Couple win £116k after being fired for office romance
A BOSS who disapproved of office romances has been ordered to pay £116,000 compensation after sacking an executive who wed his nephew.
Mark Atherton’s behaviour towards Paula Whitbourn changed after she married his nephew Jason, who also worked at the recruitment firm, a tribunal heard.
The director avoided communicating with the £90,000-a-year sales executive, made it clear he did not approve of office relationships and then sacked the pair without notice.
Sales director Jason Atherton married Mrs Whitbourn, who had worked for Key People since 2001 as a pharmaceutical recruitment consultant, in 2016, a tribunal was told.
But in November 2017, Mrs Whitbourn was told her guaranteed senior recruiter salary would be removed the following year due to the company underperforming.
As a result, her income was slashed to £40,000 and she was set the same sales target as colleagues, despite working fewer days.
In 2018, after forming a short-lived new company in her married name, Mrs Whitbourn was given a formal warning at a meeting for failing to achieve new business targets.
In an email she argued the minutes did not show she had “stated she was being discriminated against because she is a part-time female worker”.
Company secretary and director Norman Freed, who was copied into the email, replied that the claims were
“untrue and had no foundation whatsoever”. He consulted Mark Atherton and solicitors about making Jason redundant on the basis they no longer needed a sales director, the tribunal in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was told.
Jason later heard a recorded phone conversation between Mr Freed and a company over having security on site, from which he learned he was going to be sacked. He also heard his wife referred to as “collateral damage”.
MrsWhitbourn was fired for starting her new company two days after her husband was dismissed. She told the tribunal her company had existed for just five days and had never been active, saying: “I took advice before I did it and there was absolutely no problem, no conflict of interest.” The tribunal found both had been unfairly dismissed and Mrs Whitbourn had been a victim of sex discrimination.
It added that Key People, based in St Albans, Herts, used the fact Mrs Whitbourn had formed a limited company as a “convenient excuse”. The tribunal concluded neither was guilty of blameworthy conduct, adding: “For some unexplained reason, Mr Atherton took a dim view of his nephew being married to MrsWhitbourn.”
She was awarded £58,657 for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination and her husband £57,940 for unfair dismissal.