husband has been suspened from work

[nat31]

MY HUSBAND WHO HAS BEEN EMPLOYED BY THE COMPANY I ALSO WORK FOR 10YEARS HAS BEEN SUSPENDED, THE ACCUSATION IS HE HAS BEEN LOGGING INTO THE COMPANY SYSTEM USING ADMINISTRATOR PASSWORDS, WE work for a re manufacturing company, my husbands record is clean apart from this, he has said he has never logged in and has never known the passwords other than his own!
since he was quaestioned 2 days ago he has heard nothing, after 10years service it is disgusting the way he is being treated.

What can he do if this goes to disciplinary? he has never ever been in trouble in his life and is 100% innocent! its just our company seems to be taking a while with this and all thou he is on full pay, the stress is awful! right before xmas as well :(

Nat :(

[Didwot]

Try to look at the issues dispassionately. Someone has said that an employee is making unauthorised use of the employers computer system. This sounds like a potentially serious matter. The employer must investigate the issue. If the employee is misbehaving then it may not be sensible to let them have further access to the computer. Until the employer has investigated he does not know, but he must act prudently, and to suspend the employee (on full pay) in the meanwhile would be both sensible and lawful. If the emplyer decides that the employee has done nothing wrong he will simply be re-instated. If the employer wants to take the matter further then he will need to give the employee sufficient details of the allegations to enable him to answer them and to arragne a meeting to enable the employee to put his position forward. Until he has established the facts the employer should not proceed to a disciplinary hearing, but if he does then he should follow the usual fair proceedures. He should call the employee to a disciplinary meeting on reasonable notice at which the employee can be accompanied by a trade union rep, or a work colleague, and should give the emp[oyee a fair hearing. Only then should the employer decied what to do. The fact that it is your husband, and you KNOW he has done nothing wrong does not alter the proceedures. The employer does NOT KNOW what the facts are, and has to proceed fairly and sensibly.

[shero101]

It is common practice in IT to disable the Administrator account and assign appropriate privileges to user accounts for the very reason that individuals using the Administrator account cannot be identified via an audit trail. My own thoughts are that they would have to prove who was using the Administrator account and without any evidence I can't see how they could progress with any action. The IT manager should wake up and smell the coffee and get the system set up in accordance with fundamental auditing guidelines.

[buildersmate]

Similar question cropped up a couple of weeks ago. Answers to your questions about the process of being suspended whilst investigation occurs are here.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Law/Question330 411.html

[nat31]

Thanks for the info, its just good to be able to get outside views, very apreciated guys :)