Case 6009633/2025 · Employment Tribunal
Mr Tapiwa Tatenda Kelvin Chabuka v A-Mat Healthcare Ltd — 2025
- Case reference
- 6009633/2025
- Decision date
- 31 October 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge S Moore Representation
- Venue
- By video
Parties
2 namedMr Tapiwa Tatenda Kelvin Chabuka
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningEmployment Judge S Moore, sitting alone via video, gave a reserved liability judgment against A-Mat Healthcare Ltd in respect of a live-in care worker recruited from Zimbabwe. The respondent had admitted breach of contract for failing to reimburse the £1,820 Certificate of Sponsorship fee that the claimant had been compelled to pay on his credit card (a fee that, under Home Office rules, the employer must pay).
The tribunal found that the respondent's contract did not comply with s.1 ERA 1996 (omitting pay intervals, pension, notice and disciplinary information), that the respondent had failed to pay the correct wages between May-September 2022, and that the unauthorised deductions claim for October 2023-November 2024 was well founded (relating to underpayment of an allowance unilaterally withdrawn and £173/month underpayment following promotion to team leader). The tribunal also found that holiday pay had not been paid at the correct rate on termination (rejecting any contention that periods when the claimant was forced to take unpaid breaks could be counted as annual leave), although the claim for accrued leave from May 2022 to 31 December 2023 was not upheld as the claimant had not requested leave or shown that any carry-over exception applied.
The unfair dismissal claim succeeded and the tribunal found there was a zero per cent chance the claimant would have been fairly dismissed in any event. A separate remedy hearing is to be listed; only the £1,820 CoS reimbursement was quantified in the liability judgment.
Claims and outcomes
5 claims adjudicated| Claim type | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Upheld | — | — |
| Breach of contract | Upheld | — | £1,820 |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Upheld | — | — |
| Holiday pay | Upheld | — | — |
| Other | Upheld | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 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.