Ex-Tesco worker gets £45,000 discrimination payout after suffering ‘injured feelings’

Craig West, who is disabled, was made to spread his working week out over five days, rather than three, by the supermarket giant. He was subsequently dismissed but a week-long tribunal heard Tesco had discriminated against Mr West by proceeding with a formal absence management procedure. 

A panel in Middlesbrough, Teesside, found Mr West was unfairly dismissed.

And the employee had told the hearing the decision “injured [his] feelings”, for which he received £20,500 compensation alone. He was given a further £25,412 in compensation for the discrimination.

The findings of a remedy hearing were published this week, Teesside Live reports.

They detail how Tesco contravened the 2010 Equality Act, introduced under Gordon Brown’s government to protect discrimination in employment largely on grounds of disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.

No details about Mr West’s disability were published in the papers.

The 2010 Equality Act states a person (P) has a disability if— “(a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and (b)the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

Tesco, which has more than 420,000 employees, has been approached for comment.

Employment tribunal centres have recently become incredibly busy due to backlogs caused by the Covid pandemic.

Furlough and redundancy rules were altered throughout 2020 and these changes are being attributed to the rise in tribunal cases.

In September 2020, the Government released figures showing that the number of employment tribunals involving individuals increased by almost 20 percent between April and June 2020.