Younger staff at a chip store run by a excessive profile soccer sponsor declare they have been sacked after complaining about unpaid wages.
Hugh Clarke is being pursued by high SPFL golf equipment Livingston and Falkirk for unpaid sponsorship money. And the Each day Document advised yesterday how workers at his agency Clarke ePOS, based mostly on the Eurocentral enterprise park close to Holytown, Lanarkshire, have been pressured to chase him for wages owed.
Now staff on the Sizzlers chip store in Airdrie, which he briefly leased from native businessman Massimo Rossi in spring 2020, additionally had funds withheld. Former employee Jill Towson, 20, claims she was owed nearly £1,000 in wages, resulting in her mum Eileen confronting Clarke on the chip store.
Jill mentioned: “I used to be simply 18 and my mum was aggravated he was refusing to pay me so she went to see him. The subsequent factor I knew he had texted me to say I used to be sacked. I wasn’t fully stunned as a result of it was chaos at Sizzlers after Clarke took over from Massimo.”
She added: “He despatched quite a lot of stuff to my dad saying that our former boss Massimo had sexually harassed me but it surely was nonsense. We had work banter however he twisted it into one thing actually vile. It was simply deranged, inappropriate stuff.”
After Clarke sacked Jill, he entered right into a collection of on-line arguments together with her dad Norman. Amongst scores of messages despatched to Norman, Clarke wrote: “Hope you hit your month-to-month goal Mr Towson as a result of you'll need it for authorized charges to get your daughter’s wages launched. That is the second time I’ve needed to cope with an grownup’s mom and father interfering.”
Clarke additionally despatched Norman messages, in 2020, that bragged that he would have purchased an SPFL membership “by 2022”. One other Sizzlers worker, Claire Fyfe, 25, claims she walked out after a colleague Lewis Cowan was sacked.
Claire mentioned: “Throughout our shift we have been threatened, screamed at, had our telephones taken off us and locked in a secure so we couldn’t contact anybody. He was interrogating us and accusing us of sabotaging his enterprise.”
Lewis added: “He was counting on under-qualified workers to teach themselves on YouTube on the best way to keep the gear. It was after me and Claire had sufficient and introduced this to his consideration that he snapped and primarily unfairly dismissed me, though we have been glad to go.”
Massimo, 44, mentioned his household had constructed the Sizzlers chippy up but it surely ended up a failing enterprise after Clarke took over the lease. The store is now being run by a brand new leaseholder.
Massimo mentioned: “He didn’t know the best way to work fryers and peelers and I labored for him to start out with however he began blaming me when issues began falling aside. What he put me by way of was traumatic and I really feel very grateful to all of the individuals who got here ahead to help me when he tried to wreck my life.”
The Each day Document has advised how Clarke loved a champagne way of life as he signed up for sponsorship offers for high soccer golf equipment comparable to Livingston and Falkirk. He now faces authorized motion from golf equipment to retrieve lacking funds.
At the least six staff of Clarke ePOS UK Ltd took motion by way of third events such because the Acas arbitration service.
The Document requested Clarke to remark, we have been despatched a stream of messages on WhatsApp.
One mentioned: “Folks that know me are literally laughing now as a result of I've every part in black and white to show how fallacious you might be.”
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