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Storm over squash game strike
By Patrick Sawer and Matheus Sanchez, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 14.11.03It is the strike over a Tube driver sacked for allegedly playing squash while off work on sick leave.
Chris Barrett lost his £32,000-a-year job after CCTV footage apparently showed him leaving an Islington sports centre. This was later seen by Tube bosses.
He had been off work with an injured ankle for several months. Mr Barrett, who lives in Hackney, maintains he was told by doctors that exercise would help speed up his recovery.
He said: "I was not playing squash. I was just exercising my ankle on a squash court. I have got two letters, from my GP and my sports-injury therapist, so you tell me if I'm in the wrong."
Mr Barrett added that the situation was not simply about his ankle, but also about the right of any worker to follow doctors' orders when off sick. When the Evening Standard first published a photograph of Mr Barrett, showing him returning home on a bicycle, he left an abusive message on our reporter's mobile phone.
Bob Crow, leader of the RMT, said the evidence provided by Mr Barrett "was simply ignored in both the original (disciplinary) hearing and the appeal".
Mr Crow added: "Once more LU is scraping the bottom of the barrel in finding a pretext to sack a union activist. The clear majority for strike action shows that his colleagues have not been swayed by an attempt at media assassination. LU must reinstate our member."
But an LU spokeswoman said: "Playing competitive squash is incompatible with the reasons this employee gave us for sick leave. He has exhausted the appeals process and we believe this dismissal was appropriate and fair."
