In the case of Mr Jason Tangile v Erlinda Carter t/a Erlinda’s Café Fish and Chips Shop Bar a former employee of a fish and chip shop has been awarded £7,836 in unpaid wages, holiday pay and compensation for not receiving pay slips.
Jason Tangile took Erlinda Carter, who trades as Erlinda’s Café Fish and Chips Shop Bar on St Saviour’s Road, to the Employment Tribunal, prompting Ms Carter to make counterclaims that she was instead owed more than £4,000.
At a hearing before tribunal deputy chair Advocate Ian Jones, Mr Tangile and Ms Carter both appeared in person to give evidence, Mr Tangile ‘presenting as an entirely consistent and earnest witness who was doing his best to assist the tribunal at the same time as advancing his own claim’.
‘By contrast,’ Advocate Jones continued in his judgment, ‘the respondent was entirely disorganised in her evidence and was unable at various points to answer the questions posed by the tribunal in a clear or uncomplicated way. [Her] evidence was also at times entirely contradictory or lacking in terms of basic information,’ he noted.
Ms Carter admitted that she had not provided Mr Tangile with the required payslips, something that was described as ‘a particularly serious breach of the law’ which was deliberate, and which had the potential to help in defending the claims for unpaid wages.
Advocate Jones directed that Mr Tangile should receive £2,960, the equivalent of four weeks’ pay by way of compensation for this, in addition to unpaid wages totalling £1,480, holiday pay of £880 and unpaid social-security and ITIS contributions of £2,516.
Dismissing Ms Carter’s counterclaims, Advocate Jones said that she had ‘in truth presented little to no evidence in support’.
‘Her live evidence on these points was at best confused and unfortunately [she] was not able to assist the tribunal at all as to the nature of these claims,’ he said.
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