Veteran coastguards sacked for rescuing car from cliff edge

RichardS

RichardS

N/A
Joined
5 Nov 2009
Messages
29,212
Location
Home UK Midlands / Boat Croatia
Visit site
Let's hope that Minn gets the assignment to run the MCA asap as the organisation is clearly totally incompetent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...s-sacked-rescuing-car-cliff-edge-bosses-told/

If these were employees in the normal sense they would be in line for a big unfair dismissal payout, and I'd be happy to represent them in court as the case would be a slam dunk win. :encouragement:

They might still get a payout if the MCA doesn't reverse its decision although I would need to see their contractual details to understand what their actual status is.

Richard
 
Last edited:
I could go into a rant about ' sign of the times ' but that's obvious.

Taking off uniform insignia, not using or risking the official vehicle and clearly trying to help someone should get medals and a lot of beers not the sack !

I thought the Coastguard had reached its low point with inland numpties who don't know the Solent from Stornoway, but clearly the accountants can still come up with surprises for normal humans.

Best of luck to the guys, well done ! :encouragement:
 
Seajet said:
Taking off uniform insignia, not using or risking the official vehicle and clearly trying to help someone should get medals and a lot of beers not the sack !
Click to expand...

You forgot "walking off the job without permission to undertake a task which had already been assessed as unnecessarily risky".
 
Oh devils advocate , if every employee did not do as they were told by senior managment then it would be anachry out there ,
you cannt just do as you please , they were on MCA offical time they cannot just stop take of their clothing and say were not working to their time good God the world who go crazy ,
It was for a blooming car no life was at risk and they put their lives on the line for a car more than likely insured
the Fire Brigade and 2 burly men could not restrain the man I don;t think so
It may sound daft and stupid to us but you follow the rules and the H and Safety of the situation and it did not warrent 2 men on Coast Guard time ot rescue a car , what would have happened if they were need else were if a young child fell of the cliff and those 2 numpties were pulling up a car
blooming silly
IMHO :D
Have ran staff for 25 years up to 200 + and by god anyone just wandered off to do their own thing would aslo face disiplinary action , espically if putting their lifes at risk when told not t
 
OK the owner may not have been at risk, reasonable effort to save his car - ( or in similar conditions a boat ) without putting themselves at risk or sod the car - seems laudable to me and would normally be a good PR move, while this is the opposite.
 
Seajet said:
OK the owner may not have been at risk, reasonable effort to save his car - ( or in similar conditions a boat ) without putting themselves at risk or sod the car - seems laudable to me and would normally be a good PR move, while this is the opposite.
Click to expand...

Iagree but the problem is they walked off the Job and said be damned with managment , this is a problem
I remember some years back a lady fell down a well in Central Scotland and the Fire Brigade came but did not have the so called skills to retrive her acording to Risk assesment even though couple of the lads wanted to go dowm they were told know by senior command , they waited for mountain Rescue which took some time to get to them at this point when they retived her she had already died
the coroner did state if she was rescued earlier she might have survied , caused a right argument up here , and there are the 2 sides but by god I wonder how many of those firemen wanted to be dammned with regualtion and get a rope and go down
 
JumbleDuck said:
You forgot "walking off the job without permission to undertake a task which had already been assessed as unnecessarily risky".
Click to expand...

I don't believe that is a correct summary. The two coastguards are volunteers and, when they are not on a "shout", are free to do as they wish with their own time and their own resources. As soon as they were told to "stand down" they are in their own time and the MCA has no control over them unless they are called out on another shout, which they weren't.

The owner of the vehicle was elderly and distressed so as they were in the own free time, they took off their uniforms and and used their own vehicle to help him, exactly as any members of the public might do.

The only thing they did wrong, as accepted by the MCA, is they that did not take the MCA vehicle back to the station before they did their good samaritan act.

The MCA management responsible for the decision are totally and comprehensively incompetent and if my decision making as a manager of a large organisation were are imbecilic as the those guys, I would have been sacked many years ago.

Richard
 
RichardS said:
I don't believe that is a correct summary. The two coastguards are volunteers and, when they are not on a "shout", are free to do as they wish with their own time and their own resources. As soon as they were told to "stand down" they are in their own time and the MCA has no control over them unless they are called out on another shout, which they weren't.

The owner of the vehicle was elderly and distressed so as they were in the own free time, they took off their uniforms and and used their own vehicle to help him, exactly as any members of the public might do.

The only thing they did wrong, as accepted by the MCA, is they that did not take the MCA vehicle back to the station before they did their good samaritan act.

The MCA management responsible for the decision are totally and comprehensively incompetent and if my decision making as a manager of a large organisation were are imbecilic as the those guys, I would have been sacked many years ago.

Richard
Click to expand...

Well there comes a time when one has to put common sense, and morals - maybe risking careers too - above idiot PC managers and help people in distress - these guys acted in the highest standards of their Public Servant Service and should be applauded.
 
FlyingGoose said:
Iagree but the problem is they walked off the Job and said be damned with managment , this is a problem
I remember some years back a lady fell down a well in Central Scotland and the Fire Brigade came but did not have the so called skills to retrive her acording to Risk assesment even though couple of the lads wanted to go dowm they were told know by senior command , they waited for mountain Rescue which took some time to get to them at this point when they retived her she had already died
the coroner did state if she was rescued earlier she might have survied , caused a right argument up here , and there are the 2 sides but by god I wonder how many of those firemen wanted to be dammned with regualtion and get a rope and go down
Click to expand...

When I worked in the Fire Service one of my crew jumped into a dock, against specific instructions not to, in an unsuccessful attempt a rescue a person in a submerged car. He was given, quite rightly, a gallantry award.
I remember the shocking case of 2 PCSOs in Manchester who refused to attempt to rescue a drowning child from a frozen lake. Having worked alongside members of all emergency services I could mot believe that they had taken this decision.
No one should be coerced into risking their own life for others but, having done so voluntarilyy, disciplinary action is inappropriate beyond belief.
This cannot be seen as anything other than ar*e covering by people who place their careers above human life.
I used to teach dynamic risk assessment and used the scenario of a child trapped in a burning building containing LPG cylinders. I taught that the the law said to not commit rescue crews. Everyone in the room smirked at that concept.
 
Last edited:
RichardS said:
The two coastguards are volunteers and, when they are not on a "shout", are free to do as they wish with their own time and their own resources. As soon as they were told to "stand down" they are in their own time and the MCA has no control over them unless they are called out on another shout, which they weren't.
Click to expand...

They still had MCA equipment with them. It seems unlikely that "stand down" implies "and leave our Land Rover wherever it is".

The MCA management responsible for the decision are totally and comprehensively incompetent ...
Click to expand...

I am impressed - perhaps "intrigued" is the better word - that you managed to deduce that from one short and one-sided article.

Incidentally, how would you plan to win an unfair dismissal claim for a couple of volunteers?
 
JumbleDuck said:
They still had MCA equipment with them. It seems unlikely that "stand down" implies "and leave our Land Rover wherever it is".

I am impressed - perhaps "intrigued" is the better word - that you managed to deduce that from one short and one-sided article.

Incidentally, how would you plan to win an unfair dismissal claim for a couple of volunteers?
Click to expand...

See post # 1 where the unfair dismissal issue is well covered.

I'm not sure whether your first point is serious or you are simply being argumentative? There is no suggestion that the MCA vehicle would have been left where it was. It was always in the same location as the two coastguards and was taken back to the station, as expected, when the two guys returned to their base after assisting the elderly member of the public, so, perhaps 15 minutes later than it would have been otherwise. That seems to me to be a fair trade-off for assisting an elderly gentleman in distress.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter what I think of course. However, I suspect that local management will be overruled and the two coastguards will be re-instated at the appeal hearing although the bad publicity has now been generated by the local idiot management. :(

Richard
 
I can't help suspecting that, as usual, there's rather more to this sorry tale than we're being told

We're only hearing / reading one side of the story, the MCA no doubt being constrained by legal considerations and unable to respond in detail

Obviously, it's speculation but I can't help thinking that, on the face of it, the decision to permanently stand down two senior volunteers is unlikely to be solely based on this one incident which, of itself, would surely deserve no more than a reprimand at most. Perhaps it was a final straw or perhaps there was more to the incident itself than has been revealed
 
Lets hope the appeal to the divisional commander succeeds. Its not a huge offense not to drive the land rover back, and hopefully the DC will say something on the lines of "Next time, one of you get the official vehicle back to base while the other one does the good Samaritan act."
 
RichardS said:
I don't believe that is a correct summary. The two coastguards are volunteers and, when they are not on a "shout", are free to do as they wish with their own time and their own resources. As soon as they were told to "stand down" they are in their own time and the MCA has no control over them unless they are called out on another shout, which they weren't.

The owner of the vehicle was elderly and distressed so as they were in the own free time, they took off their uniforms and and used their own vehicle to help him, exactly as any members of the public might do.

The only thing they did wrong, as accepted by the MCA, is they that did not take the MCA vehicle back to the station before they did their good samaritan act.

The MCA management responsible for the decision are totally and comprehensively incompetent and if my decision making as a manager of a large organisation were are imbecilic as the those guys, I would have been sacked many years ago.

Richard
Click to expand...


Soooo... just to be clear.... they are free to determine when they undertake tasks which are part of their “employment”??

Cause it would seem to me that the return and restoration of equipment ready for further use is part of their contracted work, and it’s not really down to them to decide when and if they should do that.

If they had left their gear in the field, and pissed off to the pub for a couple of bevvies, would that be acceptable?
 
photodog said:
Soooo... just to be clear.... they are free to determine when they undertake tasks which are part of their “employment”??

Cause it would seem to me that the return and restoration of equipment ready for further use is part of their contracted work, and it’s not really down to them to decide when and if they should do that.

If they had left their gear in the field, and pissed off to the pub for a couple of bevvies, would that be acceptable?
Click to expand...

This is likely to be seen in the context of reasonable behaviour. Nipping off to the pub would clearly not be reasonable and might well be illegal if they later drove the vehicle. Stopping off to help out the old bloke in distress would be a different scenario and if that is all there was to it, I think it would be entirely reasonable.
The problem they might have as volunteers is that they might not be employees legally thus having no, or lesser, rights under employment legislation.
 
RichardS said:
See post # 1 where the unfair dismissal issue is well covered.
Click to expand...

Unfair dismissal legislation, with very, very few exceptions, does not cover unpaid volunteers. I am intrigued to know how you are going to work round that.

There is no suggestion that the MCA vehicle would have been left where it was. It was always in the same location as the two coastguards and was taken back to the station, as expected, when the two guys returned to their base after assisting the elderly member of the public, so, perhaps 15 minutes later than it would have been otherwise. That seems to me to be a fair trade-off for assisting an elderly gentleman in distress.
Click to expand...

I run an organisation with about fifty unpaid volunteers if safety-critical roles If we told a couple of them not to do something and a couple of them said "OK, we'll go off duty for fifteen minutes and do it anyway" we would not be amused at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top