A 27-year-old woman, who was fired for for getting pregnant while on maternity leave, was awarded over R630,000 after a judge found that she was unfairly dismissed.
Nikita Twitchen was preparing to return to her admin job after having a baby when she discovered that she was pregnant again.
However, her manager, Jeremy Morgan, dismissed her from work before she returned, in order to stop her from going on another 36-week maternity leave.
The Daily Mail reported that Twitchen was left unemployed and forced to take cleaning jobs while pregnant to support her family.
It was said that she took the building company, First Grade Projects, to an employment tribunal where Judge Robin Havard ruled that she was unfairly dismissed.
The tribunal heard that Twitchen fell pregnant and took maternity leave in June 2022 and then after eight months she had a return-to-work meeting with her manager which started positively as he also indicated that he was looking forward to her return.
It was further reported that towards the end of the meeting, Twitchen revealed she was eight-weeks pregnant.
The news came as a shock to her manager.
The UK publication said when her maternity leave came to an end on March 26, she was not contacted to confirm her return to work.
She had expected to come back on April 3, but had to chase Morgan down because he was not communicating with her.
Eventually, he messaged her saying: ‘It’s best to leave it until you have your routine in place.’
The publication reported that she called three times without a response but he called her back later in April, to say she was being made redundant because of financial difficulties and delays in some payments to the business.
He later claimed that new software was being installed, meaning her role would no longer exist, the Daily Mail reported.
However, in court, Havard commended Twitchen for working from June to October 2023 at a launderette and a caravan park.
The publication cited the judge saying she cleaned caravans in very hot conditions, travelling 45 minutes each way, up until she was 39 weeks pregnant because needed a job for her family’s financial stability.
The judge also noted that Morgan had initially made no mention of financial difficulties or redundancy and criticised the company for failing to produce any evidence of the alleged financial difficulties or of the new software’ during the court case.
Furthermore, it was reported that at no stage did Twitchen receive a written statement setting out the reasons for her dismissal.
Havard found that Twitchen was dismissed because she was pregnant.
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