A finance worker who felt forced to quit her job after bosses read her WhatsApp messages and discovered she was listening to ‘steamy dragon porn’ fantasy audiobooks has won £8,000 from an employment tribunal. 

Kirsty Coleman resigned last year after her boss at Thermoelectric Conversion Systems, a Clydebank-based research and development company, went through 30 pages of her personal conversations.

The company director was looking for a spreadsheet and found a private WhatsApp conversation where Ms Coleman described her audiobook as ‘steamy’ and her colleague replied saying ‘oh your big dragon porn’.

The director also found a message where Ms Coleman threatened to ‘slam’ a colleague’s face against his desk.

The managing director, Dr Jonathan Siviter, deemed that these messages were ‘defamatory and threatening’, as well as ‘pornographic’, before arranging a disciplinary meeting for her.

But a tribunal ruled that Ms Coleman was a victim of constructive dismissal, awarding her £8,000 in compensation. A judge also found her privacy was breached by her boss reading her personal messages. 

Ms Coleman joined the company as a finance administrator in September 2022.

She was asked to download her personal WhatsApp account onto her work computer so that she could communicate with her colleagues.

Dr Jonathan Siviter deemed Kirsty Coleman’s messages ‘defamatory and threatening’, as well as ‘pornographic’, before arranging a disciplinary meeting for her

The finance worker lost her job at Thermoelectric Conversion Systems, a Clydebank based research and development company. (Pictured: the company’s office)

In May 2025, her managing director logged into her laptop to see a spreadsheet that she had made, but came across several WhatsApp messages that he deemed to be ‘inappropriate’.

He then scrolled through 30 pages, which included some of her private messages.

Her messages included: ‘I am listening to my book and it has just got steamy (again)’ to which the colleague replied, ‘haha oh ur big dragon porn,’ which Dr Siviter thought might be a breach of the internet policy.

The message was sent on her personal device to her friend and colleague, the tribunal heard. 

Dr Siviter told the company’s finance director about the messages, and they decided to take matters to a disciplinary hearing.

He also found another message where she had threatened a colleague.

The message said: ‘I swear to f***ing god, I am going to slam Kyle’s face against his desk if he keeps it up.’

She had sent the message out of working hours on a personal device after he had repeatedly slammed a door in the office, causing the windows to shake.

Dr Siviter believed that Ms Coleman was a trained military cadet instructor, and he considered this comment to be a threat.

In June, the company sent a letter to Ms Coleman saying they were suspending her from work because of an ‘inappropriate use of company equipment during working hours’, which amounted to gross misconduct.

She asked the company to clarify what this misconduct entailed, and they sent screenshots of her WhatsApp conversations to her.

They said that they took her comments about slamming her colleague’s head into the desk as a ‘genuine’ threat because of her training in the armed forces.

They also said that she had accessed ‘pornographic content on company devices’, which was a misuse of their resources.

Ms Coleman was scheduled to attend a disciplinary meeting, which her union representative was not allowed to attend.

Ms Coleman said the company had ‘made up’ their mind about sacking her and resigned.

Employment Judge David Hoey ruled that she had been constructively dismissed. 

He said that the method by which the messages were obtained ‘irreparably damaged the trust and confidence’ between Ms Coleman and the company and she had a ‘reasonable right to privacy’.

He said: ‘The managing director had discovered the messages when accessing her computer.

‘The difficulty he had was that while he had a legitimate purpose in looking for work-related material, that was not a justification for his decision to read obviously personal messages she had sent to her friend and colleague.

‘There was no legitimate basis for him trawling through pages of personal WhatsApp messages, given the purpose in accessing her machine was to identify a work-related file.

‘It was also difficult to understand why the context of the messages said to be so offensive was not properly considered.

‘He and others took a particular interpretation from the material that failed to take the context on board.’

Judge Hoey said there was no evidence that the audio book was ‘pornographic’.

He said: ‘The company also relied upon the fact Ms Coleman was listening to a science fiction book, which was said to get ‘steamy’ was downloading something connected with pornographic material.

‘There was no fair basis to make that assertion, given the obvious context and fact that she was listening to a book.

‘No information was presented to show that the book being listened to was in any way inappropriate, and the company relied solely upon the WhatsApp exchange.’

Judge Hoey said that the comments made about slamming a colleague’s head against the desk were ‘an expression of anger’.

He said that Ms Coleman had resigned because she believed she would not be given a ‘fair hearing’ and that it was a ‘breach’ by the company.

Ms Coleman won a total of £8,009 compensation.