Sacking for sick leave shark wrestler

Even sheer heroism was not enough to save the job of one man who was filmed in Australia wrestling a shark while on sick leave from his job, reports Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) - as will interest many of the organisations that hire human resource consultants.

Paul Marshallsea, a 62 year old man from Merthyr Tydfil, was sacked by the Pant and Dowlais Boys and Girls Club after his bosses saw the footage. He and his wife, Wendy, 56, had been on extended sick leave for work-related stress from the charity at which they had been employed for a decade.

They were in Australia on a two-month stay to visit friends and were having a beach barbecue when observers spotted a fin in the water. Running into the sea, Mr Marshallsea dragged the dusky whaler shark, measuring 6 feet (1.8 metres) long, into deeper water as he was recorded on camera.

The former project coordinator at the charity commented: "If I hadn't gone in to save the kids on that beach that day my wife and I would still have a job." About the sick leave, he added: "The stress of running this in your own community - it's like a monster.

"We created a whip to hit our own backs. It grew so big and we didn't realise. There was no stopping it. Our doctor advised us to go on holiday so we travelled to stay with friends in Australia. I never thought for one minute that wrestling with shark would cost me my job."

A spokeswoman on behalf of the Pant and Dowlais Boys & Girls Club trustees said that solicitors had advised the charity not to comment on the matter.

However, according to a BBC News Online report, Mr Marshallsea received a letter from the trustees, in which he was told: "whilst unfit to work you were well enough to travel to Australia and, according to recent news footage of yourself in Queensland, you allegedly grabbed a shark by the tail and narrowly missed being bitten by quickly jumping out of the way.

"The photographs and footage appeared in newspapers and television broadcasts."

Clients of employment law specialists will be interested to read that according to Mr Marshallsea, he later received another letter stating that "the breakdown of the trustees' confidence and trust in you and your ability to perform the role is so great that we find that dismissal is the only course of action we can recommend."

Such news should only further remind clients of employment law services that sick leave has to work for both the employer and employee, and that both parties should pay close attention to relevant legislation. It is also worthy of note that an employees’ stress-related sickness absence doesn’t necessarily preclude them from going on holiday in a rehabilitative capacity or even engaging in secondary employment that might serve to facilitate their recovery. Get in touch with the HR support professionals at Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) for more advice relating to sick leave, dispute resolution and other areas of employment law.

Editor’s Note: Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.