A teacher in Northern Ireland has won £8,250 in damages after claiming she lost her job because of religious discrimination.
Julie Brudell lost her post at Ballykelly Primary School last year. Of the school’s 15 teachers, 10 were Protestant and five Catholic, but all four selected for redundancy, including Brudell, were Protestant, the Irish Times has reported.
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While Brudell was offered, and accepted, an alternative post in the school’s nursery unit, she told an employment tribunal she was devastated to lose her role teaching primary-three children.
The tribunal found Brudell “suffered an act of discrimination on the ground of religious belief” but recognised the school’s board of governors “were led into error by their perception that fair employment legislation did not apply to the process in which they were involved”.
