In the case of Tuchkova v Artemev a Russian qualified lawyer was employed as a Legal Project Manager for a Russian entrepreneur in the UK. Ms Tuckhova went on maternity leave. Her original intention was to return to work six months later, but in August she emailed Mr Artemev’s company, Blackdown Hill Management to extend it to take the full year.
Ms Tuchkova was invited to a meeting one month before her maternity leave ended to discuss “organisational changes”, at which Mr Artemev told her there was “no work” anymore and advised her to look for a new job.
Asked why he had not consulted with her earlier “if he had formed the view some months before that the demand for the role was reducing”, Mr Artemev stated “that he believed very strongly that breastfeeding a child was very important”.
“He felt that it was important that he should leave her undisturbed while she was breastfeeding as he was concerned that the shock of a prospective redundancy might affect her ability to feed her child and that the child was more important than the mother.”
At a meeting with Mr Artemev later that month, he suggested that she should carry on “working on a flexible basis” while looking for another job. Asked several times what she wanted to do, Ms Tuchkova “became distressed and started to cry”.
She went off on sick with work-related stress and raised a grievance, arguing that she had been discriminated against on the grounds of maternity and in her selection for redundancy.
The grievance was not upheld on the grounds that there was a “genuine redundancy situation”. Her appeal was rejected and her employment was terminated.
The tribunal concluded that, had she not taken maternity leave, it was “highly unlikely” that Ms Tuchkova would have been told there was no longer a job for her.
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