Woman’s £6,356 tribunal award

A pregnant trainee nursery nurse sacked by an Angus nursery the day before she was due to give birth has been awarded £6,356 by tribunal judges.

Lauren Kemp, 19, received her P45 in the post the day before she was due to be medically induced due to concerns about the health of her unborn baby.

She had been employed at the Wendyhouse Children’s Nursery in Northmuir, Kirriemuir, since May 2015 through the Modern Apprenticeship scheme.

In August 2015 she told bosses she was pregnant, and agreed a date in February 2016 to begin maternity leave.

She was told she would receive the lesser maternity allowance because she had not earned enough to qualify for statutory maternity pay.

Her wages had not reached the threshold for the larger payment because she had been off ill, and she was wrongly told she was not entitled to sick pay because she was a trainee.

She first became aware that she would be sent a P45 in a Facebook post made by the nursery’s manager Caroline Pawley.

The document was later sent out along with her payslips in an email.

Four days after giving birth to her daughter she wrote to the nursery asking if she had been sacked, giving management two weeks to respond.

However, she received no reply from nursery owner Jill Culross, and considered her employment to have been terminated.

She launched a claim for unfair dismissal and discrimination a month later.

A lawyer acting for the nursery said the P45 had been sent in error after the firm’s accountant was told she had left.

But he was unable to account for the fact that Ms Kemp had been informed of the P45 twice without the mistake being corrected, or the absence of a letter it was claimed had been sent to the teenager informing her of the error.

In a written judgment, Iain Atack said it was “somewhat unusual” Ms Kemp had been sent the document twice if the nursery did not intend to dismiss her.

He said she was correct to assume she had been sacked.

He ruled she had been the victim of discrimination because she had been unfairly treated due to her pregnancy.

Nursery owner Jill Culross did not respond to a request for comment.