Dear all
I have a situation where an employee resigned his position on 01.08.08 and gave me a month’s notice as required by a valid Contract of employment. He worked for a couple of days thereafter and on 04.08.08 I had a call from him in the morning to say that he was flying out of the country as one of his relative had become seriously ill. He promised to make up the time after the end of notice period,after he came back in about a week to 10 days. I agreed reluctantly for the employee to leave immediately but also asked him to put it all in writing via an Email. He failed to do so.

Two weeks later I received a letter from his new employer requesting a reference. I spoke to the new employer over the phone and he advised me that my ex-employee was offered a job on 15/08/08 and on 18/08/08 he started employment with the said employer. All this time, he was supposed to be working with us & finishing the notice period.!!!

As a result of leaving after 2 days of work, he has left the training of a new employee in a mess and has also left us in difficulty as I am now personally having to train another person myself.

My questions are:
1. Can I force the employee to pay me compensation for not completing the notice period,
2. Should I send a copy of his resignation letter to the new employer and ask them to confront my ex-employee to ascertain the reasons why he must have lied about his notice period when asked at the interview?
3. What else can I do about this unfair situation, as I feel blighted by such action.

PS-I have not issued the P45 yet but on balance there will be nothing outstanding to pay from either side.

Thank you in advance for all your help.
Rick