AN ANDOVER man who took his employer to court over an unfair dismissal has won the case.

Steve Branton, 58, appealed Andover Trailers’ decision to make him redundant back in January, taking the company to an employment tribunal in Southampton.

Mr Branton won his case on 17 August, and settled compensation with the company outside of court with the parties vacating their remedy hearing on 21 December.

The tribunal’s judgement from the summer read: “The claimant claims of unfair dismissal succeeds, the claimant was unfairly dismissed.”
The grandfather worked at Andover Trailers for five years before leaving for a different job.

But 18 months later he was asked to come back to the body and trailer manufacturer and worked there for a further five years.

Mr Branton said: “I did ten years and then just out of the blue in January they said to me your job is at risk of redundancy - but I was the only one they made redundant out of 60 people.

“I asked Andover Trailers if I they would accept me taking a lower paid job and I stated that I was hoping to stay at Andover Trailers until I retired. Others were lower skilled or still on their probation period they should have started with someone lower.

“I went to court and won my case. It was a bit of a nightmare but my point is when I took this up, and my barrister asked me what I wanted out of it, compensation is not why I did this.

“My reason for taking it to tribunal is to stop them doing it to anyone else; it wasn’t about money.”

The final compensation amount was settled out of court and cannot be disclosed as part of the settlement. 

Andover Trailers did wish not to provide a comment for publication in this article.