A Tesco delivery driver has won £17,000 after he was sacked for stopping off at his house to use the toilet.
Billy Fitzsimmons suffers from a number of medical problems that mean he frequently needs access to a bathroom at very short notice.
But he was told he couldn’t use the staff lavatory at stores where he didn’t work without being accompanied.
His solution was that when he was out doing his deliveries he would return home, if he was nearby, and use the toilet there.
An employment tribunal heard that the supermarket giant banned employees from taking company vehicles, which are fitted with tracking devices, home.
When Billy’s employers found out, they were furious at the “deliberate disregard and abuse of Tesco policy” at a “level never seen before”.
The hearing was told that Billy, from Kilmarnock, was diagnosed in 2018 with a urinary tract infection and an enlarged prostate which meant he needed to use the toilet “increasingly frequently”.
Employment judge Melanie Sangster concluded that Billy’s dismissal amounted to discrimination arising from disability, and ordered Tesco to pay £15,613 compensation and a further £2020 for injury to feeling.
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