Fired for taking Xmas party food trays

The employee was accused of stealing silver trays that were provided by caterers for a Christmas work function. Photo / Getty

A man was fired from his job because his boss suspected him of stealing from the work Christmas morning tea shout.

Greg Ngawhika was a shift supervisor at a Penrose warehouse of Market Gardeners Limited, until he was dismissed from his role in February.

Ngawhika took a claim of unjustified dismissal to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA), but Member of the Authority Robin Arthur found his claim failed and his dismissal was justified.

Manager of the Penrose branch, Kerry Baird, fired Ngawhika after he believed the employee stole two silver trays from the warehouse at last year's Christmas morning tea shout.

Baird told the ERA the warehouse staff were treated to a Christmas morning tea shout on December 16 2014. The event was catered by an external company, and when the caterers returned the next day to collect the trays and boxes the food had been delivered in they found two silver trays were missing.

Baird watched recorded CCTV footage to try to get to the bottom of the missing trays.

He identified a period of time when the trays could have been taken, and a person who he thought was Ngawhika entering the office where the trays had been stored.

The CCTV footage showed the person using light from a mobile phone to move around the storage space.

Ngawhika claimed the sacking was unjustified because there was no "clear evidence" that he took the silver trays.

Arthur found that on the balance of probabilities, Baird had undertaken a sufficient inquiry into the evidence on the CCTV and answers to the questions he put to Ngawhika about the missing trays,

Neither the ERA nor Baird had to indisputably prove that Ngawhika had taken the trays, Arthur said. The process Baird had carried out reached a conclusion that it was more probable that Ngawhika had taken the trays, and therefore his dismissal was justified.

Read the ERA decision here: