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A Royal Mail postman who took more than 130 parcels home with him overnight has won an unfair dismissal case. Walacy Ramos was fired by the postal service after he took undelivered mail home without permission and kept the post in his living room.
Mr Ramos explained that he was feeling ill and that it was getting dark, so he decided to take his trolley to his house then complete his round on his day off. But his Royal Mail colleagues caught him delivering the mail a day late and he was sacked.
Now, he is in line to receive compensation after successfully suing Royal Mail for unfair dismissal at an employment tribunal. Mr Ramos began working for Royal Mail in 2012.
He had previously been signed off from work with stress and suffered panic attacks after finding it hard to adapt to a new role at the delivery office in 2018. He asked management to be understanding with him, telling them he was ‘still not 100 per cent’.
Then, when on shift in December 2018, he left work early because he ‘felt unwell’ and took the mail that he had been unable to deliver home with him. He did not report his illness, nor that he had taken undelivered mail to his home, to management even though he was required to do so.
Two days later, despite not being on the rota to work, Mr Ramos decided to deliver the mail from his previous shift. Another postman saw him and notified the office then his bosses, Sharon Green and Charlotte Jarvis, went out driving around his route and saw Mr Ramos for themselves.
The tribunal heard at that time there were 131 items of mail still to be delivered. He was suspended pending an investigation for ‘alleged wilful delay, and breaching security standards’.
While suspended, Mr Ramos told his trade union representative he had been having ‘lots of issues’ and suffering with stress and depression. The tribunal heard he was dismissed without notice in February 2019, despite Mr Ramos raising issues about his mental health and delivery office manager Ms Jarvis not waiting for a report she requested from occupational health.
The employment tribunal ruled he had been dismissed unfairly as Royal Mail did not take his mental health issues into account and that the sanction was too harsh. Employment Judge Rachel Beckett said: “The question is whether the dismissal was a fair sanction.
“Could a reasonable employer have decided to dismiss Mr Ramos for acting in the way he did in this case? I find that they could not. The circumstances leading to the Claimant failing to deliver all the mail in his shift were as a result of medical conditions which Royal Mail had been made aware of. The Occupational Health report supported his position.
“It is accepted that summary dismissal is the most serious outcome for an employee. However, I find that it is outside the range of reasonable responses in this case.”
Compensation will be decided at a future remedy hearing.
