employment law

[proctorja]

i have been offered another job (but after ages making my decison - my fault i just couldnt do it) i now want to take the job - it starts on 1st aug but i have not given my contracted 4 weeks notice to current employers. can i just give 1 weeks notice and tell them i need to leave? would they then provide a bad reference to new employers? english law - please help - what do i do ?

[buildersmate]

Only you can decide this. You know what the legal position is - you need to give 4 weeks notice. Will your employer sue you for breach of contract? - probably not. It isn't worth it because it is a lot of trouble when the employee has decided to go anyway.
Will they give you a bad reference? They cannot give you an untrue reference, but they could say something like 'we find X not entirely reliable, for example he left our employment giving only one week in notice when he knew this this would probably put us in a difficult position replacing him at short notice'.