The wife of the former Crown Prince of Ras Al Khaimah has been forced to pay £175,000 ($284,618) in compensation to a servant who earned less than £11 a day and was forced to supplement the family’s lavish lifestyle, it was reported Monday.
Sheikha Fawaghi bin Saqr bin Sultan Al Qasimi failed to appear before the Central London Employment Tribunal, automatically losing the case, the UK’s Telegraph said.
Indian national Mohammed Saikh sued the family for failing to pay the minimum wage, race discrimination, failure to provide holiday pay and breach of time regulations, said the newspaper.
Saikh said he was given a weekly budget of £200 for the family’s food but was forced to buy it himself – from Harrods – if it the budget didn’t stretch.
“One of the children liked roast corn but wouldn’t let me buy it from Tesco near the house,” he was quoted as telling the court.
“She insist that I went to Harrods where it cost a lot more….On some occasions I would have to use the little money I had to cover the purchase of I had none, I would borrow it from the bodyguard,” he said.
Saikh, who was employed by the family while in Dubai in April 2003, said he had been promised £400 a month to look after Sheikha Fawaghi, her husband and their six children. He worked 40 hours a week but was often woken up in the middle of the night to make meals, he told the tribunal.
He was forced to get up at 5am every morning and look after 18 people in the family’s home, the tribunal heard.
Saikh’s lawyer, Michael Reed, said he had been “treated abominably.” Sheikh eventually fled from the family home in Kensington, West London in December 2009.
The absence of Sheikha Fawaghi means the ruling is liable for review, said Tribunal judge, Alison Lewzey.
Separate proceedings against the couple by a second Indian servant have been postponed until he can prove he had a right to remain in the UK.
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