Case 2305280/2023 · Employment Tribunal
Heran Limbachia & Others v Serco Limited — 2025
- Case reference
- 2305280/2023
- Decision date
- 6 June 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Tueje
- Panel members
- Ms Mitchell, Ms Oldfield
Parties
2 namedHeran Limbachia & Others
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningEmployment Judge Tueje, sitting with Ms Mitchell and Ms Oldfield, heard this consolidated multi-claimant matter at London South by CVP on 4-6 June 2025 with deliberations in chambers on 27 June 2025. There are 148 claimants (listed in the annex to the judgment), all of whom were members of the Prison Officers Association (POA) working at the Gatwick Immigration Removal Centres at the material time. The claimants were represented by Ms Ibbotson of counsel and the respondent (Serco Limited) by Mr Carr KC.
The claimants complained that Serco breached section 145B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 when it implemented the 2023 annual pay increase on 5 May 2023 (an offer made directly to employees rather than through collective bargaining with the recognised union). At the start of the hearing, the Tribunal refused the claimants' late application to amend the list of issues to add a second alleged offer/implementation date of 26 May 2023, on the basis of substantial prejudice to the respondent.
The unanimous judgment of the Tribunal was that the complaints under section 145B of the 1992 Act were well-founded. The respondent was ordered under sections 145E(2)(b) and (3) to pay each of the 148 named claimants the statutory penalty of £5,128. PDF text was truncated from 58,824 to 15,000 chars and the substantive findings of fact and law are not fully visible.
Claims and outcomes
1 claim adjudicated| Claim type | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trade union | Upheld | — | £5,128 |
Legal tests applied
3 referencesRemedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £5,128
Source document
Primary recordThe full judgment is available on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.