Woman wins job back in age case

A 67-year-old hospital worker from Cornwall has won her job back in a “landmark” age discrimination claim. Clerical worker Ann Southcott was dismissed from Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro in 2006, one day before age discrimination rules came into force.

Mrs Southcott’s union said the hospital trust had agreed to allow her to return and award her back pay from October. The trust settled out of court.

Mrs Southcott said she was delighted with the result.

She was dismissed aged 66, on 30 September, the day before the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations were introduced.

She was told she would receive 11 weeks’ pay rather than the 11 months’ pay she would have been entitled to if she had been dismissed one day later – on 1 October.

Mrs Southcott said: “I’m delighted with this result as I was clearly discriminated against on the grounds of my age, which was grossly unfair.

“I cannot afford to give up work at this time, and why should I when I was doing a job I loved?”

Unison, the health workers’ union, had planned to take the case to an employment tribunal. It said the “landmark victory” was a “fair and just outcome”.

A spokesman said: “I hope this decision will give new heart to other people who have lost their jobs because of their age.”

A new policy on age discrimination had been agreed with the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust, he added.

Mrs Southcott will return to work in the therapies department at the hospital. The trust also agreed to provide any necessary training to enable her to carry out her duties.

They will review her employment on or after 1 April 2008 in line with service developments.

Trust chief executive John Watkinson said a small number of employees aged over 65 who had been dismissed last year would be returning to work.

Sting’s chef driven to tears

Sting’s private chef for eight years has won a claim for unfair dismissal and now is pursuing damages for alleged sexual discrimination against the singer and his wife.

Jane Martin, 41, alleges she often had to travel 160 kilometres to cook a bowl of pasta for Sting’s son, according to a statement made to an employment tribunal in the UK.

The Mail on Sunday says Ms Martin’s full statement to the tribunal states: “I was often required to travel all the way from Wiltshire to Central London just to cook their youngest son a bowl of pasta, even with two nannies, two housekeepers and a butler already in attendance who were perfectly capable of producing such a mundane offering.”

The paper reports that when Ms Martin was pregnant and sick with gastro-enteritis she alleged that Sting’s wife Trudi Styler shouted: “Who the f*** does she think she is? She’s my chef in the UK. She needs to be available if I need her, or she should rethink her position.”

Ms Martin said the celebrity couple never cooked for themselves and employed at least two chefs, with one running up a kitchen bill of £500,000 in one year.

“Sunday lunch would include roast beef, roast chicken, a vegetarian option, two different stuffings, ten different vegetables, two different gravies and two different puddings, purely to cater for individual tastes,” she says.

“I was once required to catch a train (while seven months pregnant) to London simply to produce a soup and salad for Trudi,” says Ms Martin.

“This was when she was on the set for production of Love Soup [a 2005 BBC drama]. The train and taxi amounted to £74 each way and the overtime was £300″ – a total of £448.

Ms Martin says she was paid £28,000 to work “very demanding” 14-hour days, which included dietary fads and producing 50 no-expense-spared Christmas hampers to send to the couple’s friends, including Prince Charles.

Although she admits the couple gave her lavish gifts, she says her dismissal was engineered after she got pregnant.

Her unfair dismissal claim has been upheld, but the tribunal has yet to rule on the allegation of sexual discrimination.

Administrator unfairly dismissed after boss died

A Walsall administrator who ran a haulage firm on her own for seven weeks without pay after her boss was found dead by his 12-year-old son has won a claim for unfair dismissal.

Stephanie Lawn told Birmingham Employment Tribunal how 49-year-old Michael Wathall, who was managing director of ML Transport in Cannock, died suddenly from a heart attack at his Walsall home last July.

“Wathall’s son went to kiss him shortly before going to school and discovered he was lying on the bedroom floor dead,” she added. “The boy had been living with his father since Wathall and his wife Lee divorced six months before.”Lawn was awarded £3,731 by the Tribunal for unfair dismissal, unpaid wages and holiday pay.

She said Wathall had been a successful haulier the firm delivered everything from pallets to envelopes in the UK and abroad.

“Wathall died only hours after driving back from Spain following a delivery,” Lawn reported. “I loved my job and carried on running the business from my home after the funeral, dealing with orders and making arrangements for the drivers.

“I wrote to Wathall’s ex-wife to try to find out what was happening about the business and my future, but didn’t receive a reply.

“After running the business for seven weeks and not hearing anything I presumed I’d lost my job.”

Tribunal chairman Charles Saunby said the business could not have carried on after Wathall’s death, and his ex-wife’s failure to respond meant Lawn had been made redundant.

He was satisfied that she had been unfairly dismissed through redundancy and said her award included a 50% loading because no proper disciplinary and dismissal procedures had been carried out.

Employers ignorant of latest changes to employment law: maternity pay and right to request flexible working

Seven in 10 employers are unaware of laws that came into force this month, according to research. A well established employment consultancy has found that 71% of bosses did not know about changes to employment law.

According to the research there is widespread ignorance among employers with regard to the new regulations coming into force in April 2007.

Bosses simply have to be prepared, otherwise they are leaving themselves at risk of being taken to tribunal.