THE 'fishy' story of a shark's death opened a can of worms at an employment tribunal.

Jim Harrison, former livestock manager with Kenchester Water Gardens, claimed the company ordered a cover-up when Humbug the banded-cat shark died.

Humbug - a top attraction at the aquatic centre - had been named in a hugely popular Hereford Times competition last year.

Making his case for wrongful and unfair dismissal, Mr Harrison told the tribunal at Hereford Shirehall that the Lyde company brought in a 'ringer' to replace the real Humbug.

This second shark died too, said Mr Harrison, and staff were told to say Humbug had been sold. The water gardens did not defend the claim during the hearing.

But the tribunal effectively slammed the worm can shut, ruling that 'humbug' best described much of Mr Harrison's evidence.

In upholding the dismissal, tribunal chair Bryn Lloyd said Mr Harrison had not made a 'credible witness' being at best 'vague' and at worst 'evasive'. Sharks aside, Mr Harrison was sunk by the tribunal's interpretation of gross misconduct. An interpretation that drew the same conclusion as Kenchester Water Gardens boss, Malcolm Edwards.

In evidence, Mr Edwards said he sacked Mr Harrison in January because he 'could no longer trust him as a manager'.

The tribunal heard how Mr Harrison planned to run a rival business. Mr Edwards had no problem with such plans, but took issue with answers Mr Harrison offered to an in-house investigation over how he was going about them. Statements from other staff suggested Mr Harrison sounded out customers and suppliers in company time and approached colleagues about job offers.

Mr Harrison's contesting of the 'consistent evidence' contained in those statements breached the 'trust, confidence and standards' the company expected in a manager, leaving Mr Edwards with no option but to dismiss a once 'trusted and trustworthy' employee.

Pipe dream

"I wanted (the allegations) not to be true," he said.

Mr Harrison maintained, in evidence, that he was channelling energy into a pipe dream. Any plans were a paper exercise with little prospect of reality and should have been seen as such.

The tribunal ruled that exercise was a 'deliberate' attempt at setting up a rival business, with Mr Harrison 'disingenuous and less than straightforward' about the way it was done when confronted.

These were actions the company was entitled to find unacceptable and amounted to gross misconduct in a senior management role, said Mr Lloyd.