Ambulance driver gets £20,000 after being sacked for punching drunk patient
An ambulance driver has won more than £20,000 after he was sacked for punching a drunken man who threatened him outside a hospital.
Mark Harvie was sacked from the Inverness ambulance service after 23 years of unblemished service – for not ‘upholding the values of the NHS’.
However, a tribunal has now ruled he acted in self-defence and should not have been dismissed, awarding him £22,400 in compensation.
The Inverness tribunal heard Harvie worked as an Urgent Tier Ambulance Care Assistant at the Scottish ambulance service, where he drove the ambulances during emergencies
On an evening in January 2022, Harvie and two paramedics arrived at Raigmore Hospital after picking up a man who had fallen over in a bar.
As Harvie walked into the hospital’s emergency department, he passed a drunken man whose leg was blocking access to the department – so Harvie bent down to ask the man if he could go and get a seat.
In response, the drunken man started swearing and shouting abuse at the ambulance driver.
Harvie told him there was no need to swear and threatened to get security if he continued to make abusive comments.
Harvie returned to the vehicle but the man continued to shout at him, saying he was ‘not such a big man now’ and that he would be ‘waiting for him’ when he next left the ambulance.
Harvie – who felt ‘threatened and vulnerable’ – exited the ambulance and asked the man to move away from the vehicle.
The drunken man allegedly ‘waved his arms about erratically’, and ‘pointed his finger towards Harvie’s face ‘whilst swearing at him, then drew his head back in a manner which made Harvie think he was about to headbutt him.
In response, Harvie put his left forearm up horizontally to block himself and in doing so, struck the person with a short punch.
The tribunal said the punch was not delivered with ‘much force’ and was not sufficiently hard to cause serious injury – or to cause the person to fall down.
The drunken man – who was left with a ‘small nip on his lip’ – allegedly shouted that he had been assaulted and at around midnight, the police attended the hospital and charged Harvie with assault.
The following day, Harvie was informed by his bosses that he was suspended on full pay pending an investigation.
Despite trying to gain CCTV evidence from the hospital, Harvie was told this could not be provided due to ‘data issues’.
In July 2022, he was sacked for not taking an ‘alternative course of action’ or ‘upholding the values of the NHS’.
The following month the criminal case against him was withdrawn by the Procurator, who said the CCTV ‘clearly showed Harvie had been acting in self defence’.
Harvie then sued the Scottish Ambulance Service Board for unfair dismissal and the employment tribunal found that the lack of evidence, in particular CCTV footage, meant his dismissal was unfair.
Employment Judge Sandy Kemp said: ‘If someone acts in genuine self-defence, in our view all reasonable employers would consider that such a situation cannot properly be regarded as an assault, or something that brings the respondent into disrepute.’
The tribunal said Harvie was acting in the ‘heat of the moment’ and was experiencing ‘genuine fear’.
The Scottish Ambulance Service Board will now pay him £22,400 in compensation.
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