Employers continue to be caught out by the discrimination laws in regard to pregnancy. It is important to note that motive does not come into it; as the judge in one case put it: ‘It is no part of our law that in the treatment of pregnant women it must be shown that (the employer) deliberately intended to discriminate on the grounds of sex.

The other case (NUT v Watson) clarified that even where an employer, in this case the NUT, failed to follow its own procedures, even ‘grossly’, this was not necessarily discriminatory. However, failing to inform a pregnant woman of a vacancy was. This is something that schools, too, need to be careful of.