THE former manager of Sefton Group-owned Palace Hotel in Douglas has been awarded compensation of more than £22,000 by an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.
Steven Harding, of Kirk Michael, was made redundant in October 2011 after the company decided to merge the managerial positions at the Palace and Sefton and Sefton Express hotels into one.
The tribunal, chaired by Douglas Stewart, agreed with Mr Harding the selection process for the new post had been ‘a sham’ and found in favour of the claimant after concluding key witnesses called by Sefton Group company secretary John Quinn were ‘unreliable’.
Mr Harding, who is now working as a relief manager for Heron and Brearley, told the Manx Independent he was looking forward to putting the incident behind him, saying: ‘It was a very tough time that affected my family a lot. It put a lot of strain on myself.’
He told the tribunal his family life – he is married and has an eight-year-old child – had been ‘seriously disturbed’.
It heard that Paul Forrest, who was the general manager rooms division at the Sefton Hotel at the time, had been favoured for the role.
The tribunal accepted that Mr Harding, who had been the manager since 2008, had seen an application form before his job interview on October 13, 2011, for a marriage licence for the Palace Hotel, naming Mr Forrest as the responsible person for the hotel.
And the tribunal rejected evidence from Mr Quinn and Carol Ainley, who, in her role as Mr Quinn’s personal assistant had completed the paperwork for the licence.
They both denied that Mr Forrest was named at that time and said the paperwork was only changed later.
But forensic scientist Hillary Pritchard, who the tribunal called to determine what changes, if any, had been made to the documents, found that while the job title had been changed using correction fluid, there was no evidence the identity of the responsible person had been.
Mr Harding stated that ahead of the interview, he was called by the publican of Sam Webbs, Steve McDowell, alleging he had heard Mr Forrest saying he had been asked to take on the role and that Mr Harding would be made redundant.
The tribunal heard that Mr Harding’s interview lasted about 12 minutes, compared with Mr Forrest’s, which took 30 to 40 minutes.
Mr Stewart said: ‘The tribunal considered that a 12 minute interview to resolve a job application of this importance could not have done the claimant justice.
‘The tribunal would have expected a matrix and recorded assessments as between the candidates. No such process was in evidence and no documents produced.’
Mr Harding gave evidence that he was not included on issues that he had previously been involved with or that would be expected given his role.
They included the employment of staff and the implementation of a new till system at the hotel.
Mr Stewart said: ‘These examples of being sidelined are consistent with management having taken the view that the claimant would not be concerned with the Awards for Excellence; with the till system; with new staffing and/or room rates in the future because he would not be there.
‘This conclusion is fundamentally underpinned by Mr Forrest’s name being on the licence at all times.’
Part of the £22,040 sum awarded included a sum of £3,500 for ‘injury to feelings’, which Mr Stewart said was only made in ‘exceptional circumstances’.
Mr Stewart said: ‘It is bad enough for an employee to be in competition for a job where the playing field is not level.
‘The situation was worse because not only had the claimant heard pub gossip which he initially discounted, he actually saw the application form naming his rival as the responsible person for the Palace Hotel when that was the role of the claimant.
‘This placed the claimant in a demoralising and dispiriting position where he was caught between a rock and a hard place on whether to challenge his employers head-on or simply soldier on and do his best at interview.’
The Sefton Group declined to comment.