In person For the v Mr M G Gavril — 2020

This was a remote hearing on the papers before Employment Judge S Moore on 25 September 2020. The sole claim determined in the judgment was unlawful deduction from wages. The Claimant had worked for the Respondent as a cleaner from 1 September 2019 until 14 February 2020, on a zero-hours contract, at £10 per hour. Her normal take-home pay was about £150 per week.

After dismissal, the Respondent withheld the Claimant's last two weeks' wages, saying she had to pay back damages. The tribunal recorded that the Claimant had not been given written complaints or invoices for the alleged damage, and the parties agreed she had never been given a contract. The Respondent also said she had sometimes used her daughter to do the work and had taken two clients privately, but the tribunal did not accept that those matters justified the withholding of wages.

The tribunal directed itself to section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and found that, because there was no contract and no written consent to deductions, the deductions were not authorised. It accepted the Claimant's evidence that she had worked 15 hours in the week before dismissal and 11 hours in the week before that, and therefore had earned the wages withheld.

The unlawful deduction from wages claim succeeded and the Respondent was ordered to pay the Claimant £260. No other remedy breakdown was given in the judgment.