One question which may come up at or before you plunge into your investigation questions is that of legal representation at the meeting for the witness. If the employee says that he wishes to bring his lawyer, do you have to agree? If not, should you agree anyway?
The law on this is very clear — there isn’t any — and therefore your witness can effectively forget about any absolute right to turn up armed with legal counsel. Even if the statutory entitlement to be accompanied at grievance and disciplinary meetings applied to purely investigatory get-togethers, which it doesn’t, it provides for colleagues and trade union officials only. It remains good practice to offer equivalent rights to a companion in an investigatory meeting, but that still rarely includes lawyers. There are some obvious grounds for declining that request, but also a number of less obvious reasons why it might not be the worst thing in the world to have a lawyer present, and may actually help you get to the bottom of the questions you are looking into.
Reasons for saying no:
the risk that the lawyer will feel himself obliged to earn his fee by undertaking a pointless but vigorous cross-examination of you while you are trying to get something out of his client;
some lawyers are, whether intentionally or not, more adept than others at keeping to the point;
legal representatives may advise their clients not to answer certain questions or otherwise discourage a free and frank...
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