A pregnant finance manager who was told to choose between her unborn baby or her job has won a sex discrimination case against her former employer.
Angela Hildreth claimed her former bosses at the Perdu bar and restaurant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne issued her with an ultimatum after she told them she was expecting a baby in January 2006.
Hildreth said Jill Maher, mother of Perdu managing director Brian Maher, told her: “”I don’t think that if you keep this baby we can keep you.
“It’s a young business and we have to put that first. We don’t know how much time off you will need and things like that. I have to protect the business.”
A Newcastle employment tribunal found that Hildreth, who resigned last Feburary, had been constructively, wrongfully and unfairly dismissed by the Mahers.
Hildreth had also endured a campaign of harassment, intimidation, embarrassment and verbal abuse by her employers, the tribunal found.
Hildreth said: “The Mahers have tried to portray me as a liar, an actress and an opportunist, but the judgment speaks for itself.
“They made my life a misery while I worked for them, and long after I resigned. It was a very stressful, nerve-wracking experience, at a time when I was at my most vulnerable.”
A remedies hearing will be held by the Employment Tribunal Service in March or April of this year to determine damages.
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