'Appalling treatment' | NatWest faces £2m payout for sacking worker days after cancer surgery

NatWest could be forced to part with £2million after a tribunal ruled an employee was wrongly dismissed just days after undergoing cancer surgery.

As reported by Metro, Adeline Willis was let go from her banking role just two days after an operation, in a process that was “tainted with discrimination” according to an employment judge.

According to the legal documents, Willis, a 44-year-old Risk & Compliance Officer, earning £160,000 a year, was left “physically and emotionally in turmoil” after being made redundant in 2020, eight months after her bowel cancer diagnosis.

The tribunal also found that a recorded telephone call, made a few weeks after her diagnosis, involved Willis’s managers seeking advice from HR about terminating a secondment early, because she was due to take time off for cancer treatment. The tribunal found that this call was “clear evidence of discriminatory intent.”