A sacked firefighter has denied making a racist monkey chant at a pedestrian.

Firefighter Mark Versluijs told an employment tribunal he never disputed he made the monkey noise while on duty in a fire engine - but insisted he was just trying to attract the attention of the leading firefighter, nicknamed ’Scummer’, in the front seat.

As the Isle of Man Examiner reported last week when the tribunal opened, Mr Versluijs was suspended and then sacked from his job at Douglas fire station following the incident in Lord Street, Douglas, on September 30 last year.

Giving evidence at his employment tribunal on Friday, where he is claiming unfair dismissal, he said the noise was ’probably pretty loud’ and he was waving his arms around like a monkey.

He said: ’I was just trying to get Scummer’s attention in the front seat, to be honest with you. I was acting the fool. I didn’t see any pedestrian.’

He said he made the monkey noise just by the traffic lights at Quine’s Corner.

Mr Versluijs said the leading firefighter was known as ’Macca’s monkey’, for being a dogsbody to the station officer and who members of Blue Watch would take any opportunity to wind up.

’It could be somebody walking down the street eating a banana and we’d say "control yourself Scummer that’s not your banana!".’

evidence

Given the evidence about the banter used by the crews, he was asked why his fellow members had taken offence at his comment.

’Because they saw this black gentleman walking down the road,’ he replied. ’I never saw him.’

Hannah Quinn, advocate for the fire service, said: ’It’s just a lie to try to excuse your behaviour aiming your monkey noise at a pedestrian in the street.’

He denied he had been pulled up over his comments when they got back to the station. ’The first time I actually knew there was a black man walking down the street was when I had a letter after my suspension confirming why I had been suspended.’

Mr Versluijs claimed he had been a whistleblower who had raised concerns over staffing issues and as result some had him down as a ’marked man’.

He said he called into the fire service headquarters on the spur of the moment in February last year to raise his concerns with the chief fire officer about what was happening on the ground at Douglas fire station.

He said some firefighters were looking for new jobs, some fire trucks were going out with crews that were inexperienced and the fire service was ’running by the seat of its pants’.

He said Kevin Groom agreed to come to the fire station that Friday and spoke to Blue Watch.

Mr Versluijs told the tribunal: ’It all just came out. Everyone just said their piece. They let rip. It just went on and on and on. I don’t think I did an awful lot of talking at the meeting.

’At one stage the chief looked over at me. At the end of the meeting he said there’s one man who is brave enough to bring this to me. He said there’s one man who should be applauded and pointed directly at me.’

He claimed following that meeting management later had a negative view of him and he missed out on promotion.

Mr Versluijs said he suffered another detriment by having his second employment as a Douglas RNLI volunteer rejected.

Tribunal chairman Douglas Stewart said a written decision would be made soon.