An asthmatic drama teacher who claimed her employers failed to prevent the use of pupils’ aerosols at school has won her unfair dismissal case and was awarded £78,000 compensation.

Alison Grant-Ryder, 62, brought an employment tribunal action, supported by the NASUWT, against the Maelor School at Penley, Wrexham, where she began work in 1991.

In late 2013-early 2014 she developed symptoms of asthma. She was diagnosed with late-onset asthma and claimed her working conditions contributed to or caused her ill-health. The asthma led to her increasingly being off work and she was fired in 2019 by governors due to her sickness record.

The tribunal heard in 2013 the teacher had noticed her classroom floor was beginning to rise and split.

Months later she had her first asthma attack at work and an ambulance was called.

Another classroom then used by her suffered from damp.

The use of deodorants and hairsprays was banned at school.

But in March 2016 Mrs Grant-Ryder had her first asthma attack triggered by exposure to aerosol.

She suffered numerous further attacks triggered by pupils’ aerosols.

The tribunal ruled the decision to dismiss her “was based upon an inadequate consideration of, in particular, the claimant’s recent attendance record and, importantly, her prognosis and likely attendance record going forward.”

There were no asthma-related absences in 2018-19.

“There was, in our judgment, an inherent unfairness in dismissing the claimant when there was evidence that the cause of her long history of multiple, short-term absences was under control and had been for at least a year,” the tribunal panel declared.

The comprehensive school also contravened the Equality Act 2010 by failing to comply with the duty to take reasonable steps “to avoid the disadvantage to the claimant arising from a physical feature, namely the use of aerosols within classrooms.”

Mrs Grant-Ryder, of Penley, won compensation including for loss of earnings and injury to feelings. Yesterday her union representative, Colin Adkins of the NASUWT, said : “The award merits the seriousness of the acts to which she was subjected. We are very pleased.”