Miss Rubichen Attarwala v The Newham Hotel Limited — 2021

The tribunal proceeded in the respondent's absence because no ET3 had been presented and no extension of time had been sought. Applying rule 21 of the Employment Tribunal Rules and the guidance in Limoine v Sharma and Office Equipment Systems Ltd v Hughes, Employment Judge Barrett heard the claimant's evidence and accepted it.

The claimant had worked for the Rotana Hotel from 1 September 2018, transferred to the respondent in August 2019, and began maternity leave on 21 January 2020. She received statutory maternity pay until 5 October 2020, but after that she said she was not paid, her attempts to contact management were unsuccessful, and her requests about returning to work and furlough were unanswered. The tribunal accepted that her PAYE record showed a final salary entry of £0.00 on 28 February 2021 and that her employment ended on 1 March 2021.

The tribunal upheld the unfair dismissal claim because the respondent had not shown a fair reason for dismissal and no fair process had been followed. It also upheld the breach of contract claim for dismissal without notice, the holiday pay claim, and the arrears of pay claim. The redundancy payment claim was dismissed because there was insufficient evidence that redundancy was the reason for dismissal. The tribunal noted that the remedy issues, including compensation, notice pay, holiday pay and wages, were to be addressed later by written submissions rather than decided finally in this judgment.