Disabled Pets at Home worker wins £18k after being forced to walk upstairs to use toilet

A disabled Pets at Home worker has won over £18,000 after she was forced to walk up three flights of stairs to the toilet because she was not told about the disabled toilet for five months.

Mihaela Bonciog - who suffered from chronic back pain and bladder issues - had to struggle up three flights of stairs for nearly half a year because bosses didn't tell her she had access to a ground-floor toilet.

Ms Bonciog told of the daily 'fear' she experienced that her colleagues would see her wet herself due to her incontinence episodes and said over time it became 'psychological suffering'.

She also wasn't given the ergonomic chair she asked for to help with her debilitating back pain for four months.

Ms Bonciog, who worked in a Pets at Home warehouse, only saw change when she resorted to emailing bosses saying "Does anyone care?"

At Cambridge Employment Tribunal, Ms Bonciog won her claims of a failure to make reasonable adjustments for her disability, which is a form of disability discrimination.

She won compensation of £18,277.

She started working in the Pets at Home warehouse in August 2016.

In February 2021, Ms Bonciog was diagnosed with lower back pain after lifting a heavy box and took a week off work because she was struggling to walk, but she did not think she needed any adjustments made.

She reported back pain several times for the next two years, but in August 2023 she informed her managers that she had been diagnosed as having a herniated disc in her back.

Ms Bonciog had an occupational health assessment carried out in October 2023, and this said that she needed adjustments to be made so that she had a workstation assessment to change her chair and that she have access to a closer bathroom for her urinary incontinence.

It also said that she should not lift anything heavy and she should not be asked to stand for long periods of time.

Ms Bonciog went on sick leave because of her back pain for a month starting in November 2023.

Despite following up about a workstation assessment, this was only carried out in May 2024 and an ergonomic chair was bought for Ms Bonciog.

She emailed saying: "No one has provided me a proper chair or a fob to the nearest toilet. Does anyone care?"

Pets at Home said that she had been granted permission to use the ground floor toilet, but they had not informed her that she could have access to a key fob to use that toilet.

Employment Judge Andrea Booth ruled that there was a failure to make reasonable adjustments because Pets at Home failed to provide an appropriate chair and did not tell Ms Bonciog she had access to a ground floor toilet.

She said: "[Pets at Home] recognised the urgency and need for a reasonable adjustment to give [Ms Bonciog] easier access to a toilet because this was actioned very quickly, by 7 November 2023.

"However, the [company] failed to communicate this to [her] until 17 May 2024, leaving her without the reasonable adjustment.

"The Tribunal has found that the period of the failure to make this reasonable adjustment for the purposes of this complaint is from 7 November 2023 to 29 March 2024; a period of almost 5 months.

"[She] was left in an uncertain situation with poor communication from the [company] and an apparent lack of action.

"[She] asked about the ergonomic chair in the welcome back to work meeting on 29 December 2023 and in an email of 22 March 2024.

"[She] also asked about access to a toilet in her email of 22 March 2024, which concluded with the question “does anyone care?”, which the Tribunal finds indicates that [she] was distressed and felt that the [company] did not care about her."

Judge Booth said that this situation caused Ms Bonciog a lot of stress as she worried she would be 'humiliated' if she wet herself in front of her colleagues.

She said: "In [Ms Bonciog's] schedule of loss, she described that she has been experiencing stress and has been taking Sertraline 50mg per day on a prescription since 2023 to help her manage the impact of stress and anxiety.

"She also described that she has experienced physical and psychological suffering including walking up and down the stairs to reach the toilet, struggling with back pain and bladder leaking, and being afraid that colleagues will see her wet herself.

"In [her] submissions on remedy, she described that for almost five months she was required to use a toilet that was three flights of stairs away and the practical effect was daily risk and reality of incontinence episodes, together with associated embarrassment and anxiety.

"She also described that the failure to provide her with an ergonomic chair exacerbated her back pain.

"She went on to say: 'No amount of compensation can undo the chronic pain I lived with, or the fear I carried every day – of walking two flights down and one flight back up just to reach a toilet all the while afraid of an accident happening in front of my colleagues.

"That fear, and the humiliation it threatened, stayed with me throughout this period.'

"The Tribunal finds that the risk of humiliation arising from urinary incontinence and difficulty in accessing a toilet bore great significance for [her]."

Ms Bonciog made other claims of disability discrimination and unpaid holiday pay, but these were unsuccessful.