£2.3 million to Keogh

[ramAnag]

Forgive me for I agree with Tricky and I'm not sure how irrespective of whether you understand employment law or not, why you seem to think its fair that two employees who were convicted of a criminal offence should receive a lesser sanction than the one who was injured by their actions?

All the other stuff about being captain, moral responsibility or whatever is fine and I understand your view (although surely you would also think that irrespective of whether they can play for the club again or not, the other two should have received the same sanction?), but its peripheral to the fact that the club chose to dismiss Keogh and not the other two. As I said at the time, thats inconsistent and they will lose a tribunal unless there is a specific clause in Keogh's employment contract about his duties as captain, which is unlikely because being captain is fairy meaningless and any player can be named as such.

My point about 3 teachers was to try and boil it down to the basic principles, but it seems if you had been one of 3 teachers, and you had been injured and unable to work due to the criminal actions of the other two you would have been happy to lose your job and they keep theirs?

Keogh made an error of judgement which resulted in him being injured, the other two committed a criminal offence and your suggesting its Ok for the club to apply a lesser sanction to them, because they are still able to play? Really?

Okay Swale, if you insist on going down the teacher parallel I’ll run with it one last time into the ‘moral maze’.

In my former incarnation I was part of the decision making process regarding two incidents of drink driving. The first was a PE teacher who, unsurprisingly, was done for drinking and driving. He lived near the school and could still make it into work although he could no longer drive the school minibus which meant we had to rearrange teaching assistants etc so that, when taking pupils to use other facilities, he always had a driver for the two years of his ban. The result...he kept his job, fortunately imo.

The second related to a guy who had done nothing wrong but had had a ‘skinful’ at home one Friday night. The following morning he unthinkingly drove into Derby and was badly rear ended at Markeaton Island. Because of the busy location the police arrived and he was routinely breathalysed. He failed and lost his licence. Unfortunately, because he lived very remotely and needed to drive to make the twenty five mile journey into work, he could no longer work...the result? He lost his job.

The moral of the story...sh1t happens...life isn’t fair...and actions have consequences but they aren’t the same for everyone.

Now, sticking with your teacher scenario, imagine this hypothetical one.

There’s a staff Christmas party...a situation I’ve been in many times. Many get hammered including two young teachers and their Head/Head of Dept...whatever. With the irresponsibility of youth the two young teachers think they’ll be alright to drive home and are well over the limit. They stick around drinking long after everyone has gone and persuade their senior colleague to join them, promising to get him home safely.
The inevitable happens...maybe the two youngsters decide to show off and have a bit of a race which ends in a crash. The two drivers somehow escape unhurt but their passenger is seriously injured, requires hospital treatment and is unable to work for the next two terms.
Of course the two drivers are dealt with by the law...they’re fined, banned from driving etc...but, like the aforementioned PE teacher, they are able to make it to work and continue to do so.
The Head/Head of Department is, as I’ve said, sadly unable to work for the remaining two thirds of the school year.

So...a) Should the two drivers keep their jobs? My answer is I’m not sure...they’re teachers...a job which includes some sort of social responsibility...but their actions had nothing to do with their job which they were still perfectly able to do.

b) Should the Head/Head of Department keep his job? I suspect not...with power comes responsibility and all that. He knew the risks, made an error of judgement which involved being complicit in law breaking resulting in him being unfit for work.

Where do you, or anyone, stand on that...both legally and morally and is that very different from the RK scenario?

The fact that I differ from Tricky as far as morality is concerned comes as no surprise and is actually quite reassuring. The fact that you share his stance is a little more surprising.