Earl sacked manager of his holiday home while she was pregnant
AN aristocrat who sacked the manageress of his holiday home while she was pregnant has been forced to pay her compensation.
The Earl of Harrington, whose son-inlaw is Viscount Linley, fired Hollie Harker soon after she and her husband Jon learnt they were expecting their first child.
The couple said they had been working at the earl’s eight-bedroom French property Chateau de Combecave, in Touffailles near Toulouse, for eight months when they were told to leave ‘forthwith’ without explanation.
During their claim for wrongful dismissal, Mrs Harker, 26, who has a history of miscarrying, was terrified the stress would cause her to lose the baby, but eventually gave birth to a healthy boy.
However, after discovering she was pregnant again in June last year she miscarried and was taken to hospital after having a panic attack. She said the situation was ‘not helped’ by the strain of the case against the earl.
The Harkers won their case at a hearing in May in France. The earl, who disputed he knew of the pregnancy at the time, was told to pay an undisclosed sum in compensation and Mrs Harker’s legal costs.
Mr Harker, 30, who now works in sales for a company in Leeds, said: ‘The whole episode has left us feeling wronged. We had no apology or acknowledgment from them that they ever did anything bad to us.
‘We feel vindicated and look forward to moving on with our lives and forgetting the nightmare they put us through. We have the right to have kids and a family.’
The Harkers were recruited as live-in guardians for Combecave in 2013 by the Earl and Countess of Harrington, who live there three months of the year and have a multi-million-pound fortune based on substantial property holdings, mainly in South Kensington.
Mrs Harker said: ‘One of the questions they asked was, “Are you planning on having children?”
‘We did explain to them that it was in our plans but I had suffered a miscarriage four months before that. Lady Harrington said, “That’s really horrible”. We kind of got talking about that.’
They were offered the job and moved into an apartment above the earl’s garages next to the chateau. Their tasks involved looking after the grounds, cleaning and caring for their employers’ labrador and African grey parrot.
Mrs Harker said: ‘There was nothing said that was negative about the way we were working. Ever.’
In April 2014 Mrs Harker learnt she was pregnant and few weeks later they told their employers.
Mrs Harker said: ‘They looked shocked but they were still smiling. You could tell they were thinking, “OK, how is this going to work?”’
Several days later the earl told Mr Harker the couple would have to leave the property immediately. Mrs Harker said: ‘I burst into tears. We had no home.’
In the legal case, the earl argued that he had been unaware of the pregnancy at the time.
He said he decided to dismiss the couple after warning them of shortcomings in their work.
The Harkers are living back in the UK, in Wakefield, with their son Charlie, now 18 months old.
The Harringtons have been contacted for comment.