Although in general our crewing/ops departments are pretty good, I too have been asked to do a duty which was outside limits.
I was on standby very early (like 5am), called at 11 to start a duty at 2pm, off duty c 1am, 3 sectors. That seems like longer than the legal 9.5 hours FDP to me. Wasn't even mentioned. Not only that but when I had completed the duty I was told I should have not written on the fact that I had been on standby since 5am as I now needed a really long rest period, which cocked up the next days duty. Erm, yeah, and that would be my fault would it?
Besides which, the buck stops here - if the CAA were to check up and find that we were on an illegal duty, its our licence that is up for a possible suspension.
We are also supposed to be asked if we can work outside of our contract, but it rarely happens, its usually a "you must do this duty" as opposed to saying "you don't have to do this duty but we'd be grateful if you would".
So come on, you can't really blame us can you?