Sacked Kidwelly waitress Sarah Finch settles claim with McDonald's

A WAITRESS who claimed she was unfairly sacked for sprinkling too much chocolate on a McDonald's McFlurry has settled her case days before reaching a tribunal.

Sarah Finch of Kidwelly was fired for gross misconduct for giving extra chocolate topping to a workmate on the 99p ice-cream dessert at the McDonald's Carmarthen site.

The 19-year-old planned to take her former employers to an employment tribunal after bosses accused her of giving away food without payment.

But now the family's legal representative Darren Newman said the issue has been resolved.

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"With the assistance of ACAS we have reached a resolution — the tribunal is being withdrawn and there is no additional mention of liability," he said.

"The parties have agreed not to disclose any more information apart from that the issue has now been resolved."

McDonald's described A-level student Sarah as an "exceptional employee" before sacking her from her £180-a-week job.

At the time Sarah released a statement, saying: "The matter was trivial, in that I provided a fellow employee, who was purchasing a dessert, a generous sprinkling of chocolate pieces.

"There is no standard for such measures — they are always imprecise and will vary among customers.

"My colleague had asked me: 'Make it a nice one'.

"So the measure I gave erred on the side of more than, rather than less than, the mean."

Managing director Ron Mounsey had confirmed he backed his manager's decision to sack Sarah.

In a letter to Sarah's mother Tessa Finch Mr Mounsey said: "I am aware of the circumstances of your daughter's dismissal, where she has admitted giving away food to someone without receiving payment. This is classed as gross misconduct as per my employee handbook, the consequence is dismissal.

"My managers acted correctly according to my policies and I fully uphold their decisions.

"You may feel it is trivial, but with 740 employees in my business, if my management team were just to overlook such incidents then quickly it would become a free-for-all.

"This is and always has been a dismissable offence in my business," he added.

Mrs Finch and husband Steven declined to speak about the matter and Mr Mounsey was unavailable for comment.