Mother wins £60,000 over Morrisons discrimination

Morrisons has been told to pay a mother £60,000 for discriminating against her when she returned from maternity leave.

Donna Patterson, who returned to work after having her second child, was asked fulfil the responsibilities of a full-time job despite only being contracted to work part-time hours.

The mother-of-two represented herself at an employment tribunal and won after cross-examining eight witnesses.

Morrisons says it is considering an appeal.

Ms Patterson said she hopes her case helps others in similar situations.

In an exclusive interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Ms Patterson, who was a buyer in Morrisons' online business, said she had been offered a new role in the business, but when she told bosses she was pregnant the job "disappeared".

While on maternity leave the supermarket restructured her department, she said, and when she returned to work she was asked to take on full-time role, despite being a part-time member of staff.

Ms Patterson said she was told she could do the job in her allotted hours, telling the BBC she was told to "prioritise things a bit better and get your head in the right place and get your mindset right".

"I just felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall, that nobody was listening to me," she said.

After being "called out" for "things not being finished on time", Ms Patterson filed a grievance and went through the company's internal process, which she said "just totally failed me".

Left with no other option, Ms Patterson said she handed her notice in and began searching for solicitors to represent her at an employment tribunal.

However, when she discovered the cheapest representation was £300 per hour, she decided to go it alone.

"What I wanted was to demonstrate to Morrisons what had happened, and what had gone wrong, and how I had been failed," she said.

With the help of Pregnant Then Screwed, a charity that seeks to protect, support and promote the rights of pregnant women and mothers, Ms Patterson said she was able to speak to Heather Larkin, who represented herself and won against beauty company Liz Earle after she was sacked while eight months pregnant.

This helped her understand what would be expected in the tribunal, leading her to cross examine eight witnesses, some of whom she had worked with.

"There was a couple I felt really anxious about because these were people that I had known at the beginning of my career - they had supported me and taught me a lot about what I know about the industry and my job," she said.

"Others I wasn't as worried about because I fundamentally disagreed with how they had treated me and I felt like I had been failed, so I also saw it as an opportunity to ask questions that had repeatedly been ignored and I knew in the hearing they had sworn an oath so they had to give me answers they had previously avoided giving me."

On Friday 21 October, the tribunal judge ruled in Ms Patterson's favour saying she had been "unfavourably treated" and that Morrisons had subjected her to a "detriment of indirect sex discrimination after her maternity leave".

"The claimant was constructively dismissed and the dismissal was unfair," the judge added.

In a statement Morrisons said welcoming mothers back from maternity leave in a "thoughtful, consensual and decent way is incredibly important to us".

"However, we don't accept that we acted in an unfair way in this case and believe a number of the facts have been misrepresented and we are considering an appeal."

Although pleased with the outcome, Ms Patterson said she found the whole process "gruelling" and "exhausting".

"I was up until very late at night, preparing, going through documents, and even during the hearing each day I'd go home each evening and would be drained," she said.

"I had nothing left in me, but pretty much every night I would lie there thinking 'I'm glad I've done this'."

The mother-of-two said she had inner battles where she would be constantly "questioning myself" in the lead up to the hearing.

"Some days I would think, 'yeah I've got this, this makes sense - there's lots of other cases that I can refer to that have similarities to mine," she explained.

"Then other days I would just think 'what an earth have I taken on, how can I possibly see this through?'"

Joeli Brearley, chief executive of Pregnant Then Screwed, said what Ms Patterson went through "happens to thousands of women every year but we rarely hear about it because the justice system makes it almost impossible to challenge discrimination in the workplace".

"All women want is to be heard. We want employers who listen to us, apologise when they get it wrong, and then do what is necessary to ensure it doesn't happen again," she added.

"We are proud to have supported Donna through this ordeal. She is brave and tenacious and we hope the publicity of this case will be a warning sign to other companies thinking they can get away with discriminating against pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace."