A high flying technology executive has had her sexism case dismissed after she sued her boss for telling her she 'has balls'.

An employment tribunal threw out the claims made by

A high flying technology executive has had her sexism case dismissed after she sued her boss for telling her she 'has balls'.

An employment tribunal threw out the claims made by Rachel Power, ruling that the remark made by Pieter Danhieux was not sexist and was in fact meant to suggest 'defiant bravery' with no sexual connotations.

Miss Power was working at cyber security start-up Secure Code Warrior, based in Northampton, as a contractor in 2018 when she got into a dispute with chief executive Mr Danhieux.

The pair had been speaking on office-messaging platform Slack when he accused her of attempting to have him removed from his CEO position, the tribual heard.  

Rachel Power (left) has had her sexism claim against her former boss Pieter Danhieux (right) dismissed after a tribunal ruled his remark that she 'had balls' suggested 'defiant bravery'

'So I heard...that you asked for me to step down from the CEO role. Must admit, you got balls as a contractor', Mr Danhieux told her.

Miss Power told the hearing that the words were 'highly offensive' and felt intimidated by Mr Danhieux's language - claiming that he would not have used the same words to a man.

'He refers to me having 'got balls as a contractor' which is highly offensive to me as a woman. To do it in a business context, even if only in an online context, is even more demeaning,' she said.

As part of her case, the tribunal was told: 'He had used sexually offensive words to insinuate that, as a woman, Miss Power could not have the strength of character to do something challenging and that therefore, she must be masculine and 'have balls'.'

Miss Power said Mr Danhieux had warned her she needed to understand her actions 'have consequences'.

She said she felt intimidated by the conversation and had a panic attack as a result.

Mr Danhieux told the hearing he used the phrase to express 'surprise and annoyance' at Miss Power's 'front' in suggesting that he be removed as CEO.

Miss Power - who started at the company in January 2018 on a three month contract to manage its partnerships with tech giants Microsoft and Accenture and UK spy agency GCHQ - made a formal complaint about his behaviour.

After her contract came to an end, she then sued the company for sex discrimination and harassment for the way Mr Danhieux had treated her - including claims that he had criticised her unfairly and she had been excluded from executive meetings - and victimisation for how the firm behaved after she complained.

However, her claims were all dismissed by the London tribunal.

Of Mr Danhieux's 'you got balls' comment, the panel concluded: 'He used a turn of phrase, which he did not associate with sex. The Tribunal found that the phrase was not one of a sexual nature - it was a colloquialism for defiant bravery.'