NatWest unfairly sacked a senior employee two days after she had surgery for cancer, a tribunal heard.

Adeline Willis successfully sued the bank for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal for making her redundant from her £160,000-a-year job.

An employment tribunal heard her manager say she could not “rely” on Ms Willis and was seeking to end her role early, despite “glowing” reviews of her performance - because she needed to take time off for treatment.

The former senior risk and compliance officer was “humiliated” when her boss told her she was not needed at morning meetings on her first day back at work after having chemotherapy for colon cancer.

At the same time, Ms Willis’ brother and mother were also diagnosed with cancer and, in her mother’s case, this was terminal.

The subsequent decision to make the 45-year-old redundant was “tainted with discrimination”, the tribunal concluded.

Having sued the bank for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination, she has now been awarded over £87,000 in compensation.

The disability case is the latest blow to the high street bank whose former chief executive, Alison Rose, resigned last week following Coutts’ de-banking of Nigel Farage.