I've taken the following three paragraphs from my employment law handbook, I hope they help. I suggest your wife contacts ACAS - 0300 123 1100 - asap, to get their advice. If she was to go as far as taking this to an employment tribunal she only has three months minus one day from the date of the 'incident' in which to do it.
The minimum notice the employer should give to end an individual's employment is:
For employees with less than one month's continuous service there is no statutory minimum notice period.
For employees with between one month and two years continuous service, one week's notice.
If there is a longer notice period specified in the employee's contract, then the employer must give this longer period.
Even if there is no reference to notice in the employee's contract, or the employee does not have a written contract, it may be reasonable for the employer to give more notice than the statutory minimum.
If an employer dismisses an employee without giving the proper notice, the employee should be paid in lieu of notice. The employee should raise this with the employer informally if possible, explaining how much pay they believe they are entitled to. If the issue cannot be resolved informally, as a next step the employee could consider raising a formal grievance.If the issue remains unresolved once the grievance procedure has been exhausted, the employee can contact the Acas Helpline to discuss options further and/or assistance that Acas can provide in helping the parties to resolve the issue.
Wrongful dismissal is a dismissal in breach of contract. This would include an employee being dismissed without the proper notice, or in breach of contractual disciplinary proceedings.
The remedy for wrongful dismissal is for the employee to be put back in the position they would have been in if their contract hadn't been breached. So if the employee was dismissed without being given notice, the remedy would normally be to compensate them for their notice period. If they were dismissed without following a contractual disciplinary procedure, it would normally be compensation for the length of time the employer would have taken to follow that disciplinary procedure. There is no minimum length of service required for an Employment Tribunal claim for wrongful dismissal.
------------- Tigermouse
I have a very temperamental personality - 50% temper and 50% mental
If the contract stated one months notice then this should be honoured under contract law.
I would suggest she contacts them ASAP to request that and any holiday pay accrued sadly then move on.
They don't have to let her come back into work though even though she should be paid one months pay.
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