Secret recordings

A. On balance, making a secret tape of your disciplinary (or secretly recording any discussion at work) is a poor idea, which may well backfire.

Although the law allows relevant secret recordings to be taken into account by the tribunal (confirmed most recently in Vaughan v London Borough of Lewisham [2013] UKEAT/0534/12/SM www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2013/0534_12_0102.html), the drawbacks are likely to outweigh the advantages.

Even if the tribunal takes your evidence into account, it may well cut any compensatory award to reflect its disapproval of your “underhand” collection methods.

The employer is also likely to point to the secret recording to show that their trust and confidence in you has been irretrievably damaged, or that you should not be believed by the tribunal.

If your employer finds out about the secret recording while you are still employed, it could have disciplinary ramifications.

Increasingly, policies and procedures actively prohibit the making of clandestine recordings and employers solicit promises at the start of any meeting that nobody is secretly taping.

And regardless of rights and wrongs, a long rambling recording is rarely much use to anybody and trying to rely on lengthy and irrelevant material is likely to put you at risk of having to pay the employer’s costs in any tribunal claim.