Highly-paid executives sacked by boss who asked them had they been 'tickling each other's b*****ks' while major project plunged £4m into the red win unfair dismissal case

Daily Mail​

19-06-2025

Two high-paid construction executives who oversaw a major project that plummeted to a loss of £4 million have won an unfair dismissal case after their furious boss asked if they had been 'tickling each other's b*****ks'.
Donal Coppinger and John McInerney were sacked on the spot by angry Jason Carey when they revealed the costs for their major project had sky-rocketed, a tribunal heard.
CEO Mr Carey believed the project was on course to make £3.3 million - but in fact the numbers showed a £7 million 'swing' and there was an expected loss of £4 million.
Civil engineering boss Mr Carey 'lost his temper' when he was told the news during a meeting and asked the pair of senior executives: 'What have you two been doing for the last 12 months? Tickling each other's b*****ks?'
Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney - who earned £120,000 and £145,000 respectively at the construction firm - were then told to 'get out of my sight and leave today'.
An employment tribunal has now ruled their dismissal was unfair on technical grounds because they were sacked on the spot without a proper investigation into their alleged misconduct.
But it also ruled that neither of them will win any compensation because of their 'extremely serious failures' over finances meaning there was a '100% chance' that they would have been dismissed anyway if due process had been followed.
Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney launched their unfair dismissal case against their former employer Careys, a civil engineering and construction contractor. A second claim of wrongful dismissal from both men was dismissed.
The hearing in central London was told Mr Coppinger was a site surveyor who worked his way up to become a Regional Commercial Manager.
Mr McInerney was a project manager who later became a Regional Director.
The pair were responsible for overseeing a project named the 'Riverside Waste to Energy plant' in South East London.
The project had a tender cap of £39 milliion and Careys hoped to generate profit of £4.9 million.
Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney took over responsibility of the project in 2023 and it was heard it was already 'hugely behind schedule from a commercial point of view'.
By 2024, documents showed that due to rising costs the projected profit had slumped to £3.3 million.
However, there was 'discrepancies' in the finances that went unnoticed and unacted upon by the pair.
After May 2024 it was found the two execs became aware that costs had soared. The men blamed not noticing it on a colleague who left that month, claiming he had been in charge of finances.
The tribunal's judgement said: 'Ultimately [Mr Coppinger and Mr McInerney] discovered that the project was very seriously off-track and over-budget.
'Contrary to the position as stated in the Contract Review documents of an expected profit margin of c.£3.3m, the reality was an expected loss of c.£4.m, a 'swing' of over £7m.'
In June 2024 a meeting was called with the company's top bosses including Mr Carey.
The report said: 'Mr Carey asked, in effect, what the overall position was in terms of the likely costs/loss on the project and Mr Coppinger stated that as things stood it was approximately a £7.3m movement due to increased costs.
'It was agreed that following this confirmation Mr Carey told Mr Coppinger that he did not need to continue presenting his slides.
'Mr Carey then said "what the f***" and "how was this possible/how could this happen".'
According to the judgment, Mr Carey called Mr Coppinger a 'c**t' and then said 'you c**t, I always knew you were dodgy, shifty and untrustworthy' while pointing his finger at Mr Coppinger.
Then, Mr Carey said: 'What have you two been doing for the last 12 months? Tickling each other's b*****ks?'
He is then said to have immediately sacked them, telling them: 'I'm not going to go as hard on you as I would like to, you are still young men, hopefully there will be lessons for you to learn from this mess, but you will not be learning those lessons under Carey's roof.
'The best thing for you to do is get your stuff, get out of my sight and leave today. I won't be speaking you again about this, the next contact will be through HR.'
The tribunal heard that eventually costs for the project soared to over £14 million.
The two men won their unfair dismissal claim as Employment Judge Kara Loraine said there should have been an investigation into their conduct for it to have been a fair process.
But, Judge Loraine said they will not be awarded compensation.
There was 'substantial evidence that they had seriously failed in their management of the project', the judge said.
Judge Loraine added: 'I find that they failed to scrutinise the financial reporting on the Riverside project in accordance with the responsibilities of their respective roles and that from at least February 2024, those failures were grossly negligent.
'I find this because [their] evidence was that they knew the financial reporting in relation to the Riverside project was inaccurate from the outset of their involvement with it and knew that it was a complex project with a high degree of risk.
'The scale of their failure was both long-standing, over a period of many months and extreme in the sense that they failed to recognise and act on a misreporting of financial figures that was there to be seen in the sum of many millions of pounds (and ultimately found to be over £14m).
'That is an extremely serious failure.'