Snack attack!

How easy is it to see into another person’s car from your own, as they drive past you on the motorway? Would you be able to recall what they were wearing? Their hair colour? Or how about what brand of snack they might be eating?

As ludicrous as it sounds, an HR manager from EDF Energy claims she could see exactly that as she was driving on the M25, the UK’s busiest road, she not only spotted a driver for the company, but managed to see inside his van and recognise the particular brand of cheese snack he was allegedly eating.

She also managed to memorise his registration number until she arrived at her destination and could write it down.

Sounds far-fetched? Unfortunately not for the driver – who has since been sacked for the alleged eating of a Dairylea Dunker cheese snack while driving.

Astonishingly the case is one of many in an alarming increasing number of false disciplinary cases being brought forward by EDF Energy bosses.

The ‘evidence’ in this case is not only farcical but incredibly flimsy. In an episode of a TV courtroom drama the question would be asked – does this woman wear glasses? Was she wearing them at the time? Should she not have been concentrating on the road rather than peering into other peoples cars, ‘snack gazing’?

Unite regional officer, Onay Kasab is dismayed by management’s move. “We are campaigning at EDF Energy against the number of cases going to disciplinary hearings, the number of disciplinary warnings and sackings on the flimsiest of evidence.”

Onay added, “The boss’s powers of observation are so great that she was able to spot the make of soft cheese snack from another lane of the UK’s busiest motorway.”

There have been roughly 20 disciplinary cases in the metering section of EDF Energy, where Unite has 500 members.

“Our member has been sacked for allegedly eating a Dairylea Dunker while driving. He is absolutely clear that he was neither eating nor doing anything apart from driving.”

Fellow Unite members at EDF Energy are furious at his treatment. Unless the driver is reinstated at a disciplinary appeal hearing in Bexleyheath tomorrow (Tuesday October 21), they want to be balloted for strike action.

In August, Unite achieved ‘a great pay victory’ for its members, who install meters and deal with alleged electricity theft, after they took three days of strike action.

7 facts you never knew about the M25
•The average speed of a car travelling on the M25 is over 60 mph
•The M25 is used by 500,000 vehicles per day according to the Daily Telegraph
•The M25, at 117 miles (188 km) is Europe’s second longest orbital road
•In one part the M25 is 12 lanes wide
•It has 10,606 lights and 2,959 illuminated signs along its length
•The highest speed recorded by police on the M25 was 147mph, by Leslie Coe, in a Porsche 911 in 1992. He lost his licence
•The dance band Orbital were named after the ‘Orbital Motorway’, a popular route taken to illegal raves in the 80s and 90s.