might well find in favour of the company anyway.
