When a Joint Service Establishment are tasked with monitoring eBay as a primary duty, this conclusion was inevitable from day one. I am amazed that it has built up as far as it has. He has plenty of time for reflection with regards to his own stupidity, but is his pension really on the line? I have heard such a threat in other Court Marshal scenarios but I would have thought that a pension cannot be touched by a disciplinary procedure even a clear cut case such as this.
AL1. Google was my friend:
Against that, the Forfeiture Act 1870, one of the oldest statutes still in force, allows all entitlement to PCSPS benefits to be withdrawn in certain circumstances.
The PCSPS deeds state: "The Minister will have power to withhold benefits payable under this scheme where a civil servant or former civil servant is convicted of an offence in connection with any employment to which this scheme applies, being an offence which is certified by a Minister of the Crown either to have been gravely injurious to the State or to be liable to lead to serious loss of confidence in the public service."
John Pearson, a pensions expert at City solicitors Lovells, said: "There are other powers to withhold pension benefits available to the Minister for the Civil Service.
"For example, benefits could be withheld where the scheme member is convicted of treason or offences under the Official Secrets Acts 1911 to 1989 and is sentenced to imprisonment for at least 10 years.
"However, before benefits may be forfeited, the person concerned is entitled to appeal to an independent board nominated by the Minister and he will accept the board's judgment on whether or not the appellant's pension should be forfeited."
David Astley of the National Association of Pension Funds emphasised that private sector employers have no such wide-ranging rights to sequester an employee's pension.
However, he added that there is one exception: "Whether you are in a final salary or a money purchase scheme in the private sector, the only way an employer can withhold pension rights is if you have committed fraud or caused financial loss to the employer and there is no way for the company to recover the debt, other than going after your pension.
"Even then, the trustees would need court approval before they could reduce a member's benefits by the amount of an outstanding debt. This would not be an easy course of action and it might even be necessary for the trustees to seek the Inland Revenue's approval that this would not prejudice the scheme's tax exempt status.
"For all these reasons, it is extremely unusual in the private sector for an employer to go after an employee's pension. In 17 years in the insurance industry, I only came across one case where trustees considered doing so and I do not think they went forward with the idea."
By contrast, pursuing the pension as a form of punishment is by no means uncommon in the public sector. On Tuesday this week Dorchester Crown Court heard that a retired Army major will lose his pension after pleading guilty to running a brothel and living off immoral earnings.
Ian Brazier, defending Michael Chubb of Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, Dorset, told the court: "He is a former Army officer and a conviction means he will lose his Army pension."
Last edited by Tiger_mate; 19th Aug 2012 at 18:33.