Train driver wins sacking fight over tarantula 'prank' on squeamish colleague

A TRAIN driver sacked for leaving the remains of a tarantula and a snakeskin in a colleague's pigeonhole has won his claim for unfair dismissal after a judge ruled them to be ill-judged pranks.

- Mark Reynolds

Jonathan Richardson played the joke with the spider exo-skeleton after the female colleague told him she was squeamish about creepy-crawlies.

He was trying to elicit "momentary shock" followed by "light-hearted relief" from his colleague and had not anticipated her becoming distressed, an employment tribunal was told.

The woman, identified only as Driver A, was upset and called him a "f***ing t**t", to which he responded that he might do something similar with a snakeskin.