Here below is the following case study:

Mr Atkins was employed as Senior Market inspector in a retail market of the London Borough of Wanden.On 9 August he was temporarily suspended on half pay for a week for parking offences.This was because he had persistently parked his car in an area which obstructed access to some of the market stalls.He returned to work but the following day he went absent with a chest infection (17 August).

Mr Barter was a Market Inspector and had been employed for five years.On 6 September he apparently sustained an injury to his back and went absent from work.

On 29 August Mr Hardy, Head of Department, had issued new operating procedures.On 6 September the third inspector, Mr Cross, maintained that Mr Barter advised him he would be receiving a telephone call from Mr Atkins advising him to go sick.Mr Barter urged Mr Cross to accept Mr Adams's advice. Mr Atkins subsequently telephoned Mr Cross and asked him to go sick in order to get at Mr Hardy.Mr Barter did not go sick but instead recounted this sequence of events to Mr Hardy.

Mr Hardy then issued a formal Notice of Complaint against Mr Atkins and Mr Barter and asked that they attend an interview to answer a charge of gross misconduct, in that they conspired to get Mr Cross to feign sickness.

They attended for interview when they returned to work at the end of their certified sickness, on the afternoon of Monday 20^th September.Their trade union representative, Mr Smith, accompanied them.

Assume that, in the cross-examination of Mr Cross by the trade union representative, Mr Cross stuck to his version of events.Assume also that Messrs Atkins and Barter have strongly denied the charge of conspiracy and Cross's version of events

It is now late Monday afternoon, 20^th September.Assume that you are the Divisional Head who chaired the Disciplinary Hearing and who has to decide on the outcome.What would you decide and why?

How could i relate the disciplinary pyramid in this question? How could i link theory into this also? In the case study shouldn't they listen to both sides of the argument before coming up with a solution