Pubs warned to check relief staff credentials

Pubs are being urged to conduct thorough checks when hiring relief staff after a temporary manager was jailed for stealing £3,000 from a licensee.

Relief manager Simon Foy, 35, was sent to prison for 12 weeks and ordered to pay the full amount in compensation by Cheltenham Magistrates Court last month.

The theft happened after Frank O'Toole, licensee of the Golden Lion, in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, took on Foy as holiday cover.

Two days before he left, O'Toole phoned Foy at the pub to check he had banked the weekend's takings.

He said he checked his bank account the next day, but the money was still not there.

O'Toole later went to the pub, where he claims that Foy confessed he had spent the takings.

"We then called the police and they came and arrested him," he said. "When asked for an address by the police, he said he didn't have one."

O'Toole added: "It's very galling. We wanted a copy of his CV or some more information upfront."

He made the booking through the London-based Marc Clayman Agency - paying £1,000 upfront - as he originally wanted someone for six months.

O'Toole claims that when he first spoke to the agency he was told all the background checks had been done.

But Len Beale from the Marc Clayman Agency said: "In our terms and conditions we state clearly that employers must take up their own references on candidates. We have never taken a police check on anybody.

"We took up a reference from a previous employer and the council that granted Mr Foy his personal licence."

Niall McCann, a solicitor at law firm Joelson Wilson, advised licensees to be thorough.

"Licensees should carefully check the terms and conditions of any agency and ask as many questions as possible about their vetting procedures. To be absolutely sure you could even ask to phone a previous employer to obtain a reference."