Hargreaves Lansdown sacks employee over “joke” tweet about hitting cyclist with car
An employee at finance firm Hargreaves Lansdown has been sacked after tweeting that he had hit a cyclist while driving to work, but didn’t stop because he was late.
Rayhan Qadar tweeted “Think I just hit a cyclist, But I’m late for work so had to drive off lol” on Monday morning telling the BBC the tweet was “a dumb mistake”.
Hargreaves Lansdown called the tweet unacceptable.
"One of our employees has failed to conduct themselves to the standards we expect of our staff. We find these online comments totally unacceptable. Upon becoming aware of this issue we have terminated this person’s employment with immediate effect," said a spokesperson for the Bristol-based firm.
Qadar, who worked in the firm's stock broking department, but was not a stockbroker, sent follow-up tweets from his now-deleted Twitter account after a number of twitter users responded to the message.
"I did not hit cyclist. Not today. Not ever. A bad joke on my part it seems” said Qadar, and "Anyone who follows me on Twitter know 99% of the things I tweet is nonsense".
Meanwhile, Avon and Somerset police said they were investigating the tweet and called on witnesses and anyone involved in a collision to report it.
We are aware of a tweet regarding a collision between a car and a bike. We are looking into this now. Any witnesses call 101.
— Avon and Somerset Police (@ASPolice) January 6, 2015
If you've been involved in a collision please report it at your nearest police station.
— Avon and Somerset Police (@ASPolice) January 6, 2015
Update: This piece was amended to clarify that Qadar worked in the company's stock broking department, but was not a stock broker.