BA faces lawsuit over pilot's behaviour
 

First Officer kills himself, leaving BA to face potential damages claim over failure to protect victims:Pilot abused his position at British Airways to molest hundreds of girls at African orphanages while claiming he was doing charity work | Mail Online

A sad and sordid story, but I question how the man's employer can be held responsible for his actions when he was off duty, even if he was wearing their uniform.

If it can be shown that BA knew of the previous arrest and investigation in 2000 - it is not clear from the article-

"Wood was arrested over the sex attack, but – in an echo of the Jimmy Savile scandal – the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence to charge him. He was allowed to keep his job at BA and, in an indictment of the vetting system, continued his charity work with children."

then I think the lawyers may justifiably ask BA why they allowed him to continue this work in Africa,.

If the CPS deems no case to answer then who are BA to second-guess the alleged (mis)activities of its personnel?

In this case it looks as if the CPS could have possibly garnered more evidence and, in that case, I'm sure BA would have almost certainly taken action.

I realise it is not necessarily the case here but if I'd been accused of something of which I was innocent and my employer decided to take action based on unsubstantiated evidence then I'd be more than a tad miffed.

The fact that Simon (as an FO) was allegedly wearing a 'bogus' captain's uniform does nothing to make his visits official nor sanctioned by BA. If this part of the story is true then it is fairly clear that he was trying to impress by the use of a uniform and, possibly, add some credibility to his visits (though clearly not the reason for them).

Like Capetonia, I find this story sad and sordid but I can see no reason why BA should become culpable when his visits to the hospitals etc were neither official, nor sanctioned by BA, where he posed (allegedly) in a 'bogus' uniform and where previous investigations had found no wrong doing in his behaviour i.e. nothing that would prevent BA treating his monthly bid just as they treat the monthly bids of all other FOs. He was an innocent (as far as the CPS and, therefore, BA were concerned) employee and was thus treated as such.

I'm sure BA will justifiably reply that with no evidence against the individual, no convictions against him and a clean criminal record they were in no position to control what he did in his spare time.

You clearly can't control what someone does in their spare time but you can certainly write to someone pointing out that this person does not represent your company if you suspected that might be what he's doing. Was he paying for his own flights or was the airline giving him flights (over whatever he was entitled to in his contract) because he was doing charity work?

cwatters, if you think about it you will realise the answer as to how an airline pilot got to repeatedly visit the same destination... (the clue is in his job title)

cwatters

At many airlines many crewmembers ( both sexes, both sides of the Flight Deck door) indulge in some form of humanitarian "work", maybe only for an hour or two, when downroute on a slip..

Well obviously but I suspect the laywers will be looking for any flights he was given to allow him to do his "charitable work" rather than routine working flights.

First officer on £100,000 a year wow BA do pay well.

Well...
 

54, flying long haul as an FO for 15 years... Sounds like somebody should have been working on his command upgrade instead of devoting his time to such despicable acts.

737-NG,
I doubt that you have all of the facts to make a judgement about his guilt or command development. :rolleyes:

A little BA insight for some:

You cannot "work on your command upgrade" in an airline like BA. If you wish to remain on a particular fleet it comes when the numbers crunch and only then.

To achieve command at 15 years would require a fleet change, and it must be abundantly obvious why shorthaul would not have appealed.

For the Daily Wail, all BA pilots earn at least £100,000

In my time, the longhaul fleets had their fair share of RHS 'sitters'; who preferred a senior position and accompanying life style with little responsibility to having to work for a living.:)

Boac ...senior position without having to work for a living...
Surely not only in the rhs ...but in the office as well..:)

BA would have been on aiding to nothing if they'd acted after "there is no case to answer"

However it should not have been beyond their wit to transfer him to a ground job in Riyadh, the USA or in the UK or at least make sure he was doing routine flights to somewhere like Helsinki or New York where the natives are less impressed by a BA uniform

personally one of the biggest and most upsetting thing in my life is just how many of these people there are - I'd always thought it was the ultra- crazy who saw paedophiles everywhere - but they ARE everywhere...... :(:(:(:(

Amen to that; I have already commented on being disappointed in the past by the conduct of a fellow captain so I won't go down that particular road again.

It is just a shame that our religious leaders aren't paid £100,000 p.a.

Otherwise they would not need to aspire to becoming BA pilots.

Personally, I feel deeply sorry for the driver of the train that he threw himself under. He/she will never be the same again but then, why would our man worry about that?

A bit more info from the Telegraph:Pilot 'abused position to molest African orphans' - Telegraph

Thanks BOAC for this insight. Makes things more understandable

Well, to sudden twang I guess it comes down to more or less the same thing;
He stayed on the same fleet to keep going to the same destinations, instead of upgrading to Captain and switching to short haul (If it's anything like Air France,it could have been 10 years before he went from short haul capt to long haul capt.)
He kills himself because he doesn't want to face his guilt and accusations.

I might be wrong, and this is just speculation, but there is no smoke without fire s they say.

Another proof that pilot are just ''normal, average'' people, with the good, the bad and the worse. Nothing like what you thought of them as a youngster looking at their uniforms and epaulets with admiration.

Driver is OK, one of ours. The chap was considerate enough to be very discreet about his actions. Our man was unaware he had chopped him until the following train found him. Not nice for either driver but it comes with the territory.

A friend of mine was a train driver. He had two 'jumpers', as they call them, during his year or so in the job. He was counselled for a month before returning to work after the first and laid off after the second. He is still suffering from the effects, some 5 years later, and it has changed his life for the worst. He will never be the same again.

Notwithstanding the fact that BA has no mechanism to do that and he wasn't even wearing a BA uniform, are you seriously suggesting BA sanction someone on the basis of a completely unproven allegation?

BA faces law suit
 

The answer to Capetonian`s question on the understanding it is not rhetorical is "employer`s vicarious liability ". Best illustrated by the Court of Appeal`s ruling in favour of the claimant against Birmingham Archidocese R.C. Church in April 2010 where Father Clonan allegedly had sexually abused the claimant during his youth. One of the determining factors was that the priest was usually dressed in clerical garb. So now we have Gabriel in the employ of BA dressed in a pilots uniform.

So you have never moved people, on the Suspicion that leaving them in the same job will come back to haunt you, people do it every day

Pilot 'abused position to molest African orphans' - Telegraph

Am I parsing this wrong? Shouldn't that be "them" rather than "him"?

That all depends on the possibility of damage to a professional's reputation and any possible code of ethics (professional or corporate) in place protecting it.

In my biz (engineering), compliance with such a code of ethics is a condition of licensure. And that code prohibits acts that could damage the reputation or business prospects of another member. In addition, it requires that issues of ethical or legal transgressions be handled by "the proper authority". So absent a ruling by CPS (the proper authority in this case?), BA might actually have its hands tied. In this case, a suspicion of possible problems would have to be documented carefully so as not to damage this person's reputation through negligence.

Catholic church has been abused for years using that position.

If a BA FO is dressing as a Captain then why did BA not investigate or was it out of sight ? out of mind ?

"A friend of mine was a train driver. He had two 'jumpers', as they call them, during his year or so in the job. He was counselled for a month before returning to work after the first and laid off after the second. He is still suffering from the effects, some 5 years later, and it has changed his life for the worst. He will never be the same again."

Same experience here. My father had a friend driving a suburban train and their "jumpers" are right into the windscreen. This friend was so nervous, that he was panic-stricken each arrival at a station platform, seeing "jumpers" in every face. He had to quit of course........

But suicides never seem to think of the family members that have to find the hanging body, the brain splattered on the wall, or the passersby who have a building jumper land in front of them. Jump off a boat with an anvil, save the rest of us from having to clean up after you.

And you think a company the size of BA could get away with moving an individual pilot away from all long haul flying, outside any individual contracts or industrial agreements, simply on the basis that somebody ten years ago in the UK accused him of being a paedo? I bet Employment Tribunal lawyers would love you!

He wasn't dressing as a BA captain, he was just wearing a generic pilots uniform with four stripes. It's entirely plausible that as all his charity activities were independent of BA and unendorsed by them that it was BAs way of maintaining separation between his professional role and his personal role.

So how exactly does someone who doesn't work with an airline know this ?

They don't, but I doubt the matter will go unnoticed once someone tries to claim that he was in some way acting in a pseudo-official BA capacity.

On the BBC news he was shown visiting a Kenyan school wearing a captains uniform with four GOLD stripes. If he didn't claim to be a BA pilot then surely BA have no case to answer?

Goes back to the question
If BA Pilot visits a Kenyan school wearing a Captains uniform then how are BBC or anybody else expected to know he is not a Captain ?

The answer is they're not, but you could equally say if a London postman visits a Kenyan school wearing a captains uniform how are they expected to know he's not a captain? It's up to them to establish the bona fides of any visitor. Wood wasn't at any of these places as a representative of BA, he was there as a representative of himself, just like Gary Glitter wasn't in Cambodia as a representative of the British music industry.

BOAC
A few years ago I had a chat with a similar RHS sitter and he stated that he could not afford to go for promotion as he had 1st call on the "best" routes.

So sad. Everyone looses in a case like this. As for BA, I hope they where utterly clueless about his "charity"-work. They cant be responsible for their employees actions as long as they dont know.

A colleague of mine (Im a train driver in Norway), was caught driving his car under alcohol influence (Norway has 0 tolerance). He was sentenced to prison and our employer was informed about it, of course. The CO gave him an unimportant position for 2 years before he could become a train driver again.

Here there was a sentence on which our employer reacted upon. If the FO had been tried and found guilty, BA would surely have reacted upon that, but since he wasnt, how was they supposed to know?

You cant be held responsible for all of your employes actions during off-time, can you?

Presumably written by a non-pilot. Let's just forget this red herring of BA moving pilots to different positions within the Company. Pilots employed by BA are employed as pilots, they do not get moved around into different positions. Clearly I'm talking about the norm and not, for instance, the occasions when pilots have been used as cabin crew when times were tough.

If Simon was found guilty during the previous investigation, charged and sentenced, then BA would have done something about it. As it was, he wasn't charged and BA would have been subject to some very serious employment regulation breeches had they tried to remove him from his post based on, at the time, unsubstantiated information.

BA normally pounce on PR opportunities and Simon volunteering his time to work in the orphanages etc would have been prime material to promulgate for all to see the selflessness of BA's pilots. The fact that they didn't is one indication they had no idea about his activities outside of work. Likewise, BA do not monitor your every move when down route, so were further unlikely to have a clue. His 'work' was clearly not supported by BA or else he'd almost certainly (at times) be given permission to wear his uniform for PR photos. The fact that he wore a 'fake' is a pretty certain indication that his wearing of his BA uniform was not sanctioned.

Forgetting this happened overseas, BA is not responsible for the actions of its employees 100% of the time. He was off duty when he went to the orphanage and it's no different to, for instance, a Virgin Atlantic pilot date raping a girl in a Crawley nightclub. Why would Virgin be held responsible for something one of their employees did whilst off duty and why should BA be any different? I'm not ignoring the fact that Simon abused his roster bidding position as a pilot to transport him to where he wanted to be but, once there, he's no different to any other Joe Bloggs and was not acting as a BA representative in any way....not even the uniform.

The lawsuit against BA will no doubt be motivated by the fact that BA may pay up (something at least) to put the whole affair to bed, & can of course afford to do so, rather than by any conviction that they are somehow responsible.
Undoubtedly legal counsel for the victims has identified them as more affluent ( & vulnerable) than a dead man who is reputed to have just sent 64 grand to Africa to perhaps hush things up.

I'm fascinated by this. I'd love to hear how you explain to an airline pilot that based on nothing more than some dismissed charges, you're making him a baggage handler in Riyadh.

I was so shocked when I followed the original link to Mail on line and scrolled down to see a face I so recognised!

I had flown with him many times and, of course, had no suspicion of what he got up to.


I would guess BA will pay some money over to victims in Africa to keep the lid on it.


Not a very pleasant case all round is it?