Man dismissed from his job at Grimsby Crematorium following errors

A man's been dismissed from his job at Grimsby Crematorium after an error he tried to conceal.

He was asked to go after leaving the ashes of a pet in a cremator for a fortnight rather than cleaning them out.

He was also found to have concealed his actions by pushing them to the back of the cremator.

He clamed unfair dismissal but an employment tribunal decided the council had acted properly and the incident could have potentially caused damage to the crematorium's reputation.

The man took his claim of unfair dismissal by the council to an employment tribunal, which sat in Lincoln on September 14.

He denied failing to follow the correct procedure to de-ash the cremator.

He also denied that he had deliberately concealed pet ashes from at least a previous cremation by putting it to the back of the cremator.

But the tribunal’s judgment found that there was more than sufficient evidence for the council to decide he had been responsible for failure to de-ash and that remains were deliberately pushed to the back of the cremator.

The core matters behind his dismissal were found by the tribunal to potentially cause “serious reputational damage” to the council and could have risked Grimsby Crematorium losing its licence for pet cremations.

The failure to de-ash the pet remains from the cremator was not the only allegation made about the man’s conduct and performance as an employee.

He had not followed health and safety procedures or worn the crematorium’s corporate uniform, and been told about this before. He also arrived to some shifts late and left some early, leading to a user complaint of the crematorium not being open as advertised.

This tied into the fraudulent claiming of overtime pay, with the man on certain shifts not logging his late arrival or early departure.

In another incident, a cap or locking screw of the pet cremulator was found dislodged on the floor. When asked if it was safe to use without the cap, he said “no way” and he “wouldn’t chance it”.

Records showed he was the last employee to use the cremator before the defect was noticed. a spent drum of factivate, a chemical reactant used in cremations, was also found once under the cremator that he had been responsible for and this was a fire hazard.

He began working at the bereavement services at Grimsby Crematorium in October 2019.

He got his cremation qualification from the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management in April 2020 after supervised cremation of over 100 human bodies. T

The council decided to set up a pet crematorium facility in June 2020 and this opened in August 2021.

It was on December 22, 2021, when the crematorium’s manager and another employee found a problem with the pet cremator.

They were loading a pet to be cremated only to discover that ashes including bone fragments remained in the machine from at least a previous cremation.

The employment tribunal report states: “The last pet cremation that had taken place had been undertaken by the claimant and what was viewed on that occasion was that remains had been pushed to the back of the cremator and that appeared to be deliberate to try and conceal then”.

The manager decided a suspension was the right course of action pending disciplinary action.

In his suspension risk assessment before choosing to suspend him, the manager said: “The cremation log showed that the claimant had signed to undertake the last three cremations we had booked with us, the latest one being two weeks prior.

“The accompanying paperwork (daily and weekly machine checks, and cleaning schedule) was not completed on any of the 3 occasions.

Members of the team familiar with the operation of the pet cremator, but who were not using it, inferred that the ashes had been left in the machine from the first cremation the claimant undertook at the beginning of December.”

An investigation into this incident as well as health and safety breaches and the failure to complete cremation log documentation took place in January 2022.

During this process, other issues including the timekeeping and failure to wear PPE and corporate uniform which managers had raised with the man came to light.

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