Woman demoted at Somerset cheese firm after falling pregnant suffered miscarriage amid stress

A worker at an award-winning cheesemaker has won nearly £20,000 in compensation after she was told having a baby would “jeopardise her career”. Storm Botha was called into an “ambush meeting” where she was demoted to a lesser role at White Lake Cheese in Pylle, near Shepton Mallet.

The meeting, which shared that her hourly pay would be dropped from £11 to £9.50 per hour, coincided with the news she was pregnant. Struggling with panic attacks and sleep due to the stress caused by her job situation, Storm suffered a miscarriage in November 2021 and was later dismissed in December 2021.

CEO and owner of White Lake Cheese, Roger Longman, denied he was unaware of Botha's pregnancy at the time of her demotion, but a tribunal hearing concluded he had prior knowledge of her pregnancy. Following the ruling in 2023, employment judge Martha Street recently ruled White Lake Cheese must pay Ms Botha £19,694.42 in compensation.

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Storm initially started as an assistant cheesemaker in September 2020 before she started a new role in White Lake Cheese’s marketing team. Storm told a manager she and her partner were trying for a baby and she was concerned about her own job security in August 2021.

A colleague responded: “I thought you were happy here, why would you jeopardise that by having a baby?” The colleague later regretted the comment, which caused tension between the two.

Storm confirmed to her line manager that she was five weeks pregnant on September 7, 2021 and didn’t want this to be common knowledge in the business. Her line manager however sent a WhatsApp message to her colleague: “So… want to hazard a guess who's 5 weeks pregnant? Not that I've told you obviously”.

She added later in the text exchange: “Looking forward to seeing Roger’s face when I tell him next week!” It was disputed by the line manager whether this news was shared to Mr Longman.

Later in the same month, Mr Longman had an unexpected meeting with Storm about her role and he flippantly described her marketing role as “Instagram and stuff like that”, as well as summarised her additional duties due to work shortages. Mr Longman shared he was “not impressed” by her social media posts and lack of newsletters sent to customers.

He shared news of the demotion role to her and insisted that marketing was not a priority for the business at that moment. Mr Longman said: “Now we’re in a situation where I need more staff in the packing room and we’re actively recruiting… and I’m not convinced marketing is required at the moment and realistically not until we've got a new cheese room to give us the ability to sell more cheese, so and I'd like to move you to packaging when you're ready.”

Storm was told she would be moved into a role that involved wrapping and affinage - the process of caring for, ripening and ageing cheese - as well as requiring workers to turn cheeses that weigh between 1.5kg and 2kg. No risk assessment was carried out to ensure this type of manual labour was safe for a pregnant woman.

According to the meeting’s notes, Storm remarked: “I said to Roger, I’m pregnant, I can’t work in the Cheese Room”. Roger replied immediately: “I know, that’s why you will be working in wrapping. Oh and congratulations.”

Storm’s hourly salary was to be dropped from £11 to £9.50 and messaged her partner about the news and expressed concern she wouldn’t be able to find other jobs as she was pregnant. Storm complained about the demotion to her manager as well as sent a Formal Grievance letter and remarked the news had caused panic attacks and struggling to sleep.

Storm worked a short period in affinage and she was later signed off sick for work. Storm later had a miscarriage in November 2021 and she was dismissed from the company in December 2021.

Employment Judge Martha Street ruled she was treated unfairly “on the grounds of pregnancy” and that Mr Longman was aware of her pregnancy when he called the meeting.

Judge Street said: “We are satisfied that Mr Longman knew of Ms Botha's pregnancy before the meeting. (It) was not a relaxed, informal meeting presenting issues over the future of Storm's role.

“It was a meeting in which criticisms were made of her work and it led to the announcement of a decision already made to move her to a different, lower paid role, on a short-term basis.

“Revisiting the history, we find a pregnancy-related decision to demote Miss Botha, followed by the decision to make that longer-term, prompted both by the pregnancy and the grievance, an unwelcome and angry challenge to Mr Longman's decision-making.”

The reserved judgment ruling in Ms Botha's favour can be read through this link while the compensation ruling can be found here.