Loyalty Is for Wimps and Girls; City Analyst Louise Barton, Who Has Just Lost Her High-Profile Sex Discrimination Case, Reveals for the First Time Why She Refuses to Give Up

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Byline: LESLEY GARNER

WOMEN have more guts than men in the end," says City analyst Louise Barton.

"They fight much harder.

What happens is that women do their jobs, and they have to do them 20 per cent better than the men to get on, and they think this is enough, and they soldier on, with not such a high profile, and then they get ignored once too often. And then they start fighting like hell; they fight so hard their employers wonder what hit them."

Louise Barton's employers, Investec, have been fending off her attack for a year now, frantically - this is Louise's version - putting together a rearguard strategy to defend themselves against her accusations of sex discrimination in giving her two male colleagues much higher bonuses. And their strategy worked.

Despite what seemed to many commentators like a clear-cut case for Louise, they've won. On Monday, her case was dismissed by the employment tribunal.

But Barton, 52, is still running on a head of rage that has seen her spend pound sterling120,000 on her case and lose her job. She may be "enormously furious, angry, disappointed", but she's still full of fight. It's only round one.

If anyone expects to find Louise Barton curled up in a tear-sodden ball, they reckon without three things. She's Australian, she's a …