A FORMER coach at Oldham Athletic’s academy has secured a £10,000 plus payout from the club for unfair dismissal.

Until January 2019, Mark Hilditch was the senior safeguarding manager for the Latics youth set-up, a role he had fulfilled since September 1998, alongside his full-time job as a prison officer.

But an employment tribunal heard that Mr Hilditch was called in by Mark Sheridan, the company secretary of Oldham Athletic (2004) Association Football Club Ltd, and told his role “had gone”.

Mr Hilditch said he was informed this was taking place after the Football League had audited the academy and awarded it a ‘poor’ rating and he would be replaced by Wendy Noble, of the Oldham Athletic Community Trust.

In a statement though, Mr Sheridan said when he informed the coach he would be taking over the role, Mr Hilditch had been “relieved” as he struggled to manage the workload, given his prison officer duties.

Mr Sheridan also pointed towards ‘three months of unopened e-mails’ on Mr Hilditch’s club laptop as another reason behind his dismissal.

But Judge Rhodri McDonald, who examined the evidence, said a copy of the Football League audit report showed that while there were areas with a ‘red’ rating, demonstrating problems, a number were ‘amber’, indicating the criteria had been partially met, or ‘green’ showing compliance.

Judge McDonald said: "As Mr Sheridan notes in his statement the EFL did not want to shut the respondent’s academy down.

"The report is not on its face sufficiently damming for me to be able to conclude that the respondent would have been entitled to dismiss the claimant for gross misconduct or terminate his employment immediately through incapability."

And the tribunal heard from Mr Hilditch that while he accepted there were unopened e-mails, his laptop was ‘very old’ and he had complained to the-then chief executive, Richard Cooper, that it needed repairing previously.

Mr Hilditch, an ex-Rochdale player, also said he had never been given a proper statement of the terms and conditions of his contract. He said he had only been given a letter of confirmation from a past chief executive, a laptop and mobile phone.

The judge said text messages between Mr Hilditch and Mr Cooper on the matter had been filed to support this.

He claimed as part of his case that he had not been given his necessary notice period of 12 weeks before his dismissal.

Ruling in Mr Hilditch's favour, Judge McDonald said: "I find that the claimant was dismissed with immediate effect without any disciplinary proceedings being carried out, that dismissal being on 10 January 2019.

"I do not accept that there was sufficiently clear evidence before me that the claimant would inevitably have been dismissed, either because of the outcome of the EFL audit or for failing to check his e-mails."

The club had filed a defence in Mr Hilditch's case but had failed to send a legal representative when the tribunal heard the case last February.

Judge McDonald awarded Mr Hilditch a basic payout of £3,836 and a compensatory settlement of £10,836.