A pregnant woman whose boss said she was ‘too busy’ to hear out her request for maternity leave has been awarded £14,000 for unfair dismissal, a tribunal heard.

Yuliaa Khimicheva was sacked for low attendance after a pregnancy-related illness forced her to take time off from work at a magazine finishing and packing plant in Rochester, Kent, run by Key Promotions (UK) Ltd.

She claimed her manager, Caroline Edwards, told her ‘we are not a charity who pay people who don’t work’.

Ms Khimicheva joined the firm in 2019 and was still on her probationary period when she discovered she was pregnant.

She notified her boss, saying she would need time off, but Ms Edwards replied by saying ‘I’m too busy for this’, the employment tribunal heard in Ashford heard.

Just over two weeks later she informed her employee a decision had been made to dismiss her.

Ms Edwards claimed she had concerns about Ms Khimicheva’s work which predated the pregnancy and that her employee had been absent on numerous occasions.

But the tribunal judge said the letter outlining the reasons for Ms Khimicheva’s dismissal was vague and found she was discriminated against for her pregnancy.

The letter addressed her only as ‘Y Khimicheva’, stating: ‘As your production was lower than it should be after such time your attendance started to fall behind.

‘As a result being very busy with work and your continued absence I have decided this job is not working for you or for the company.’

In her witness statement at the tribunal, Ms Khimicheva said: ‘I said that they cannot count days of absence because of sickness related to pregnancy with other absence days and it cannot be a reason for dismissal the main reason of dismissal became poor performance at last days.

‘When I tried to explain that my condition affect my performance all that I heard as an answer [was]: “We are not a charity organisation to pay for not enough work”.’

The judge found Ms Edwards knew Ms Khimicheva was expecting before making the decision to sack her, adding: ‘That would point to the pregnancy being a factor in her thinking.

‘The dismissal letter [was also] inadequate. It is discourteous to dismiss someone with whom you have had recent and quite personal conversations addressing them as “Dear Y Khimicheva”.

‘As a pregnant woman under dismissal, Ms Khimicheva is entitled to a statement of reasons for dismissal and the reasons are mentioned only briefly and in the most general terms.’

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