Just looking to throw up a scenario and see if anyone has had this experience before, looking for an indication of how it might play out, and measures an employer could consider to ensure they "do their bit" Situation is: Employee claims he had an accident at work, if so the incident took place on the 16th of April, however he has only claimed that it was a work related injury within the past week (when he was told his wages were going to be stopped by the company and he would have to go onto stat sick pay). He was off work for 1 week on the 28th of April with a sore neck (again no mention that it was a work related injury), he came back to work for 3 days and then signed himself off again and has been off since. He now claims that he fell when at a installation, at a domestic house (he is an electrician) he fell of a customers ladder (even though he had his own work provided ladder with him, which he did not use). There was a colleague with him at the time, who backs up his story. To complicate matters, he told his line manager at one stage that he hurt his neck turning his bed over at home. He would be deeed as a competent employee, was given all the required tools for the job. So as you can see there are some time delays and changes to story etc , although i am unsure how relevant this would be when it came to the crunch Would this be reportable under RIDDOR, customer disputes this was work related and does not want to be seen to be accepting any responsibility. Just looking for feedback please.......

I would apply the guidelines that I gave in a similar thread this afternoon. Formally interview the witness along with the manager who was told he hurt his neck at home and see if you can find discrepancies between the injured persons story. NB I would have expected some mention of works injury on his Drs Fitness to work note. Report under RIDDOR only if you are satisfied that his absence is due to a work related injury. If at a later stage the HSE contact you about this you will be able to satisfy them on your reason for not reporting Steve

You can just contact the HSE for the reporting of RIDDOR and ask advice there. You can also have it noted the reason the report was late i.e. he didn't report it and also the comments from the manager. I would invetigate at this point interveiwing all relevant persons, even the customer if he will respond, this could even be that he didn't see anything or hear anything and that nothing was said at the time.

I don't think threatening the employee with disciplinary action is the right way to go as this will just make the situation worse. also you would have to produce the company policy that says it a disciplinary offence. As other have said get a statement of exact event and times and speak to the occupant if he noticed anything or the employee appeared to be in pain or mentioned having an accident. the employee could just argue he wasn't aware that he /it need to be recorded as a work related injury and what difference it would make. Phil

I am sure we have all had sight of such claims. Unusally I would tend to agree with the sentiment that Ron is trying to put across although I don't necessarily agree with the language... You will need to demonstrate that you are enforcing your rules not just in this case but all cases, you have more chance of winning a tribunal case for inconsistent application of the diciplinary procedure than you have of winning any claim. I do also to a degee agree with Ricci's comments, although the fact that the employee will most likely did this essentailly 'in good faith - to get the job away' will poke a hole in your defence toward inadequate training. Steve