The claimant, an assistant head teacher, was summarily dismissed after admitting she had sent a sexually-worded message to someone she understood to be a boy under 18. She said she was in a coercive and controlling relationship and feared harm to herself and her children if she refused to send the message. She did not report this for 18 months when her former partner disclosed it to the respondent. Her claims of disability discrimination, unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal all failed in the ET but this appeal concerned only the wrongful dismissal element.

HHJ Tayler allowed the appeal, holding the ET had wrongly treated duress as incapable of affecting whether the claimant's conduct was repudiatory: while motive is irrelevant to subjective intention, it may be relevant to how a reasonable person would view the breach. The ET should have assessed whether, given the pressure she faced and her safeguarding responsibilities, her conduct objectively undermined trust so the case was remitted to the same panel for reconsideration