The ManicaPost
AN easyJet air hostess was sacked for eating a £4.50 bacon sandwich given to her by her manager on a flight, an employment tribunal heard.
Shannon Gleeson, 22, ate the baguette because she had a nut allergy and had not been able to find safe food to eat while working abroad for the first time.
But she was sacked from the company for gross misconduct and theft after failing to ask her manager if the food had been paid for.
An employment tribunal heard at Cambridge Magistrates Court last week was told Ms Gleeson had breached company policy by not asking for a receipt.
Ms Gleeson, who is now 18 weeks pregnant, said: “I am not a thief and that was what I was labelled as.”
The matter was settled by the company out of court for an undisclosed sum on January 11.
An investigation was launched by easyJet following the incident aboard a flight from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on January 3, 2015.
A fellow crew member told the company she had seen Ms Gleeson and the cabin manager eating a bacon baguette and croque monsieur meant for customers.
Ms Gleeson, who had been employed by the company for three years, was later called in to a meeting about the investigation.She apologised for the incident and offered to pay the £4.50 fee but was sacked alongside the cabin manager for theft and gross misconduct.Introducing the case on January 10, employment Judge Michael Ord said: “The actual incident is not in dispute.“Ms Gleeson ate a bacon baguette and she had not paid for it. That is the extent of the mistake.”
He added: “If I rang my insurance company and told them my Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow had been stolen they would want to see proof that I owned it.“You have actually got to show some loss for there to be a theft. I see no evidence that anything was paid for or not paid for.”
The hearing was told the Luton-based company had no way of recording missing stock from a flight and that there was no ‘black and white’ policy in place for food given to staff.—Mirror Online
