A convicted paedophile fired from his council job after he was charged with sexual abuse has tried to sue the local authority for damages claiming he was wrongly dismissed.Well, he has chutzpah, I’ll give him that…
His case, heard at an employment tribunal in Croydon on Monday, was rejected by the tribunal judge.Whew! It was a close thing, no doubt, given some other recent utterly barking tribunal decisions…
Lambeth Council chose not to comment on Hoyte's decision to go to a tribunal but a spokesman said the council was “confident of the grounds under which Jason Hoyte's employment was terminated" and "clearly the employment tribunal was of the same view”.Well, they might have cause to regret that…
Gipsy Hill councillor Graham Pycock, who has criticised the council for not doing more to detect Hoyte's abuse of children, called his application for wrongful dismissal "outrageous".I wonder why he lived a charmed life?
He added: "He lived a charmed life with the council and because of that treatment he still feels he can run rings around them."
Cllr Pycock has continued to demand why Lambeth Council did not actively seek to check Hoyte's CRB status when his youth organisation was given a grant by the council.Good point. How did the council respond?
A council spokesman said the council had "strict and robust policies in place to protect children and young people" and Hoyte had worked with children through a privately run organisation which provided youth services within West Norwood.Yes, you read that right.
He said: "We followed national guidelines which stipulate that private organisations must provide written confirmation that CRB checks have been carried out on their staff.
"In his role as company director, Jason Hoyte provided written confirmation that all staff, including himself, had been CRB checked."
He gave assurances he’d been checked and no-one bothered to check that he was telling the truth. That fell within ‘national guidelines’, you see.
No wonder he felt he led a ‘charmed life’ at Lambeth…
10 comments:
I've been meaning to comment on the word 'robust' for ages now but haven't got round to it.
Every time you see or hear that word used by any 'official', in any capacity, it means exactly the opposite of its use.
It is the buzzword of the charlatan, the thief, the pompous and the plain idiotic.
It is used to stifle any kind of debate, any kind of counter opinion. It is the word of statist, authoritarian, marxist control bots.
Every time you encounter its use you know that you've been taken for a fool.
As for the rest of the sorry story, meh, it's just another day in the life of the lunatic asylum that is the UK.
Since assurances to councils seem to work so well I reckon the best way to deal with the council tax bill is simply to assure them that you paid it.
@ Griblett. Good point about the use of 'robust' - an example of real life doublethink going on there I reckon. Either that or yet another part of the English language is being forced to whore itself in the mouths of a group of unapologetic and feckless twats.
"He gave assurances he’d been checked and no-one bothered to check that he was telling the truth. That fell within ‘national guidelines’, you see."
This kind of thing is inevitable when people defer their decision-making and risk analysis to the state, or rather when the state defines what the risks are.
I am increasingly certain that CRB checking a quarter of the British population will not reduce the incidence of pederasty one jot.
Hmm. Jason Hoyte. Might he, perhaps, be a member of an ethnic minority? And might that have meant the authorities cut him a little bit more slack?
Right on cue...
CRU director Phil Jones was able to tell the BBC: "We have always been scrupulous in ensuring our science is robust and honest."
Give it a rest Phil, we've seen behind the curtain and you're just a small man cranking a big machine to the detriment of us all.
How was the £13 million of grants by the way? Not paid in pieces of silver by any chance?
The story is easier to understand if you look at the time line.
The CRB assurance is said to have been given while Hoyte was a company director selling a service to the council and at some point he became an employee, which means it is usually worth having a punt on an employment tribunal. However, this could be a wrong interpretation. We won't know until we see the written judgment. The tribunal might have chucked it out on the simple grounds that he wasn't an employee and didn't have recourse to employment law. Perhaps Lambeth were just terminating a service contract with a 3rd party provider with immediate effect, as they are entitled to do.
Supposing he was employed by the Council. Generally an employee would be suspended but not dismissed while the criminal system does its work. Charges may be withdrawn, the person may be cleared.
At the point where Hoyte supplied the CRB assurance, his record amounted to charges in 1989 which were withdrawn. Anybody can have charges laid against them, as this blog regularly notes.
Suppose Lambeth had carried out an independent CRB check and found the 1989 withdrawn charges. Should they have refused to employ him or his company because of something which never even made it to court, or would they have been entitled to conclude the claims were unsubstantiated and possibly unfounded ones against an then-18 year old black youth? They were not given that choice, but even if they had been it is not certain they should have rejected Hoyte on those grounds alone.
Do we want accusation to be treated as conviction? The point of the criminal justice system is that the prosecution must back up its accusations. It matters little if an accusation is below the level of proof or even outright malicious if it is not going to be tested at all.
Alternatively, if we wish to distinguish between conviction and accusation, then Lambeth was entitled to employ him or use him up to point of conviction. What Hoyte was lying about was his behaviour, not his record.
Obo is, of course, correct. Checking the CRB record made no difference and is just a money-making measure for somebody. If anything, it increases risk by making people rely on arse-covering rather than using their judgment.
A CRB check, even an enhanced one, will not disclose an arrest or a withdrawn charge, only a conviction.
The newly emerging Independent Safeguarding Authority may include these things as well as 'other information'; aquitalls (FFS !), denunciations, allegations, rumour and gossip may all be held on file.
Their powers have just been decimated ( word used correctly for once ) so they will be out for blood in revenge.
"I've been meaning to comment on the word 'robust' for ages now but haven't got round to it.
Every time you see or hear that word used by any 'official', in any capacity, it means exactly the opposite of its use."
As, indeed, does 'thorough' when applied to any official enquiry...
"Since assurances to councils seem to work so well I reckon the best way to deal with the council tax bill is simply to assure them that you paid it."
I might try it. I can update this blog from the nick, can't I? :)
"This kind of thing is inevitable when people defer their decision-making and risk analysis to the state, or rather when the state defines what the risks are."
And that seems to be accelerating, sadly...
"Hmm. Jason Hoyte. Might he, perhaps, be a member of an ethnic minority? And might that have meant the authorities cut him a little bit more slack?"
Yes.
And yes.
"Obo is, of course, correct. Checking the CRB record made no difference and is just a money-making measure for somebody."
Certainly seems that way. And yet, so many people seem to want to put their trust in it.
Jason Hoyte worked with Bertie Caleb Headley and Deborah Claire Headleys who ran children's care homes alongside a lot of very dodgy businesses
And Hoyte connection to BBC too
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