Other news stories

Military home page

Lawyers for Sebastian Nokes, an Old Etonian from the City of London, said Credit Suisse First Boston would not have sacked him if he were Swiss. Mr Nokes, 34, an intelligence officer with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, is challenging the bank at a reinstatement committee in an attempt to regain his £70,000-a-year job.

The committee, an institution which last met at the end of the Second World War, was set up under the 1944 and 1985 Reserve Forces Act to ensure that reservists called up by the Armed Forces got their old jobs back.

Jeremy Johnson, acting for Mr Nokes, told the committee, meeting yesterday in Stratford, east London, that Credit Suisse First Boston had shown "cynical disregard" for Mr Nokes's rights as a reservist. If the bank's position were to be taken as legally fair, it would give employers the green light to "evade their responsibilities under the Act with great ease".

Mr Johnson said his client had also filed papers to take the case to an industrial tribunal. Switzerland's armed forces are made up entirely of 385,000 volunteers. Swiss companies are obliged to release their employees when they are called up. Col Walter Knueslai, defence attache at the Swiss embassy in London, said no Swiss employer was allowed either to object to the call-up of any of its employees or to take action against them.

Credit Suisse First Boston, a member of the Employers' Liaison Committee, which works with the Ministry of Defence to help to ensure companies release reservists, said the redundancy of Mr Nokes had nothing to do with his RAuxAF service.

The company said it had already discussed making Mr Nokes redundant before he was called up. Martin Palmer, for the merchant bank, said there had been discussions about making Mr Nokes redundant before his mobilisation. Once he was called up, it was deemed to be "not reasonably practicable" to make him redundant. A month after he returned, he was told he must go.

But Mr Johnson said his client had heard no mention of his being made redundant until July, three months after he was mobilised. Mr Johnson said: "At that point the applicant was informed that he would be made redundant when he returned from active service and was advised to resign."

Mr Nokes, a former regular officer in the Brigade of Gurkhas, has also served in the Territorial Army as a communications expert. He joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force in 1993. He began working for the bank as a vice-president (strategic planning) on £70,000 a year plus bonuses, in February 1998.

The RAuxAF flight lieutenant was called up in April to work at the MoD as part of the Kosovo campaign and was released on Aug 18. He was then sent on "gardening leave" by the bank. On Sept 23, he received a letter terminating his employment with effect from the following day.

Mr Johnson told the committee that its regulations were so "arcane" that his client found it difficult filing his application. The 1944 regulations stated that applications should be handed in to the nearest Labour exchange. So Mr Nokes took his to his Jobcentre. But staff had no idea what to do with it.

As a result, a senior MoD official was allocated to work with a senior DTI civil servant on the application. The committee refused two applications by the bank for a ruling that it had no jurisdiction in the case and adjourned until June to allow the bank to prepare its case.