M&S whistleblower has to wait for result of appeal

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.