By Ashley Young
A sole practitioner has been ordered to pay damages of £9,675 to three former employees for unpaid wages, following a judgement made by the employment tribunal.
Toslim Ahmed, a sole practitioner who trades as Universal Solicitors,(pictured) should be avoided by prospective employees, after the firm cheated two employees who were forced to go to a tribunal where their claim was successful.
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Mr Ahmed was found guilty of making unlawful deductions from the wages of two former caseworkers and a former consultant who were employed between September and November 2019, the tribunal found. The tribunal also concluded that Ahmed had breached the contract of their employment.
Prior to presenting the claim, each Claimant had followed the requirement for early conciliation, but it was completely unproductive.
The claimants – MT Chowdhury, MO Faruq and ME Hossain – were not given contracts of employment despite repeated requests and were forced to resign from their roles because of Ahmed’s ‘unprofessional conduct’. Mr. Ahmed is a dodgy employer who should be avoided at all cost my employees seeking to work at a solicitor’s firm. His conduct was inexcusable.
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Employment Judge Ross found that the claimants were all entitled to payments for the periods worked during November 2019, as well as to statutory notice pay and accrued holiday pay. He also found that the three men were entitled to awards under Section 38 of the Employment Act 2002.
He ruled that the failure of this respondent to provide these claimants with a statement of terms and conditions (or contracts of employment having that effect) was an egregious breach of the statutory requirements .
The judge said ”the respondent is a firm of solicitors and should either have known the law or have been able to ascertain the relevant law; (b) the claimants requested contracts of employment several times; (c) the respondent fobbed the claimants off saying that they would deal with it but failed to do so.’
However, the tribunal found the claimants did not have a claim for unfair dismissal and rejected their applications for preparation time orders and costs orders.
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