Good morning all, and thanks for the response.
I've already written a letter to the ex-employee in question, but have to admit it was written by myself, so perhaps not using the best 'legal speak'. I know a little bit about the court process (what I could dredge up on the web), but would be grateful for any advice that I can receive (and willing to pay). I shall certainly drop a line to both Jonathon and Antonia at some point today.
To answer Antonia's questions, the theft of company funds was kept 'within the company' as it were. The employee was dismissed for gross misconduct but as he was also a 'friend' who had fallen on hard times, we chose to take it no further. The theft was still relatively recent though (within the last couple of weeks) and the evidence still exists. The way that the theft took place was that he visited a couple of our clients a picked up cash payments 'on behalf of the company'. Needless to say the customers were somewhat confused, we never take payments in cash, but the payments were relatively small (3, £100, £150, £200) and thus only the last customer actually contacted us to complain. It was through contact of recent customers that we discovered the other two. The employee never disputed taking the money, bemoaning that their needs were greater than the needs of the company, and that his work was worth far more than the measly sums in question (indeed, it was a fraction of his monthly income). In this instance I admit that my actions gave him ideas above his station, he felt that taking the funds was like borrowing from a friend rather than ripping off customers/the company, at least that's what I'd like to believe. There has been no challenge to the dismissal either.
His reasons for wanting the pay off are somewhat harder to comprehend (at least for me, maybe the legally minded here will correct me if I am wrong). He stored his client files at his girlfriend's house, he was only allowed to hold onto client files that were being worked on by him at present, so at least we are only talking about 5 or 6 customers. I wont go into details about his 'hard times', but needless to say he developed a 'need' for more cash than he could possibly earn. He therefore borrowed something in the region of £2,000 from his girlfriend to tide him over (we are looking at about Christmas time). Now that he has been dismissed, he cannot pay her back and therefore told her that he had invested the money into the company, at our request/demand! She is now in the belief that we owe her this money and she is the one challenging us and making the demands. She feels that she holds something called a 'lien' over the files, something which I admit I know little about. Needless to say, there is no evidence of this 'investment' or 'loan' to the company, but regardless they are ignoring our demands for the files. It is also worth noting that the business that will be completed from the files is worth circa £2,000, a coincidence?
I know that this probably sounds a bit ludicrous, and I am certainly guilty of naiveity, but like I asked before, any advice that can be given will be greatly appreciated and I look forward to sorting this whole sordid mess out.
Thanks for reading.
