A SECRETARY who said her company discriminated against her because of her disability has said she can no longer talk about the case after she signed a controversial Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

Valerie Moore took Abingdon law firm Slade Legal to an employment tribunal in Reading last week.

The hearing, which opened on Monday, was due to last five days, however on Tuesday morning Mrs Moore reached an agreement with her former employers to drop the claims, and signed a deal not to speak about the case.

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Such Non-Disclosure Agreements have become controversial in recent years with claims they have been used to silence accusations of sexual harassment and bullying in the workplace.

Mrs Moore took on the position of a permanent legal secretary at the Abingdon branch of Slade Legal in January 2017.

However, she was involved in a road traffic accident just a few months later that left her with lasting head injuries.

In December that year, after concerns over Mrs Moore’s work performance that included failure to follow instructions and sending correspondence without authority, her manager Katherine Semlyen dismissed her without notice.

Mrs Moore argued that, at the time, she was a disabled person because of the moderate traumatic brain injury that resulted from being knocked unconscious in the crash for about 20 minutes.

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She also attributed her problems at work to her depression, which she had been treated for with anti-depressants, prescribed by her GP, since 1991 following the traumatic death of her second husband.

Her experience of living with depression she described as ‘having a reduced quality of life’.

Mrs Moore also explained that without her medication she had difficulties ‘talking properly and finishing sentences’.

She described the impairment as having a substantial and long-term adverse effect on her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities including planning, organisation, multitasking and concentrating.

She also argued that her employer should have connected the difference in her performance before and after the accident with her head injury.

Mrs Moore first submitted her case to the Reading employment tribunal in March 2018, and details from a preliminary hearing were published last year.

The final stage in the case was due to be heard last week, until the parties reached their agreement.

Exiting the courtroom, Mrs Moore said she signed an NDA that had a confidentiality clause in it.

Slade Legal confirmed that the claims against it had been withdrawn by agreement, however, a spokesperson for the company said they could not comment further for legal reasons.