A TEACHER who was forced to leave her job after giving birth to a Bolton priest's love child today talked of her victory in a sex discrimination case against the school governors who sacked her.

An Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that religious education teacher, Monika O'Neill, was discriminated against when she was forced to leave her job after the birth of her baby.

And the 31-year-old mum declared: "I'm delighted."

She hit the national headlines in 1992 after the BEN revealed that Father Christopher O'Neill was the father of her baby daughter.

Father O'Neill eventually quit the church to marry Monika Kocanek. They now have two other children - both sons - and have embarked on a new life together in Northamptonshire. They are now waiting to see if governors at St Thomas More RC School in Bedford are going to appeal against the tribunal's ruling following a two-day hearing last week. The finding follows a two year court battle.

In 1994 the governors at the catholic school accepted that the teacher was unfairly dismissed but they rejected the sex discrimination charge. An industrial tribunal at the time decided she was not discriminated against.

Mrs O'Neill was told not to return to the the Bedford school at the start of the September term in 1992 after the birth of her daughter, Jennifer. Her affair with Father O'Neill had ended five months before their daughter was born. He eventually left the priesthood to marry the mother of his love child. Neither of them have been able to find work since. A relieved Mrs O'Neill said she was "delighted" with the findings of the tribunal.

"It is a great weight off our minds," Mrs O'Neill told the BEN. "It has been a long time but I was determined that justice should be done and was quite prepared to take this matter to the European Court if I had to.

"The tribunal has declared that I was discriminated against by the school governors on the grounds of my sex."

Their daughter Jennifer, who sparked the outcry at the time, celebrated her fourth birthday last week.

The couple are regularly in touch with Father O'Neill's family who still live in Bolton. "Life has been hard for us both but we now have to get on with the rest of our lives. Thankfully though our families have been very supportive."

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