Story 140
My husband worked in operations. He witnessed multiple unsafe working practices. He tried raising these internally in a report and safety walks but was ignored. He was then performance managed out. He raised his concerns again through the correct Whistleblowing debts which also included new incidents he had witnessed that involved unsanctioned practices. He was treated with hostility and again no one listened. He contacted authorities who visited the site and took enforcement action. He also started an employment tribunal claim. We were never convinced they investigated properly. Nobody interviewed him for four months. It felt like they were just leading him on. My husband was sending them numerous pieces of evidence of his employer's cover up. Unbelievably when he made a claim to his employer he found he had been personally blamed. They refused to confirm their outcome of their investigation only that he had not been blamed to them. By now we didn’t trust either organisation. There were red flags around them both. No one was interested in what the authority’s report found either which was very serious.
My husband received a pre action letter alleging he had committed a crime under the harassment act. It had around 70 paragraphs. Many were very threatening. He was required to sign undertakings. He was told he had committed a crime and this was punishable by up to 6 months in prison, it threatened loss of our home, a criminal record, fines, injunctions. The letter was terrifying. We took it to the police who said it was a civil matter. We didn’t sleep all weekend. My husband took legal advice and they advised him not to sign it but instead write back separately that you won’t contact the employer directly again. They said it was badly written and no judge would rule on it. However we were still terrified and it completely stopped my husband asking for disclosure of anything for a long period of time. Receiving a letter like that really frightened us.
They had ignored all early requests for disclosure. As I have said earlier after the pre action letter we didn’t dare ask for anything. But as the hearing drew nearer we tried a formal disclosure request (which also included a statement that my husband believed the investigation was a total whitewash and he was going to contact his MP). A few days later he was sent a Without prejudice costs warning letter that included a COT3 (NDA) . The letter was threatening, it gave only 3 days to withdraw his full claim and he must sign the COT3 terms. Sent late on a Friday night again. I tried hard to get legal advice while he was at work but the timescale meant it was impossible. One law firm just did not want to take it on and we knew this could costs thousands we didn’t have.
The last attempt at getting us both ( as I had become very involved ) at signing an NDA was shortly before my husband won his appeal. We had asked for a meeting to discuss the fire audit as we thought surely someone has to sit up and listen now. No we were wrong. They only wanted the meeting to discuss settling. We did agree to consider but made it clear the costs award could not be used as leverage, and we were still concerned about the Whistleblowing and this needed resolving properly.
What was sent was another extreme one sided NDA. It took us ten minutes to reject it. It used the costs award as leverage and also a clause they wouldn’t take legal action against us. Multiple clauses not to contact anyone. No more FOI’s. Accept that the whistleblowing is resolved. Irretrievably delete information.
I’ve no idea how it is lawful to make such threats against anybody who is raising safety concerns in the public interest and who has two regulators reports to prove their credibility. I feel for anyone put in this position and understand how vulnerable they are.
What I am also really concerned about is using COT3’s to settle disputes. They are very similar to settlement agreements. In fact most are very lengthy and require a legal understanding. Yet they don’t require legal advice to be taken to make them legal. You can just sign it. You don’t get any money either to take legal advice unlike employer settlement agreements. It’s very frightening what they may contain and when used in the way it was with us my husband could have panicked and signed it and everything he had witnessed would have been permanently silenced.
