The difficulty is that if someone absconds after being told to "come round the back" it becomes rather difficult to prove who said what when, as if the individual later claims they had to book off due to a domestic problem in the absence of witnesses how does one prove they were ever told D&A were being called?
Very true. I’m sorry to say I’ve also been aware of this kind of thing happening.
A platform staff member where I used to work had something of a “reputation”. He overheard a colleague saying that D&A were at the depot doing random testing and suddenly vanished. Crucially this was
before had had been formally asked to take a test (because of course refusal to take a test is a sackable offence in its own right).
He later made an excuse: mother taken ill or similar, which was subsequently revealed to be complete rubbish (his brother also works at the same TOC!).
Needless to say D&A were waiting for him when he next booked on, but he was all clear. He has been tested several times since, and I gather they are now watching him like a hawk, but in the absence of of a direct refusal to take a test, there was simply nothing more that could be done.
The way the process
should work, is the way in which I was recently tested, along with several colleagues. A manager walked into the messroom and asked what we were doing. Those of us sitting spare were told we were going to be randomly medscreened and asked who wanted to go first. The first we knew of the process was the formal request to take a test, so there was no opportunity for anyone to pull a fast one!
In my experience it’s often people who are sitting spare, attending safety days etc. who are randomly tested. The last thing any TOC wants to do is delay a train because the driver is peeing into a little pot!