Tony Goode, the database specialist sacked
by Marks & Spencer for blowing the whistle on its plans to
cap redundancy payments, will have to wait a fortnight for the
result of his appeal against his sacking.
M&S director of retail Steve Rowe, heard Goode's appeal on
Friday last week. The meeting was scheduled to last two hours but
lasted eight because of a dispute over the accuracy of the minutes
of the initial disciplinary hearing.
Maria Ludkin, the GMB attorney who has represented Goode at the
internal hearings, said, "Having taken 48 hours to sack him,
M&S now finds it necessary to take another two weeks for a more
thorough investigation of the circumstances."
Goode was in charge of M&S's customer database when he was
sacked for gross misconduct for revealing details of a
controversial proposed cap on redundancy payments to the press.
Goode, who has been living on his savings since his dismissal on
3 September is now looking for work as a CRM manager.
Goode, a single parent with two teenage children, joined
M&S's statistics department when he was 18, and has spent the
past 25 years with the retailer.
An M&S spokeswoman said the decision on the appeal was not
being delayed. "It is not unusual for these things to take time to
investigate all the facts," she said.
She said M&S was "not looking for publicity" from the
incident as it wanted to ensure the process was fair and
thorough.