Khwaja Ahmed v Tesco Stores Ltd — 2023

The claimant worked for Tesco and moved onto a Team Manager secondment at Leytonstone Superstore in May 2022. The Tribunal found that the respondent normally sent a letter setting out changed terms for such a secondment, but no such letter was sent to the claimant, which contributed to later confusion about his pay. His pay was incorrectly processed after the move, and the respondent accepted errors had been made.

The age and religion discrimination claims were dismissed. The Tribunal found that the claimant had not established that he was given more physical work than comparable colleagues, prevented from delegating, denied breaks, asked for payroll login details, or subjected to sexual comments because of age or religion. It accepted some events occurred, including a conversation about payroll details and that something was said on 5 July 2022, but found no evidential basis linking those matters to age or religion. The harassment complaints were also dismissed for substantially the same reasons, and the 5 July allegation would in any event have been out of time if otherwise made out.

The Tribunal upheld the unlawful deductions claim only in respect of the second pay adjustment, finding that the claimant was entitled to a net payment of £819.14, although the respondent appeared to have paid the sum after the hearing. It rejected the claimant's other claimed pay entitlements, including paid breaks, overtime, an informal extra hour arrangement, pension contributions under the unlawful deductions route, and an alleged entitlement to salary plus £5,000. Because the unlawful deductions claim succeeded, the Tribunal also awarded the claimant two weeks' pay for failure to provide written particulars of the secondment changes.