A GWENT company has been cleared of sacking a worker because she was pregnant.

Tredegar-based chair manufacturers Advanced Mouldings began a programme of redundancies in April last year, when orders began to fall. But office junior Sarah Mountjoy claimed she was unfairly singled out because she was pregnant.

The company said the decision to include her in the ten redundancies was taken before she told personnel manager Lyn Price that she was expecting a baby.

Ms Mountjoy's son, Dylan, was born in January this year, seven months after she was made redundant.

A Cardiff employment tribunal decided that Ms Mountjoy had not been unfairly dismissed.

Ms Price told the tribunal: "There were six other people in the office who all had specific jobs.

"As Sarah was training she did not have a specific job and was therefore the only candidate for redundancy."

She said the decision to make Ms Mountjoy redundant was taken in the week after she returned from holiday on May 22.

Ms Mountjoy, of Tre Edwards, Rhymney, told the company she was pregnant on May 29.

She told the tribunal one of her jobs was to order materials for the factory and she had not seen any drop in orders.

Her lawyer, Mr Nicholas Gedge, said: " The pregnancy was the reason she was selected for redundancy."