UK woman fired after she returns pregnant again after her maternity leave, gets Rs 23 lakh payout

A woman in the UK was fired after she returned to work from maternity leave, pregnant again.

The 27-year-old Nikita Twitchen, who worked as an office administration assistant at First Grade Projects, was awarded Rs 23 lakh (£28,000) by the employment tribunal as compensation for losing the job.

As per a report by Daily Mail, Nikita was preparing to rejoin work after the leave, when she found out she was pregnant again.

Her managing director Jeremy Morgan however fired her before she could join again and stopping her from going on another maternity leave of 36 weeks.

To make her ends meet after being unemployed, Nikita took up jobs like cleaning while she was pregnant.

She then took the matter to an employment tribunal where the judge said that "she was unfairly dismissed".

Nikita had a meeting with Morgan prior to joining. After having a bit of discussion regarding work, she informed him that she was pregnant again.

After her period of maternity leave was over, nobody from the company contacted her.

After bugging Morgan for a few days, she finally received a response. He replied, "It's best to leave it until you have your routine in place," he told her, the outlet reported.

He also later claimed that the company had launched a new software, and therefore her role "no longer exists".

Up until 39 weeks of being pregnant, Nikita did cleaning jobs and travelled 45 minutes each way. The judge said there was a "change" in Morgan's attitude after knowing about Nikita's pregnancy.

The judge then stated that the way she was treated was 'unfair and discriminatory'. Following which, Morgan was asked to pay a compensation amount of Rs 24 lakh (£28,706) to Nikita.