Boss may appeal graffiti plasterer's payout

Bruce Debenham says he made the right decision in sacking his worker but 'would change the way I do it again'. Picture / Alan Gibson

An employer ordered to pay $2400 to a plasterer who wrote graffiti on a client's house and tried wrongly to use a fuel card before he was sacked says he will seek legal advice about whether to appeal.

Bruce Debenham told the Herald yesterday that he did not believe he should have to pay the sum awarded to plasterer Daniel Paterson after Mr Debenham sacked him for being late, but suspected he would be forced to by the expense of an appeal.

"I think it's unjustified but the cost of pursuing it could be no cheaper for me," Mr Debenham said.

The Employment Relations Authority determined that Mr Paterson was unjustifiably sacked from his job at Mr Debenham's Tauranga company, Visual Coatings.

The authority ruled that Mr Paterson did not get an unequivocal warning that his job was at risk.

Mr Debenham labelled the decision "ridiculous" but the employment consultant who represented Mr Paterson at the authority hearing on Tuesday hit back at criticism of his client, saying he had been unfairly portrayed as an "evil villain".

Mark Nutsford said incidents that had been referred to in the authority's ruling and which Mr Debenham said led to Mr Paterson's dismissal had been blown out of proportion.

Mr Paterson was dismissed last July with a week's notice when he turned up late for work.

While he worked for Visual Coatings, he and a workmate tried to use a company fuel card to put petrol in Mr Paterson's car.

The petrol station attendant contacted Mr Debenham when it was found Mr Paterson's workmate did not have authorisation to use the card.

Mr Paterson also scrawled obscene words on the windows of a house he was working on while in the company's employment. Another colleague drew swastikas on the house framings. Both were seen by the owners of the house and their 7-year-old son. The owners were religious and one was Jewish with a parent who had survived the Holocaust and was due to visit.

Mr Nutsford said the graffiti had been only 2.5cm to 3.8cm high, or less than a hand span, and had not been painted on the house, but put on with a filler gun.

Mr Paterson had owned up when confronted about the obscene words and apologised in person to the house's owners.

"Daniel is the first one now to admit he never should have written those words," Mr Nutsford said.

He said the incident with the fuel card had not involved Mr Paterson and his workmate trying to "fill the tank" as had been suggested.

They had just wanted $5 fuel to get home after a night out drinking and intended to repay the money.

Mr Paterson himself could not be contacted for comment, but the employment authority ruled that his actions contributed 20 per cent to the circumstances of his dismissal.

This reduced his compensation from $3000 to $2400.

Mr Debenham said he had dismissed other employees before but had never been taken to an employment tribunal.

He "fully" stood by his sacking of Mr Paterson, but admitted he had fired him without proper warning that his job was in jeopardy and telling him that he had the right to legal representation.

"I would change the way I do it again," Mr Debenham said.

He spent much of yesterday talking to media and said he had received phonecalls of support from other employers, including one who had offered to send money for an appeal.