I think its quite a risk to substitute ones own feelings for those of a Coroner who has heard all the details and is acting within the guidelines of the law...in the words of the report

"Mr Cheese's family asked for neglect from Audi to form part of the coroner's conclusion but Mr Bedford said the legal requirement for this had not been met."

Clearly this was a very troubled young man who had many things going on in his life - equally the paper could have majored on another ex serviceman taking their own life

In reply to Keith:

I do acknowledge the comments about the legal requirement for neglect but perhaps that was an incorrect route to take? I would argue that vicarious liability was more appropriate given the context.

This case hit home particularly with me as my organisation runs an apprenticeship scheme for automotive technicians every year. I was appalled by some of the examples of mistreatment given in the article but sadly you will still find 'old school' mechanics who think it's perfectly ok to treat apprentices in this way because it's 'just a bit of fun' and what they had to put up with when they were apprentices.

Having said that I agree with Keith that we have not been privy to the full facts of the case and I don't know what threshold needs to be met in order for a company to be found negligent.

Although of no help to this young man I also read that the Coroner had noted that Audi have made changes to prevent such incidents in future

In reply to Clare:

But you haven't sat through all the details of a complex case involving a very troubled young man (it would appear) On what basis do you say the coroner misdirected himself?

On what basis do you think that vicariously liability should have been used? The Coroner with the benefit of both legal advice and the full facts considered the family's request and was unable to satisfy himself that Audi should be cited for neglect

In reply to Keith:

It is a minor point but this young man worked for the Sytner Group and not Audi.
There are plenty of organisation which unofficially condone 'horse play' and 'banter' right up to the moment things go wrong when they are shocked to find out such things happen and seek to improve their policies.
I do however, fully agree with Keith, we are not in full possession of the facts of this case and so whilst the obvious anguish of the parents is understandable, it does not mean the coroner made a mistake.

In reply to Keith:

Well, I can't comment on your job history Keith but personally, I have never experienced being shut in a car boot, doused with water, subjected to 'dead legs' (particularly bad since the boy was discharged from the army after he broke both legs), sprayed with flammable liquid which is then ignited, and told to hurry up and go and kill himself, amongst other things. The victimisation was exacerbated when the boy's parents raised their concerns. Does that sound like an employer YOU have worked for?? Does it sound like an organisation where any forum contributor would be proud to work for??
Yes, I have been bullied, yes I have been sent to Coventry and yes, I have experienced stress to the point where I was signed off. However the treatment experienced by this very troubled young man is not representative of a responsible employer. At least not in my opinion or experience.
At the risk of repeating myself I agree that neglect did not take place here and I feel the parents were unfortunately misdirected. That doesn't mean to say the employer failed the young man.
I simply welcomed the chance for forum users to offer feedback on a very sad story. This is after all a discussion forum, is it not?

In reply to Steven :

In my (extensive) experience, motor trade fitters and their managers / proprietors are on the very far to extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to failure to adopt anything like 21st century employment practices - equality of opportunity etc. usually being an alien concept there.

So, bullying / harassment / beasting / brutal and degrading 'initiation ceremonies' / etc are I'm sure still commonplace within many garages: big ones with an established cadre of apprentices are probably far worse than Fred and just one apprentice in his shed.

Things are changing, but those presently in command will need to be replaced by the next generation before significant progress can be made.

(Similar applies to the whole of what's left of the engineering sector, but garages tend to be particularly bad)

ps

once upon a time, I was charged with encouraging local garages to take on at least some female apprentices - not exactly 'mssion impossible' but something of a challenge!

In reply to Clare:

Indeed it is and you started the discussion with "I do find it surprising that the company was not found to be negligent in any way " and you went onto say "I have yet to read any comments which might help to restore their credibility as a responsible employer" and I simply asked based on what evidence.

I am not sure what part of me responding to your debate you disagree with - unless its simply that I disagree with you based on the actual information we have available?

In reply to Steven :

Many thanks Steven, just to clarify: I do not believe the coroner made a mistake. I simply struggle with the fact that the organisation - on the face of it - appears to have badly let down a young man but there does not appear to be any sign to indicates their acknowledgment. Indeed, corrective action may have taken place and those facts may not have been included in the reporting so the 'silence' appears to be rather misleading.

In reply to Clare:

Hi Clare Marie,

It may be worth thinking about the broader legal position here. The Coroner had a fairly narrow remit as part of this - that is, to determine the cause(s) of a sudden / unexpected death. This the Coroner did, as reported. (Incidentally, Steven, I think it was a far from minor matter that the BBC of all organisations, didn't get their facts right in implying that the employer was Audi UK: in fact the car firm Audi had nothing to do with all this, except to sell etc their products to a franchised dealer, which * totally independently of Audi * owned the garage and employed all the staff there and undertook the usual legal liabilities of any employer. Such franchised dealerships are standard practice throughout the UK motor trade, but the BBC reporters and editors seemed to have been ignorant of this basic fact and as a result IMHO rather negligently and wrongly brought the name and reputation of Audi into disrepute.

Anyhow, this young person, despite tragically having taken his own life, still has, via his estate / executors, potential claims against his actual employers such as in tort for personal injury and possibly under other employment-related statute such as under the 2010 Equality Act. These would be civil law claims, so be quite different from and involve very different scopes and burdens of proof to Coroners Court or Police criminal actions.

But of course they're linked: for example, if a Coroner finds that a death was directly associated with someone's employer not maintaining a safe working environment, that finding becomes very powerful evidence indeed as regards potential civil claims, which is probably why the family's legal representatives sought this in the Coroners Court.

You rightly express horror etc Clare Marie at the types and levels of workplace 'horseplay' described to the inquest, but, as tried to observe in my previous post, such kind off antics are still almost normal in many shop floor / industrial / engineering workplaces. Of course it's the duty of the employer to comply with the law and to operate a safe place of work, but what goes on amongst apprentices on a shop floor or squaddies in a barrack room or fish filleters on a fish dock is inevitably going to be very different indeed to working life in such as a bank or solicitors office and the term 'reasonably practicable' starts to become most relevant.

As I also tried to say before, such things have no place in today's society and are thankfully much less common for all kinds of reasons, but won't change overnight and in some significant ways will only completely change by process of evolution.

In reply to David:

Thanks David - a good balanced summary

Hi Clare,

I'm not going to delve into the details on this one as Keith and David have (as ever!) covered it all, but I feel the need to write a post as my family have been heavily involved in the motor trade for decades upon decades now.

(Before I start typing, I don't mean for any of my opinions here to infer that I agree with the way this young man was allegedly treated)

Whether we think it is *right* or not, different industries have different cultures and behaviours. The motor trade, in particular (as David has also pointed out) has a deep rooted culture of 'banter', practical jokes, mickey taking and general horseplay. Clearly the Management teams at Sytner (the difference is relevant, let's not ignore the fact that the media pack much more punch with Audi in the headlines as opposed to the Sytner Group which the average Joe Bloggs may not have heard of) do have a responsibility to make sure things are safe, clean, and as under control as they can, but it is unfair to expect them to a) have eyes in the back of their heads and b) conform to 'corporate' cultures that we would perhaps all perceive to be normal/correct/acceptable. Some of the stories I have heard about 'the good old days' have been well and truly shocking from an HR point of view, but generally there is little offence/upset. In my personal experience, on the odd occasion where someone goes too far, they are told swiftly (and not always politely!), apologies are normally given, and everyone cracks on with their day. The article states that Mr Cheese had referred to the incidents as 'banter' - if we consider this in an office environment, if an employee was experiencing pranks/mickey taking and so on, but reported it to their LM/Parents/HR dept as 'banter', I am not sure we would be able to say that it would be treated as 'neglect'.

I think there are too many external factors (that indeed we are not fully aware of) at play, that mean it's incredibly hard to pin blame/make claims about right and wrong, and so on. Equally, I think it's important we note the differences between the two cases, including but not limited to; 'religion' being cited as the main reason for the bullying in Case 2, no reference to external factors/a series of life events/a history of depression/failure to take medication etc.

This is much more of a 'heart' post that a 'head' one if I'm totally honest with myself, but I was quite literally raised within the motor trade!

Apologies for the waffle,
Catherine

In reply to Catherine:

So was I, Catherine - when I was a toddler our house backyard abutted the family large garage and my mother regularly had to retrieve me from halfway up the ladders to the workshop hoists in the roof of the machine shop that was kept busy at the time reboring engine blocks and repairing cylinder heads etc.

From memory, highly inappropriate and dangerous and personally intimate activities involving such as industrial quantities of grease or compressed airline guns were traditional initiation rites for new apprentices. Virtually all the management had once been apprentices and had usually been subjected to similar things when young, so it wasn't at the time regarded as too big a problem so long as it wasn't too physically dangerous.

In reply to David:

David your post has made my afternoon, your memories are entirely correct and things haven't changed (I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or not). I don't want to add fuel to any fire about how 'terrible' the industry is but my Mother and Father actually met in the trade when my Father was training as a paint sprayer and my Mother was a delivery driver for the paint manufacturers... I'm told that as apprentices they were dunked into the sewage tank by their ankles amongst all manner of other goings on. Personally I am subjected to all sorts on a daily basis (and have been for the majority of my life) - bearing in mind I don't even work for the family business! The compressed airline guns seem to be a firm favourite amongst the teams, as well as pressure washers, spray guns, and of course the classic 'lock him in the pit'.

As I said, in my experience, people are extremely clear when they are unhappy/things have gone too far but grudges aren't held. I worked in the Power industry in one of my very first HR roles and garage antics are tame in comparison to what goes on there, but that's a tale for another day...

I feel I should add a small disclaimer that I do, of course, make my family members and their close business contacts aware of HR principles, practices and procedures!!

In reply to Catherine:

I work in the automotive industry and was nodding my head as I read your post Catherine. I do think things have improved - some of the tales our managers tell about what they were subjected to when they were apprentices are eye opening to say the least but there is still an ingrained culture of banter and practical jokes.

I suspect I only hear about the incidents where something has gone wrong - someone getting burned after staff were chucking oxy-acetylene bombs at each other for example, but I suspect that I get to hear about 5% of what actually goes on