Supermarket cleaner who tested positive for Covid 'unfairly sacked' for working shift with virus

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A cleaner who turned up to work at a supermarket while infected with Covid-19 was unfairly sacked, an Employment Tribunal ruled.

Philip Murphy had been for a PCR test the day before his shift at a Lidl store and had not yet received his results when he arrived at work.

Mr Murphy claimed that he had experienced no symptoms, although witnesses said that he appeared unwell on the day and the Lidl store manager in Runcorn, Philip Buxton, described seeing him "coughing in the canteen", as reported by Liverpool Echo.The cleaner, who is autistic and has dyslexia, was employed by the cleaning contractor Private and Industrial Services Ltd, owned by Kevin Cross.Mr Cross said that he was disappointed with the tribunal's ruling, and said that he believed Mr Murphy's actions had "put lives at risk".However in a written ruling, Employment Judge Jennifer Ainscough found Mr Cross had not carried out a fair investigation and sacked Mr Murphy without inviting him to any disciplinary meeting.She found Mr Cross had "engineered" a situation to keep the contract with Lidl, after a furious Mr Buxton warned the company their contract could be terminated if Mr Murphy turned up to work at his store again.When the Liverpool Echo asked about the judge's conclusions, Mr Cross said: "In hindsight maybe I should have suspended him. "Mr Boris Johnson told us to stick by the rules.

I was trying to stick by the rules, but Mr Johnson didn't stick to them himself did he. "I spoke to the council about this case and they used us as an example to other businesses about taking the pandemic seriously."It is a lesson learned."Mr Murphy told the tribunal he was driving on Wednesday, January 6 last year, when he passed a Covid-19 testing station.According to Mr