Shop worker wins £47,000 after sacking for ‘knife joke’

A WAITROSE worker has won nearly £50,000 in compensation after his boss mistook his joke about finding a knife as a threat.

Mohammed Zahangir Kabir, from Bangladesh, was fired from his job as a sales assistant at the supermarket in South Woodford, east London, in June 2020, after his “joke” texts were mistaken as menacing.

His boss, Matthew Ford, an assistant team manager, told his executives he was “scared and unsure what to do” and feared Mr Kabir would turn up to work with a knife after he asked in a text, “when will I see you next?”

The east London hearing was told that Mr Kabir sent a text to Mr Ford saying “Hi Matt how are you?” When his boss asked him what he wanted, Mr Kabir wrote back, saying, “I found a knife” and “I don’t know what to do”.

When Mr Ford asked him what he meant, he sent him four emojis of smiley faces with hearts for eyes and asked “are you scared?” The tribunal heard Mr Kabir then asked, “what time you finish today” and “when will I see you next”.

“Mr Ford considered the emoji of the smiley face with the heart eyes to be ‘psychotic’,” the tribunal found. “It was not clear why he thought that.”

The police were called and Mr Kabir, a married father of two who had been with the company for 17 years, was searched when he arrived for his shift.

Despite the police taking no further action, Waitrose opened an inquiry into potential misconduct, which found the phrases, which Mr Kabir says were meant as a joke, were intimidating.

No formal complaint was made, but Mr Kabir was sacked for serious misconduct after causing Mr Ford “distress”.

The tribunal found this was unfair as his bosses did not take into account his apology and genuine upset at having unintentionally scared his boss in what was meant to be a joke.

He was awarded £47,192.90 in compensation for unfair and wrongful dismissal from John Lewis, the Waitrose parent company.