Bus driver sacked for testing positive for cocaine awarded £37,000 after traces of drug was thought to be from fare money
The diabetic claimed it got in his system when he licked his fingers after students gave him contaminated bank notes
A BUS driver sacked when he tested positive for cocaine won £37,000 after a tribunal agreed it came off fare money he handled.
Dad-of-two Kenneth Ball, 62, was axed when a random drug test after a shift revealed the Class A drug in his saliva.
The diabetic claimed it got in his system when he licked his fingers — sore and bleeding due to needle checks on his blood sugar — after students gave him contaminated bank notes. Experts said four in five notes bear traces after being used to snort the drug.
In a bid to clear his name, Kenneth had hair follicles tested. There was no cocaine in them but bosses at First Essex Buses, his employer for 22 years, rejected the evidence.
Kenneth, of Canvey Island, Essex, won a wrongful dismissal claim at an employment tribunal in Poplar, East London. He said: “It’s been a terrible ordeal. I can never forgive them.”
Unite, who backed him, said First Essex “plunged Mr Ball into a living nightmare”. The firm did not comment.
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