The chief executive of a pharmaceutical warehousing firm kept a stock of expensive wine under lock and key in the company's "dangerous drugs" strongroom, a judge heard yesterday.
Mr John McGuigan, counsel for Mr John Longmore, a warehouse manager, told the Circuit Civil Court that his client had been summarily dismissed after it was found that a case of Mr Gerry Griffin's wine was missing.
Mr Longmore, of Kilmacud, Dublin, had denied stealing the wine, but had told a management inquiry that, in accordance with common practice, he had taken damaged tissues, toilet rolls and shampoo.
Mr Griffin, now chairman of Uniphar Ltd, said that pilfering of company products, particularly the male potency pill, Viagra, had been a problem.
Mr Jim Whelan, former group operations director with Uniphar, told Judge Alison Lindsay that Mr Longmore had been summarily dismissed solely on the strength of having admitted taking the tissues, toilet rolls and shampoo.
He denied that Mr Longmore had been sacked ostensibly for taking damaged product because the company had been unable to pin the theft of the wine on him.
Mr Whelan said that a video showed Mr Longmore carrying several cartons from the strongroom and placing them near an exit close to where his company car was parked. His admission to taking damaged product meant that he had been stealing from the company. Mr Longmore had been suspended on full pay and summarily dismissed for having taken company product off the premises for his own consumption.
Mr Longmore has been awarded just under €9,000 by the Employment Appeals Tribunal for unfair dismissal, but is seeking, on appeal, increased compensation on the grounds that the tribunal wrongly held him to have made a considerable contribution to his own dismissal. The case is still at hearing.