Judge found it ‘irrational’ that her manager scored her the lowest rating for her ‘focus’ during the redundancy process
A lawyer was discriminated against and unfairly dismissed after returning from maternity leave and being told she was not focusing on her work, a tribunal ruled.
The Reading tribunal heard that, during a redundancy process, Mrs Gemma Long, who worked as a solicitor for British Gas Trading, had a performance assessment that was “stacked against” her as a working mother.
Judge Gumbiti-Zimuto said that Long was not scored “in good faith” and found that her complaints of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal were well founded and succeeded.
Long was employed as an intellectual property (IP) counsel at British Gas Trading between January 2012 and 23 July 2019. She went on maternity leave on 29 May 2016 and returned on 11 September 2017. The tribunal heard that following this pregnancy she had triplets who were two-years old and a son with “significant additional needs”.
When she returned to her workplace, she was contracted to work Monday to Wednesday, 8am to 4pm and shared the department’s workload with another solicitor. However, this second solicitor resigned in June 2018 and the tribunal heard Long then “started to feel pressure to work on her non-working days” from her line manager, Sarah Hartnell.
The tribunal saw evidence of this,...
The legal representatives of Smilegate founder Kwon Hyuk-bin’s wife stated on Oct. 7 that they would take legal action if Smilegate repeatedly disseminates false information related to the couple’...