A north west firm has been ordered to pay almost £19,000 to a woman who was unfairly dismissed as a paralegal when she became pregnant.

The Manchester employment tribunal found earlier this year that Swift Lawyers, based in Bolton, had discriminated against Farzana Yasin.

Employment judge Dunlop said the firm’s decision to dismiss Yasin in March 2021 was not solely or principally due to her pregnancy and it was likely she would have lost her job anyway. But the pregnancy ‘played a part’ in the decision and the firm did not engage in ‘genuine and meaningful consultation’, the tribunal found.

Having reduced any potential compensation award by 35%, the same judge awarded Yasin £15,000 in respect of injury to feelings following a remedy hearing last month.

In addition to interest payments, a £500 compensatory award for loss of statutory rights and redundancy payments, the total sum came to £18,792. 

In written reasons subsequently published, the judge said that Yasin’s dismissal deeply affected her and had a ‘major and sustained impact on her wellbeing’.

‘A huge amount of stress and anxiety was caused to the claimant by the [firm’s] failings in relation to how it handled her termination of employment and the aftermath,’ he added.

‘Many of her communications were ignored, whilst others were passed backwards and forwards within the business. Miss Yasin was in a financially precarious situation, and all the was taking place around the time she was giving birth, it is clear it was a huge source of frustration and anxiety.’

 

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