Unfair dismissal claim rejected

Administrator Cath Astbury, who worked at Wheatley Primary School, told an employment judge she was passed over for additional extra hours because of her disability.

But judges at the Reading employment tribunal on Thursday rejected her claim against Oxfordshire County Council after she resigned from her job in December 2011. Mrs Astbury had told the Reading tribunal on Monday her role was being “marginalised” when a new staff member was recruited to take on the additional seven-and-a-half hours a week on offer, as well as some of her workload.

She claimed headteacher Joan Morters did not give her the extra hours because she suffered from degenerative back problems following a serious spinal injury in 2009.

But on Thursday employment tribunal Judge Robin Lewis told her the judgement was the unanimous decision of the entire panel which found she had “no objective claim for the hours”.

He said: “We find that the claimant left because she could not accept or come to terms that the extra hours were not for her. There is no indication in what we have seen whatsoever that the claimant’s health history played any part in the management decision considered.”