Cleaner at the Houses of Parliament was sacked after it was revealed she had secretly worked 17-hour days at two jobs for 16 years

A cleaner at the Houses of Parliament was sacked after it emerged she was secretly working 17-hour days at two jobs for 16 years.

Mulikat Ogumodede worked day shifts at Deutsche Bank and night shifts at Westminster five days a week between 2008 to 2024.

The mother was accused of ‘deliberately’ failing to tell her bosses, who were shocked to find out she worked from 8am to 5pm at the bank before completing 10pm to 6am shifts at the Houses of Parliament.

When details of her working day emerged, Ms Ogumodede was made redundant from Parliament because she had been working in breach of the laws around working time limits. 

The ‘prized’ cleaner sued her employers for unfair dismissal but a judge has since dismissed all of her claims, stating her removal from the position was ‘clearly fair’.

It was ‘remarkable’ that the cleaner was able to sustain these hours for so long, employment Judge Richard Woodhead said.  

The cleaner said she felt ‘very well’ and was able to ‘rest properly’ on her weekends. 

Ms Ogumodede worked for Churchill Contract Services as a cleaner at Deutsche Bank’s offices, where she had cleaned since 2004.

In May of last year, Churchill Contract Services took over the cleaning services at the Houses of Parliament from a different company.

It was only then that her employers found out she had been working both roles. 

The previous contractor at the Houses of Parliament had employed Ms Ogumodede since 2008.

Judge Woodhead said: ‘[Ms Ogumodede] had therefore, for some time, been working long hours for two separate employers: 8am to 5pm at Deutsche Bank and then 10pm to 6am at the Houses of Parliament.

‘It is remarkable that she was able to sustain this in circumstances where it was not in dispute that [Ms Ogumodede] had a clean attendance and disciplinary record in respect of her Houses of Parliament work.’

When Ms Ogumodede took on the Houses of Parliament role, she ‘deliberately’ hid the fact of her other full-time job working at Deutsche Bank, the panel said.

They said this was because ‘unsurprisingly, she knew it breached the long-standing law on working time’.

In July last year, they invited her to a meeting and told her that her working pattern was in breach of policy, which required an 11-hour rest break between shifts.

They were concerned that she was working 17 hours in a 24 hour period, with breaks between the two roles of only five hours in the evening and two hours in the morning.

They said if staff don’t get enough rest then this can lead to ‘negative effects on their physical and mental health’, ‘mistakes or accidents’ and ‘reputational damage or financial cost to the organisation’.

The cleaner worked day shifts at Deutsche Bank and night shifts at Westminster five days a week between 2008 to 2024 

Ms Ogumodede was told that she ‘cannot continue’ working both positions, and her pay was suspended from the Houses of Parliament contract.

The cleaner in response said that she feels ‘very well’ and ‘have been working like this since 2008’.

She told managers: ‘I rest properly on my weekends, I don’t clean or cook, I have a long rest.’   

Her contract with the Houses of Parliament was terminated last October.

Ms Ogumodede took Churchill Contract Services to an employment tribunal, alleging unfair dismissal, redundancy pay, unlawful deduction from wages and wrongful dismissal.

She alleged that she should have been made redundant, was entitled to notice, and that her employers had made unauthorised deductions from her pay during her suspension.

Her bosses claimed that Ms Ogumodede’s dismissal was fair as she ‘could not continue to work in the position which she held without contravention (either on her part or on that of her employer) of a duty or restriction imposed by or under an enactment’.

Judge Woodhead dismissed all of her claims.

He said there are ‘strong health, safety and public interest considerations’ behind restrictions on working time.

‘The health and safety concerns that need to be addressed are not just those of the individual performing night work. They are also of wider society,’ he added.

‘Tiredness, particularly associated with night work, creates an increased risk of an individual making mistakes not just in the workplace (that could affect colleagues) but also in the wider world.

‘The negative health implications of excessive hours on top of night work also have a potential cost to society.

‘Had [Ms Ogumodede] not misrepresented her employment position, on the balance of probabilities, I consider that it is unlikely that she would have been offered night work at the Houses of Parliament because of the restrictions imposed.

‘It is therefore unlikely, had she been open about her employment with Deutsche Bank that she would have been offered the Houses of Parliament role and she would not have come to have the right to claim unfair dismissal.’