ANEW mother who suffered from pre-natal depression after losing her job a week after she discovered she was pregnant has been awarded more than GB POUNDS18,000 compensation by an employment tribunal.

Karen Smith, 26, a trainee sales administrator with Premier Systems (Scotland) Ltd, which manufactures and installs automatic doors, discovered she was expecting her first child on March 4 last year. She was dismissed a week later. A Glasgow employment tribunal has now ruled that her dismissal because of her pregnancy was automatically unfair and that she had been discriminated against on the grounds of her sex.

She said yesterday: "I am just glad I stood up to them and defended myself. Obviously my pregnancy was tarnished and it was really, really hard at the beginning but it has all worked out well in the end."

Miss Smith, who worked at the company's Wishaw office from June 2004 until her dismissal, told the tribunal she was extremely excited when she discovered she was pregnant and told her boss, sales executive Mr Patrick Montague, when she was only five or six weeks' pregnant.

As she was leaving work on Friday, March 11, she was called into a meeting with the human resources director. She was told she was not forceful enough on the telephone.

Miss Smith told the tribunal that she had been at a meeting with Mr Montague earlier that day and no issue had been raised about her performance. But she was told she had to go.

During her pregnancy she suffered panic attacks and her medical adviser considered she was suffering from pre-natal depression.

The company said Mr Montague had been concerned for some time about her performance. It said he was concerned about her high levels of sickness absence and complained she took long lunch hours. Mr Montague said he had no idea she was pregnant.