NatWest | Banker sacked days after cancer surgery awarded £90k

A former senior banker who was sacked by NatWest days after undergoing cancer surgery has been awarded around £90,000.

Adeline Willis was let go from her banking role in 2020 just two days after an operation on bowel cancer, in a process that was “tainted with discrimination” according to an employment judge.

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

A previous legal hearing also revealed 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.”