A trust company has been criticised for its “woeful” ignorance of discrimination law by a tribunal, after unfairly sacking an employee who suffered disabling migraines.
Directors of Verite Trust Company Ltd were ordered to pay £3,600 in compensation to Dinah Dias, an IT Database Administrator, whose migraines meant she regularly had to take time off sick.
The Employment and Discrimination Tribunal heard that Ms Dias had suffered from “disabling” migraines and fibromyalgia for several years before she started working for the company – leading her to miss work for 48 hours when she had a migraine.
At work, she sat away from direct light in an ergonomic chair, but Verite witnesses were “honest but woefully unaware of their obligations under the Discrimination Law”, the Tribunal found – particularly Paul Andrew Baudet, the director with HR responsibilities.
“Their lack of understanding of their legal obligations towards Ms Dias under the Discrimination Law was surprising for a regulated entity,” the Tribunal said.
“We also note that they directed criticism towards Ms Dias for failing to follow procedures in the Staff Handbook such as obtaining sickness certificates when they themselves ignored key processes.”
Ms Dias hadn’t been fully transparent, the Tribunal found – for example, she wasn’t open about the extent of her migraines when she was hired, and she didn’t tell Verite that she had been awarded 80% LTIA.
But, when Ms Dias missed seven days of work due to migraines between January and March 2024, one of the directors emailed her, saying he had noticed “a significant increase in your absenteeism”, adding that he “would be willing to release [her] from [her] contract of employment”.
She replied, saying that the migraines were regular and that she was being treated by a neurologist. At this point, the Tribunal said, her employer should have realised that she was disabled.
In total, in just under 11 months of employment, Ms Dias missed 37 days of work of which 26 were due to migraines, and the company let her go at the end of July.
In an email, Director George Machan Jnr told her that her job was “not doing any favours for [her] health” and served her notice.
Ms Dias also claimed that she had been bullied, but the Tribunal didn’t agree.
And while Ms Dias’s job was essential to the company, the Tribunal found that dismissing her wasn’t an appropriate way to deal with her absences. Instead, they should have considered alternatives and reasonable adjustments and put her on an Attendance Improvement Programme.
On a dedicated programme, Ms Dias would still have lost her job because the migraines continued, the Tribunal said – but she would have done so “fairly and in a non-discriminatory way”.
They awarded Ms Dias £3,600 compensation for lost wages for the time she would have spent on the improvement plan.