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| Britain |
| Update: Single Mom's Payout From British Army Reduced |
| 2010-04-17 |
| Her demand for more than £1.1million from the Army for sex discrimination would have enabled single mother Tilern DeBique to return home to her poverty-stricken Caribbean village in triumph as a rich woman. Yesterday, however, the former corporal was having to revise her plans after a tribunal ruled she should receive only £17,016. The 28-year-old from St Vincent, who calls herself SexyT on the internet, was told she made 'an error of judgment' in refusing a job in a family-friendly base where there were childcare facilities. Miss DeBique, whose daughter Tahlia is now four, had argued that she was forced to choose between a military career and her child. Yet the Daily Mail has discovered that while portraying herself as a devoted single mother, she has in fact spent nearly two years apart from her daughter after dispatching her to the Caribbean to live with her sister. The panel found that the written offer made it highly unlikely she would have been deployed abroad, allowing her to combine her career and childcare until 2012. Instead she applied for much more lucrative civilian jobs in Afghanistan even though they would have meant leaving her daughter behind. So much for the "devoted mother who can't leave her child" story.... Mr Gordon said: 'In the view of the tribunal, it was a mistake not to accept the offer of a transfer to Blandford. The claimant's decision not to accept the offer was an error of judgment. She was unreasonable in not at least taking up the offer and seeing what happened. She should have remained in the Army. She was therefore in breach of her duty to mitigate her loss. If she had accepted the offer, she would not have suffered the loss of earnings. We are giving an injury to feelings award but we are not making an award for loss of earnings.' |
| Posted by:Cornsilk Blondie |