Manager sacked for brazen voice note admitting she faked expenses to pay for family meals

A sales manager was sacked after sending a co-worker a voice note in which she openly admitted to fiddling her expense claims to pay for family dinners – and encouraged her colleague to do the same.

Susannah Bennison, 47, acknowledged that she systematically defrauded her employer by claiming hundreds of pounds for restaurant outings with her relatives, a tribunal hearing was told.

The health and beauty sales professional also purchased takeaways for herself via Just Eat and Deliveroo, then put the receipts through as customer meals.

She was exposed after sending a voice note to her colleague urging her to follow suit, telling her to "act smarter" and be "ruthless".

Ms Bennison defended her actions in the recording, saying that she charged pizza and pasta dishes to company expenses whenever demanding work shifts disrupted her family life.

After being sacked, she brought claims of unfair dismissal and whistleblowing detriment against BTL Industries at Birmingham Employment Tribunal, but lost her case.

Rejecting her claim, an employment judge said that Ms Bennison had effectively offered a "confession of committing imprisonable criminal offences".

Ms Bennison joined BTL Industries, the UK division of a Czech medical and aesthetic device manufacturer, in October 2019, and worked as a sales manager.

She resigned in November 2023, then alleged constructive dismissal after facing disciplinary action over her expenses.

Ms Bennison was based at home, but she met up with her colleagues at trade shows.

In October 2022, she sent a voice note to her colleague, referred to in the tribunal decision as Emma, saying: "I think with this business you gotta act a little bit smarter. And I’ve learned this over the last year I don’t let them get away with anything.

"So I think sometimes you have to recompensate yourself by not allowing them to have any financial control of your money that comes out of your bank account or your time.

"For example there’s many times I [come] in on a night and it’s late I’ll order some food. Deliveroo, or Just Eat, or whatever and I’ll put the receipt into work, and they’ll pay me on it.

"She’ll say, 'oh, what’s this for?' I’ll say, 'it’s my dinner', like and then she’ll say, 'oh, was this meal a customer meal?' 'Yes, it was'. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not.

"And I just think, you know, I’m doing such a long stint of work, and eating into my own home life. That if I want to take my kids out for a pizza and pasta on a [redacted] Thursday night and put the receipt in, I’ll [redacted] do it like, not a problem."

Ms Bennison went on to say: "You’re manipulated from the company. You have to manipulate them back.

"Because the Czech Republic, their mentality is manipulation and ruthlessness, oh God ruthlessness is a [redacted] word if you didn’t even know what the meaning was.

"There’s many elements that can make you feel a bit better.

"So sometimes on a weekend I’ll go out with Les for a meal, I’ll take the kids out for a meal, and that’ll go through as expenses because they’ve eaten into so many of my hours of the week that I take that back and also it’s not going to equate to thousands and thousands of pounds, but the odd hundred quid, 200 quid here a month does actually make me feel a little bit better."

Ms Bennison was hauled before a disciplinary meeting in August 2022 when the voice note was shared with her bosses.

She also faced allegations about sending offensive messages about colleagues.

She was dismissed with immediate effect for gross misconduct for her voice note and messages.

Ms Bennison appealed the outcomes of the disciplinary hearing and the findings were upheld, but she was reinstated and allowed to return to work.

She decided not to return, saying: "I made it very clear to yourself on the appeal meeting call that there was unfortunately no way I could return to work for BTL."

Ms Bennison claimed that she was sacked because she made "disclosures" about her boss showing her an NDA and about a colleague who was drunk at work.

She claimed unfair dismissal and whistleblowing detriment, but lost both claims.

Employment Judge Christopher Camp said: "The disciplinary action taken against [Ms Bennison] was broadly about three things: spreading gossip about Emma; sending the voice note about defrauding [BTL]; sending voice notes / messages containing disparaging remarks about Czechs, lesbians and others.

"The thing that was most important to [BTL], and which would, we think, be of most concern to most employers, was the voicenote in which, essentially, [she] stated to a colleague that she routinely defrauded her employer when claiming expenses and she encouraged the colleague to do likewise.

"[She] suggests that it was an historic message, but it apparently dated from around October 2022, so was hardly, as it were, ancient history. Whenever it dated from, it amounted to a confession of committing imprisonable criminal offences.

"[She] has also sought to suggest that, despite what she said in the voice note, she has never defrauded her employer.

"It would be the most bizarre message to send if that were so and we do not believe her. The fact that [BTL] could not find proof positive that she had ‘fiddled’ her expenses on any particular occasion is, in our view, almost irrelevant.

"The overwhelming majority of employers would deem that voice note in and of itself to be gross misconduct and would dismiss for it.

"[She] should consider herself extremely fortunate that Mr Donner was one of the small minority of managers who would be willing to give an employee another chance in such circumstances."

Judge Camp said that it was Ms Bennison's decision not to return to work at the company because she never intended to, rather than because she felt she was not able to work under someone who dismissed her.

Ms Bennision was awarded three-and-a-half days of compensation for untaken annual leave, totalling £2,537.