Miss L Brown v Stockton Care — 2026

The respondent failed to submit a response in time, did not attend the hearing, and the Employment Judge proceeded in its absence under Rule 21 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013. The claimant, Miss L Brown, had been employed by Stockton Care Limited as a domestic assistant from 1 October 2004 to 16 May 2019, giving 14 complete years' service.

The tribunal held that the claimant had been unfairly dismissed, that she had not received notice or a payment in lieu of notice, that she had suffered unlawful deductions from wages, and that she had not received all of the holiday pay due on termination. It said the claimant's complaint that she had suffered disability discrimination had not yet been sufficiently demonstrated and should proceed to a further hearing. The reasons record the claimant's account that she had been accused of taking an item from a person in care, that she denied intending to steal it, and that the dismissal process had not been properly handled; the tribunal's conclusion was that the dismissal was unfair having regard to all the circumstances.

For remedy, the tribunal used a weekly wage of £93 and the claimant's age of 38 years. It awarded a basic award of £1,302 and a compensatory award capped at £4,836 for unfair dismissal, together with £1,116 for lack of notice. The operative order states £376.85 for unpaid wages and £864.53 for holiday pay, although the later reasons refer instead to £194.64 and £394.08 for those two heads, so the extracted text is inconsistent on those figures.