A WAREHOUSE worker sacked for faking a bad back has won £30,000 after bosses told him they had people following him.
Neil Wilson, 41, was sacked as as bosses had suspected him of being a “fraudster” after finding videos of him “dancing” as a reggae DJ.
Aliaxis UK Limited, a plastic piping company near Maidstone, Kent, even went as far as hiring professionals to have the dad-of-four followed.
Wilson, who went by the stage name Reggae Vibes, has now won £30,682 after a tribunal found that he had been unfairly dismissed.
He told KentOnline: “When I kept on seeing the same people outside my house, my friends said I was being paranoid.
“I tell myself, it’s all over now, they’re not following me any more, but it traumatised me.”
Wilson began working at the firm in February 2021 as a warehouse operative with the job taking a physical toll on his body.
The tribunal heard how the part-time music producer was on sick leave for 15 months from his full-time job after workplace accidents in 2022.
He told his boss he had suffered from back pain and in March of that year had to leave work early following an accident that “caused him so much pain that he was reduced to tears”.
It was noted he had pain “approximately one hour after rising” after he was asked to complete a manual handling risk assessment
He also claimed to have difficulty sleeping and at times struggled with walking and was signed off sick in May 2022.
Wilson was later diagnosed with a chronic back disorder – myofascial dysfunction of the lumbar spine.
But Aliaxis’ human resources director, Joanne Askham, became suspicious he was defrauding their insurance company after seeing videos of him “singing and swaying”.
They hired TenIntelligence, a private investigator firm, in January 2023 in an effort to gather evidence against him.
Agents filmed Wilson walking in Ashford going between shops and visiting a library in Ashford.
But reporting back, investigators didn’t observe activity “that would definitely disprove his injury claims” but had noticed he walks at a “brisk pace”.
Wilson then attended a funeral in Jamaica the following month where he uploaded music videos while he was away.
Upon his return, the tribunal heard how investigators filmed clips of him at the airport where he is seen “pushing a suitcase on wheels”.
Ms Askham also checked his social media posts and said she was “very concerned” by what she saw.
Photographs showed him lying in a vest on the beach while another showed him leaning on a railing, drinking and “does not indicate that he is in any particular pain”, the tribunal heard.
Two music videos from January 2023 again showed him moving but nothing more energetic.
Ms Ashkan came to the conclusion that he was “a fraudster”, she told the hearing, and cancelled his insurance payments.
At a meeting with Ms Ashkram in March 2023 Wilson was told that a review of his social media posts and other surveillance had showed him “moving around freely”.
“You have been seen walking quickly and freely and it doesn’t appear that you are in discomfort,” she said.
“You have posted images of yourself whilst away and have been dancing and walking around. You were observed coming off a long-haul flight and collecting your case.”
Wilson said: “It was devastating. The worst part of it was when she told me, ‘We have people following you.’”
He said he kept “seeing the same people” and that his “paranoia was all over the place”.
However, the company did not pursue their fraud claims and instead told him in June 2023 they were firing him because they did not believe his condition would improve enough for him to return to work.
Mr Wilson took the case to a tribunal in Ashford, Kent in May 2025.
The employment tribunal ruled that while the video showed him “moving rhythmically from foot to foot” he was not ‘in any meaningful sense, dancing.’
The panel found that he had been unfairly dismissed as the company had not considered re-instating his insurance payments once it had concluded he was, in fact, unfit for work.
It also said he had not been given a proper opportunity to refute the allegations against him.
Mr Wilson, who earned a salary of £24,347, was awarded £12,826 for his dismissal, £13,000 for injury to feelings plus almost £5,000 in interest.
He said the outcome was a “relief” and it “felt like I got a little bit of my dignity back” after believing he wouldn’t win the case.
