Rapid sues ex-staff for targeting clients

Duo charged with running rival operation on employers' time.

The Rapid Group is suing two former employees for gross misconduct after they were accused of selling products to the reseller's customers through their own company.

Marc Carver, sales manager and Ron Shenton, pre-press sales manager, were employed by the Rapid Group's subsidiary, The Apple Centre Cambridge, when it was alleged that on 1 October, they had been trading through Pre-Press Ltd.

According to records at Companies House, Pre-Press was set up on 8 September.

Carver is registered as a director while Shenton is named as director and company secretary. The registered address is in Brentwood, Essex.

John McCartney, managing director of the Rapid Group, said he was alerted to Pre-Press by one of Shenton's former employers, Tullio Ponsy, managing director of Monotype International. Ponsy's employees had witnessed Carver and Shenton supplying customers with information about Pre-Press at the recent IPEX show in Birmingham.

Pre-Press was primarily selling typeset machines manufactured by Monotype, where Shenton worked on and off for 10 years. Monotype products account for five per cent of the Rapid Group's business.

McCartney said he checked the systems and noted that while there were plenty of leads, no sales had been logged over the past weeks before he launched an investigation of The Apple Centre Cambridge.

McCartney said he and two colleagues confronted Shenton, Carver and two other employees involved with Pre-Press - but who will not be the subject of legal proceedings - to secure a confession of their activities.

McCartney claimed he has accrued a number of documents as evidence including letters signed by employees of Pre-Press on Apple Centre Cambridge headed paper, offering customers products but giving a fax number he believes to be that of Pre-Press.

Pre-Press was unavailable for comment.