Case 6003909/2024 · Employment Tribunal
Ms Sandra Espinosa v Centaur Overland Travel Limited — 2025
- Case reference
- 6003909/2024
- Decision date
- 2 December 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge M Da Costa
- Venue
- London South
Parties
2 namedMs Sandra Espinosa
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningEmployment Judge M Da Costa (sitting alone) heard this matter at London South on 2 December 2025. The claimant Ms Sandra Espinosa appeared in person via video link, assisted by a Spanish interpreter; the respondent (Centaur Overland Travel Limited) was represented by Ms Stella English of solicitors, with Mr Patrick Sims (operations director) giving evidence. The claimant had worked as a home-to-school minibus driver from 5 September 2023 until her resignation on 23 May 2025.
The Judge found the contractual arrangements were unambiguously on a 'fixed fee per journey' basis (initially £20 per journey, rising to £23.50), with notional monthly amounts based on an average journey time of 1.5 hours, and with statutory holiday pay of 12.07% rolled up within the total monthly pay rather than added on top. The claimant's case that she was due £12.50-£13.50 per hour for 4 hours' fixed shift time per day, with holiday pay payable on top, was rejected; the language of the job advertisement was not inconsistent with those contractual terms.
The Judge further found, on the basis of the respondent's payroll spreadsheets and payslips, that the amounts due under the contractual calculations had in fact been paid, including overtime at the agreed rates (£10.50/hour rising to £11.40/hour) for journey time above the 1.5-hour average. The claimant's handwritten notebook of times was found to be inaccurate. Accordingly, no deductions had been made from the claimant's wages within the meaning of section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and the claim was dismissed.
Claims and outcomes
2 claims adjudicated| Claim type | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
3 referencesSource document
Primary recordThe full judgment is available on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.