The Source With a Motive
A contracted cleaning supervisor at a logistics depot reports that a night-shift colleague is 'photographing the loading bay schedules' and 'meeting someone in the car park.' The supervisor is credible, has worked the site for four years, and is specific about times: 02:10 and 02:40 on two consecutive Tuesdays. However, you learn the supervisor was recently passed over for a permanent role that the alleged colleague received, and the two have a documented history of friction over shift allocation. The colleague has a clean ten-year record. The depot handles high-value electronics and has had two unexplained inventory shortfalls this quarter. Your site manager wants the colleague suspended immediately pending investigation.
1. How do you weigh the source's reliability against the apparent motive, and what do you recommend about suspension?
Read the worked answer
Motive does not make a report false, and a clean record does not make a person innocent. Both are inputs to weighting, not verdicts.
Reasoning:
- Assess the report, not the reporter. The report contains checkable specifics: dates, times, locations, behaviour. Those can be corroborated independently (CCTV, access logs, gate records) regardless of the supervisor's feelings.
- Note the motive as a weighting factor, not a disqualifier. The passed-over role is a real reason for bias. It raises the possibility of embellishment or misreading, not fabrication. Treat it as a caution flag that increases the need for independent corroboration.
- Corroborate before acting against a person. Pull CCTV for the two stated windows and the car park. Check access logs. This is cheap, fast, and does not tip anyone off.
- On suspension: suspension is a serious action with employment and legal consequences and effectively signals guilt. Absent corroboration, immediate suspension is premature and could expose the organisation to a wrongful-action claim. Interim measures (shift separation, supervised access to sensitive areas) can manage risk without prejudging.
- Protect the source. Do not reveal the supervisor's identity in any way that lets the colleague infer it; the friction history makes retaliation plausible.
Model answer: recommend corroboration first, interim risk controls (not suspension) pending evidence, and a documented rationale for both.
2. The CCTV shows the colleague at the loading bay at 02:10 on one Tuesday but nothing at 02:40 and nothing on the second Tuesday. What does this do to your assessment?
Read the worked answer
Partial corroboration is the most common and most mishandled outcome. It confirms the reporter is not simply inventing, but it does not confirm the interpretation.
Analysis:
- What is confirmed: the colleague was in the loading bay at an unusual hour on at least one occasion. That is a genuine anomaly worth explaining.
- What is not confirmed: the photography, the car park meeting, the second Tuesday, and crucially the purpose.
- Consider benign explanations before concluding malfeasance: cover for a colleague, checking a delayed delivery, a maintenance issue, a camera blind spot at 02:40.
- Check camera coverage and retention for the gaps - absence of footage is not absence of activity.
- Do not over-update. One confirmed data point raises the credibility of the report but does not validate the whole. Equally, do not dismiss the rest because two elements failed.
- Next step: a low-key conversation with the colleague about the loading bay visit, framed neutrally, plus a review of the inventory shortfalls against shift patterns.
Model answer: treat as partially corroborated, widen the evidence base, avoid both premature exoneration and premature accusation.