P&O Ferries will not face criminal action over mass sackings

P&O Ferries will not face criminal proceedings after it sacked almost 800 workers without warning earlier this year, replacing them with foreign agency staff.

The Insolvency Agency has carried a "full and robust" investigation into the circumstances and decided it will "not commence criminal proceedings."

However, a civil investigation is ongoing.

A union which represents professionals in the maritime agency said the decision has come as a blow to "discarded workers".

General secretary of Nautilus International Mark Dickinson said: "Only one day after P&O Ferries parent company announced record profits, making the company's claims on operational sustainability questionable, we are further let down by a system that fails to punish apparent criminal corporatism.

"The message is clear, P&O Ferries must be held properly accountable for their disgraceful actions and we will continue the campaign to ensure that the CEO and his fellow Directors are held to account and to make certain this can never happen again."

During hearings in Parliament the business admitted that it had broken the law that would have forced them to give notice of the firings.

This was because no unions would have accepted its new proposals, bosses said at the time.

Commons transport committee chairman Huw Merriman called on the Government to legislate to prevent a repeat of the scandal.

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