8:30am Thursday 18th March 2010
AN ADMIN worker forced out of her job when she became pregnant, has won a five figure payout at a tribunal.
Vicky Butler, 25, of Wolvercote Road, Thamesmead, was working for Volks Apart, a car parts business in Cray Road, Foots Cray, when she became pregnant in 2009, an Ashford employment tribunal heard.
Ms Butler told the tribunal after April last year, when she told her bosses she was pregnant, she had been treated so unsympathetically by the company, she was forced to resign 11 weeks later.
When she was late to work because of morning sickness, her boss told her to to get up earlier.
When she had problems with fainting, doctor’s appointments and emergency hospital admissions, she was threatened with disciplinary action.
Ms Butler said she had provided the company with government guidelines on how it should treat pregnant employees, but it chose to ignore them.
Ms Butler was represented at the tribunal by the Cross Street Law Centre in Erith, which provides free legal help on employment, housing, benefits and discrimination matters.
Patrick McNamee from the centre insisted the two directors of the company Derek Dalby and his son Neville, be named in the complaint, after the company claimed it could be about to go out of business.
This meant if the company did go under, they would be liable to pay any award to Ms Butler.
The tribunal awarded Ms Butler £5,937 for loss of earnings and a further £10,000 for unlawful sexual discrimination and injury to feelings.
It said she was “treated less favourably because of pregnancy and she was “entitled to treated herself as dismissed”.
Mr McNamee said the company denied the allegations “to the bitter end”, complaining about her lateness and absences caused by her pregnancy.
He added: “She is a brave and plucky person standing up to two men with very forceful personalities.
“She did a lot of the claim herself and we cannot fault what she did.”
Afterwards Ms Butler said: “They had no excuse.
“I took them information from the direct.gov website telling them how they should do things, but they ignored it all.
“It was terrible and I had no option but to resign.
“The money will help me start again where I left off. I cannot thank the law centre enough.”
The company declined to comment.
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