A housing solicitor who represented families affected by the Grenfell Tower disaster has won an employment tribunal unfair dismissal claim.

Maureen Chigboh-Anyadi joined Bishop Lloyd & Jackson Solicitors in 2018 as a housing solicitor and worked in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Team, made up of five solicitors and three paralegals, representing affected families. 

The judgment acknowledged that it ‘was always known’ that the team’s work 'would draw down'. Jhanghir Mahmood, director and owner of the firm, ‘planned for this’ and purchased another firm, Foster & Foster. Its work was predominantly social welfare work including housing.

Employment judge Mark Emery said he accepted Mahmood’s evidence that the second practice ‘had not grown as fast as he would have liked’.

Chigboh-Anyadi was made redundant in 2022 and appealed her dismissal, claiming it was unfair as the firm had failed to consider all possible alternatives to redundancy.

The judgment said: ‘It would have been preferable for the respondent to have sent a letter to the claimant and other team members to warn them they would be asked to attend individual consultation meetings. Such a letter can avoid future disputes.’

The judge said it would have been ‘sensible to take notes’ at a meeting shortly before Chigboh-Anyadi’s redundancy and send them for her agreement, but a failure to take notes would not make a redundancy process unfair, or outside the range of reasonable responses’.

Finding Chigboh-Anyadi’s claim successful, the judge said: ‘It was outside the range of reasonable responses’ to fail to consider the possibility of an alternative role in Foster & Foster. ‘In any fair process, where the aim is to avoid redundancies, it is for the employer to assess whether such a role was available and feasible and if so inform her, and if not explain why. In his evidence Mr Mahmood accepted this role may have been an option. This exercise was not undertaken.’

The judge added that he did not accept that Mahmood’s handling Chigboh-Anyadi’s appeal himself was within the range of reasonable responses. Chigboh-Anyadi would have had an 85% prospect of gaining a post at F&F, most likely on a part-time basis and on a lesser salary, the judge ruled.