A barber who was fired for calling in sick on Mondays has been awarded £3,000 in compensation from their boss.
Boss of Cardiff's Acute Barbers Christian Donnelly, 39, fired Celine Thorley, 25, after she developed a 'pattern' of phoning in sick after the weekend. However, a judge has that she really was ill and her boss had failed to follow a "fair process".
Mr Connelly has warned Ms Thorley "don't let me down on Monday" as she left her final shift before a weekend house party back in 2021, a tribunal heard. However, he then received a text from her on Monday morning saying she could not get out of bed because her stomach was "killing" her.
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As Wales Online reports, the barbour boss replied that he was firing her after "four years of phoning in sick on Mondays because you’d had a good weekend". At tribunal, an employment judge has ruled that Ms Thorley was genuinely ill with a heavy period and ordered the 39-year-old to pay Ms Thorley a total of £3,453.
Following the ruling, the businessman admits and accepts that he should have gone through the correct process including written warnings, but he stands by the decision. He felt the amount of compensation was a "farce" because there was a "pattern" of the 25-year-old calling in sick on Mondays.
Mr Donnelly said: "I don't know how I'm going to come up with that."
Ms Thorley started working at the barbour's in 2018 with annual pay of about £16,000. Mr Donnelly said they got on "pretty well" and added that she was a "damn decent barber" who was friendly with customers.
However, he told the tribunal that in her first year she had more time off than her colleagues combined and that the sick days almost always followed weekends. As well as 10 days off recovering from a burn, Mr Donnelly claimed that she had 17 days of Monday/Tuesday absences.
The tribunal heard Ms Thorley hosted a Halloween house party on the last weekend of October 2021. Mr Donnelly said his parting words to her before the weekend were: “Don’t let me down on Monday.”
But on the Monday morning Ms Thorley texted: "Hey Chris I know you're going to be mad at me but I can’t make it to work sorry I really didn’t think I was going to be this bad I’m not well at all I was a mess yesterday and I’ve woke up this morning and was sick straight away. I really thought I was going to be okay today... my stomach is killing me and I’m all shaky... I really can’t get out of bed Chris. I’m soo sorry!"
The barber said he was "not having this" and would be letting her go. She protested but he replied: "After four years of phoning in sick on Mondays because you’d had a good weekend, I can do what I like, trust me... I’ve kept that shop open just to keep you in a wage... Don’t come in and you’re gone."
Ms Thorley warned she would take him to a tribunal, to which he responded: "You’ve had all your warnings. Crack on with all that legal s***."
Ms Thorley said the number of absences was "not as bad" as Mr Donnelly suggested and the tribunal heard that Ms Thorley’s mother-in-law took the day off work to look after her because she was in "severe pain" on the day she was fired.
The 25-year-old also claimed she was suffering from endometriosis, a condition which can cause crippling pelvic pain. Although she had never received a formal diagnosis, she said was on a waiting list to be seen by a gynaecologist. The tribunal heard there was no referral letter in her medical records.
Ms Thorley could not say how often she needed time off for period issues but suspected it may have been "every month or every other month".
Judge Roseanne Russell found that Ms Thorley had a "physical impairment" from menorrhagia (heavy periods). Upholding a claim of unfair dismissal, she said Mr Donnelly had not given formal warnings.
The judge said: "A fair process had been ignored altogether. The failure was not inadvertent but deliberate.
"This was demonstrated by Christian Donnelly telling the claimant to ‘crack on with all that legal s***’."
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