Woman on hidden camera drinking Coke gets €15,000

AN employee of Dunnes Stores, caught on a hidden camera drinking a bottle of Diet Coke in a stockroom, has been awarded €15,000 for unfair dismissal.

Check-out operator Ann McCollum was also confronted by a regional security manager and accused of munching Pringles during a work break, an Employment Appeals Tribunal heard.

The retail giant installed a covert camera after mineral and chocolate stock losses came to light at its Clonmel store in October 2001.

The tribunal, in determining its decision, which included a further award of 704.70 for pay loss under a minimum notice breach, ruled it was unfair of the company not to disclose the existence of video evidence before the matter came to hearing.

Ms McCollum, the tribunal heard, could not find a receipt for a bottle of Diet Coke which the hidden camera captured her drinking.

Without advising her of the video evidence, a security officer pressed the worker on whether she had drank any minerals in the storeroom. Ms McCollum later testified a colleague bought her the Coke some weeks earlier and the bottle had been left under a counter.

The security official told the tribunal consumption of stock was theft and, irrespective of the value of the item, such behaviour carried a penalty of theft under company policy.

Ms McCollum, from Ballingarrane, Clonmel, said the security official also asked her if she consumed a full box of Pringles. She admitted to taking three Pringles from an unsaleable damaged box.

The tribunal members ruled that the procedure adopted by the company in questioning Ms McCollum was unfair.

“The video evidence should have been shown to her without comment at the beginning of the inquiry and she should then have been asked to explain her actions,” the members said.

“The existence of the video evidence was not disclosed; this was unfair and did not give the claimant an opportunity to address the evidence exposed in the video.”

In another Employment Appeals Tribunal decision, a former general manager of the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was awarded €30,000 for unfair dismissal.

Beata Riehn suffered stress and claimed her duties as general manager had been undermined in a number of ways which forced her to constructively dismiss herself from the post in August 2002.

The tribunal heard the ex-manager had “experienced open hostility from the outset of her employment” in February 2000 and, at the end of her first year in the job, felt shattered. The tribunal rejected the employer’s contention that Ms Riehn was fairly dismissed on grounds of redundancy.