A former employee of South West Trains has withdrawn a claim for unfair dismissal at the advice of his counsel just before it was to appear in the tribunal. He had been dismissed for walking across train tracks for no apparent reason.

Ian Faletto has maintained that he was only on the track in the interests of promoting public safety. He claims that there was a shopping trolley obstructing the tracks. Yet the rail company did not find this to be case and say that they have evidence in support of this. Whilst the case has been withdrawn by the claimant, the train company is keen to highlight that they have made absolutely no attempt to negotiate an out of court settlement with Mr Faletto since they did no believe him to have a case.

Mr Faletto had alleged he contacted the signal-man to turn off the power and then removed the trolley to prevent an accident. However there was no record of any such instance in any of the company's log books. Speaking outside the employment tribunal building in Southampton, Mr Faletto, from Totton, Hants, maintained that the trolley was on the railway track.

After 27 years of what he termed “momentous” service for the train company Mr Faletto described himself as feeling very disappointed with the way he has been treated. The train company see his withdrawal of the claim as an admittance that he had no case against them. Despite that assertion, however, his local Tory MP signed a campaign to reinstate him along with 8,000 others.

This case seemed to have very little evidence available at this point and Mr Faletto has described the difficulty of taking such a large company to court. Indeed, it is not something which the companies concerned often wish to become involved with since it can have such a detrimental affect on the general running of a business.

The director of the company shared his feelings saying “we remain angry at the way these fictitious Walter-Mitty-style claims were so quickly reported as fact. It is also doubly upsetting that many well-meaning people in community were so misled.”