Pregnant dealing with abusive boss

[Niceynice2014]

Hello, I'm new. Hoping to get some advice about my sad situation

My boss is a psychopathic tyrant. Always has been.
I'm now in my early 2nd trimester, and have a fairly heavy work load that I manage all aspects of on my own, with boss' input on rare occasions, b/c he can't be bothered to do more. I was just about dealing with it and had every intention of seeing these multiple projects through before I took maternity leave...

I am quite competent and have taken a lot of responsibility dealing with unreasonable client demands but my boss is a coward and rather than back me up and support me, he had one of his wonderful tantrums. He belittled my capabilities and performance in front of the entire office. I.was.LIVID!!!! I finished up what I was doing and left the office early.

What I'd like to know are my rights:

• I intend to get signed off of work by my GP tomorrow
  
• Should I be signed off due to work stress or pregnancy related reasons??
  

(I have had 2 high blood pressure readings recently)

• if I get signed off for more than a week, these projects I've been working on will suffer and my relationship to the office will be very, very hostile on my return.
  
• I do not plan to go back to this hell at the end of maternity leave.
  
• I've work there for over a decade and they owe me £8,000 in unpaid wages due to recession period.
  
• they are a small firm with no HR department
  
• they are nasty and unprofessional people who cannot be reasoned with.
  
• I barely get enough sleep, I'm extremely upset and feel very unmotivated to go back to work.
  
• I do not want to lose money on account of this bully. Originally the plan was to start maternity leave in mid- July.
  
• as I understand, legally they cannot force me to start maternity leave before my 36th week of pregnancy which would be early August.
  

What are my options?

Thanks for reading.

[Niceynice2014]

Primallass,
glad it worked out for you!
I wish we had annual bonus.

[Dizzylizzie29]

worth looking at when your qualifying weeks are to calculate mat pay if you have an enhanced package
Also if you do have an enhanced maternity package seeing if there's a requirement to return to work for X weeks or have to owe the money back x

[Niceynice2014]

I work for a small unprofessional company, whose lost half its staff in the last 5 years due to a hostile work environment and financial mismanagement.
It's safe to say we don't have Enhanced...Anything! :)

[flowery]

"Alternatively flowery you could wind your neck in."

Oh grow up! I'm expressing an opinion! I think what you said was irresponsible. If you disagree with me and want to stand by your advice and think there's nothing wrong with it, just say so. Don't make silly accusations and teenage "wind your neck in" comments. Either stand by what you said (and you could explain why if you want), or don't and take it back. Easy. Like grown ups do.

[PrimalLass]

I wish we had annual bonus.

Have been self employed for 7 years (since second mat leave) so haven't even had paid holidays - it has definitely balanced out