NatWest Facing Potentially Huge Pay Out After Being Found Guilty of Disability Discrimination

NatWest has recently been found guilty of disability discrimination against an employee, and it has been held that they unfairly dismissed said employee just two days after her cancer surgery.

Adeline Willis, a Risk & Compliance Offer, had worked for the bank for more than 6 years. She said the redundancy process undertaken by the bank in April 2020 had left her in emotional and physical turmoil. Her dismissal came 8 months after her original diagnosis of bowel cancer.

As part of the evidence against NatWest, the Claimant relied upon a recorded telephone call a few weeks after the Claimant’s initial diagnosis, in which her line manager had sought advice from HR about terminating a secondment early because she was due to take time off for cancer treatment. The Tribunal ruled this was clear evidence of discriminatory intent by the bank.

The Claimant was successful in her claims of unfair dismissal and disability discrimination against the bank. The original hearing that concluded in January 2022 was unable to deal with the issue of remedy and how much to award the Claimant, so a remedy hearing has been listed for the 25^th -26^th April 2022, at which a decision will be made.

There have been comments in the press from the Claimant’s lawyer to suggest the Claimant is claiming in excess of £2m.

Cancer Research UK gives some useful information on its website, outlining that The Equality Act considers a diagnosis of cancer as a disability:

You don’t have to have symptoms or consider yourself disabled by your cancer to be covered. But the Act gives you important rights. These rights mean that you can negotiate for reasonable changes in your work or workplace. The term reasonable means that any changes or adaptations must be practical for your employer, in terms of cost and effects on other workers.

For example, if you need time off work for treatment and recovery your employer might allow you a period of leave and your job will still be there when you want to go back. Or it might be reasonable to have more flexible working hours so you can carry on working.

The Act also gives you legal protection if you feel your employer has treated you unfairly. You don’t have to tell your employer you have cancer. But if you don’t tell them, they can’t make any changes to your job or workplace.

You can ask your employer to keep the information confidential so only people you agree to have this information are told.  People don’t have to tell their employer they have cancer. But if they don’t tell them, the employer can’t make any changes to the job or workplace. An employer can be asked to keep the information confidential.

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Ian Abel, Head of Employment at Oakwood Solicitors added “It will be interesting to see the final result of the remedy hearing, if the parties cannot agree settlement.

“Given the high-profile nature of the case, I would suggest NatWest will be keen to settle this prior to the remedy hearing and if they are able to do so, they will also highly likely have a confidentiality clause to keep this from entering the public domain, so the final sum may not ever be disclosed.”

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