MP is accused of breaking tribunal rules

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 21:46

LIVINGSTON MP Jim Devine was criticised at a tribunal yesterday for "repeated failure to comply" with the hearing.

The Labour MP appeared before an employment tribunal in Edinburgh to challenge a decision in August to award a claim of unfair dismissal to a former employee.

His former front-office manager, 45-year-old Marion Kinley, said that she was unfairly dismissed and that her contract was breached while working for the MP for Livingston and West Lothian between June 2006 and October 2008.

Mr Devine also faces a criminal investigation over parliamentary expenses, after he was found to have claimed more than 2,000 for electrical work, performed by a company with a false address and an invalid VAT number.

Yesterday's appeal came after employment judge Ian McFatridge upheld Miss Kinley's complaint, dismissing Mr Devine's response on a technicality because it had not been presented in the correct manner.

However Mr Devine, who has been barred from standing for Labour in the next General Election, challenged the decision in a review hearing yesterday.

Mr Devine, 56,who denies all the claims against him, said that he had been on holiday at the time, and that the forms had been sent to the wrong address.

He added: "The tribunal office was writing to my office in Livingston, which then posted it up to London.

"I did not receive this correspondence until several weeks later, when I was on annual leave.

"I do not live in Livingston, I live in Blackburn, and that's the problem."

Solicitor Gordon Milligan, representing Miss Kinley, responding to the claims,

said: "He has shown a repeated failure to comply with the time limits without any reasonable explanation being given.

"With his background as a trade union official, I find it incredible that he has such a lack of regard for the rules and procedures of the tribunal."

A written decision from the tribunal is expected to be given within one week.