Asda worker, 19, left 'in tears' after being 'sacked on Christmas Eve without warning'

Billie-Leigh claims she was 'fired' from her 'first proper job' just hours before Christmas, despite being offered a permanent contract

An Asda worker says she was left distraught and 'in tears' after being 'sacked from her job on Christmas Eve without warning'. Billie-Leigh Williams, 19, started working at the Tipton Superstore stacking shelves in October - but was unexpectedly giving her marching orders over the festive period from her first 'proper job'.

Her mum Kaye, 42, said the dismissal 'ruined' her daughter's Christmas and greatly impacted her self-esteem. Billie-Leigh was fired four hours into her shift - but was told to keep working until clocking off time, she claims.

Kaye, from Friar Park in Wednesbury, said: "To lose her job on Christmas Eve, at 6pm, ruined our Christmas. She was in pieces and left feeling worthless. My daughter struggles with anxiety and mental health issues and this has sent her spiralling.

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"She carried on working till 8pm. When it became overwhelming, she phoned her nan in floods of tears saying they had sacked her. They have no empathy and it is very Dickensian to fire a 19-year-old girl from her first job on Christmas Eve."

Billie-Leigh said: "I'm devastated because I have been left without a job, during a period where it is impossible to get a job. I've got no way of getting any money at the minute. I can't even sign on, because I am at college full-time.

"Not just the fact I have been left without a job, but that I enjoyed working there and earning my own money too. It just blew up on me on Christmas Eve. I'm angry.

"It was my first tax-earning job, I'd worked in a restaurant before but it was cash in hand. It is inhumane to fire someone on Christmas Eve and expect them to work until the end of their shift. I didn't do anything wrong, I just wasn't quick enough. I don't want anybody else to experience this because it was horrible. It can leaving you feeling very, very low.

"For a good few weeks, I was pressured, saying I needed to be quicker, otherwise my section leader threatened me, saying if I didn't pick my speed up, I would be getting a letter saying my contract wasn't going to be renewed. I got a lot of pressure coming from my manager.

"I broke my back trying to get quicker, I was getting quicker and improving. Then I got called into the office on my shift and they said I wasn't fast enough and they can't keep everybody on, so they're taking me off, so to speak."

Billie-Leigh was hired as a permanent worker and during her short tenure, carried out overtime work to help the company and didn't have a sick day, said her mum. Kaye, who feels her daughter was 'taken advantage of' by management, went and confronted them three days after the incident and handed in Billie-Leigh's uniform.

Kaye said: "She was really happy with the job, she had finally found something she liked doing. The excuse they gave her was that they did not have enough hours for her in the New Year. She had been offered a permanent contract of employment, and at no point did they say she was at risk of losing her job.

"To tell her on Christmas Eve, they obviously knew before - could they not have told her the day before, so she could have had the choice of not working it? (On December 27), I walked into Asda and asked 'I want to speak to the manager'. He spoke to us in a corridor which I think was really unprofessional and I said 'I think it is appalling and I think you need to get the manager who spoke to her on Christmas Eve to apologise'.

"At the end of the day, he made her go back to work. She didn't have a clue, she hadn't been through anything like that before. But she had to finish the shift. Really, he should have offered her (the chance) to go home. It was like they used her, get her in on Christmas Eve so we can get the work done, then at the end of the shift she is told she has to go."

Asda has been approached for comment.