Miss Christine Ngo Ndjogndo v AfroHairCandy Ltd — 2022

The tribunal held that Miss Christine Ngo Ndjogndo was a worker engaged on a fixed hour open-ended contract, not a zero hour contract. Although the written contract described casual zero-hour arrangements, the tribunal found that the parties' actual agreement was for work from 10am to 6pm, initially 4 days a week and later 5 days a week, so the written wording did not reflect the true relationship.

The overtime element of the unlawful deduction claim was dismissed. The tribunal accepted that the claimant worked extra hours and relied on WhatsApp messages and her timesheet, but found no express or implied agreement that overtime would be paid. It treated the additional hours as voluntary work rather than contractual overtime, and therefore not wages properly payable.

The claim for unpaid wages on termination partially succeeded. The tribunal found that two home-working days fell within the agreed normal hours, that one day was missing from the June to July pay calculation, and that the claimant had also worked 4 hours on 30 August 2021 before resigning. That produced 3 days and 4 hours, or 25 hours, of unpaid wages, which the tribunal valued at £249.25 net. The tribunal accepted that the respondent could deduct backdated tax and national insurance from the final wages under the ERA 1996 provisions it identified, but it had no jurisdiction to entertain the respondent's counter-claim or set-off, so the claimant received the unpaid wages sum in full.

The accrued holiday pay claim succeeded. The respondent accepted that 5 days of holiday remained due at termination, and the tribunal held there was no basis under the Working Time Regulations 1998 to reduce that entitlement by reference to alleged backdated tax and national insurance. It awarded £348.95 net, making the total award £598.20 net.