Teacher calls city leader to answer race tribunal claim

A TEACHER who says she suffered years of racial discrimination from colleagues in Edinburgh schools has called city council leader Jenny Dawe and education director Gillian Tee to an employment tribunal to answer the claims.

• Kamaljit Kaur

Kamaljit Kaur is making 61 allegations against 15 members of staff. The 48-year-old claims she has been victimised because of her Indian origins for the past five years.

Mrs Kaur, from Morningside, said the discrimination happened while she was working as an additional language teacher in the city's primary schools.

She claims the problems began in 2005 when she was working at Sciennes Primary and raised concerns about a Muslim pupil being bullied.

Mrs Kaur alleges that following the incident she was exposed to a "hostile working environment" and that she was discriminated against as she tried to progress in her career. She was eventually moved from Sciennes to work in schools all over the city.

Mrs Kaur, who was born in Britain and is a UK citizen, was represented by her husband, Professor Prim Singh.

The respondents include Sciennes' headteacher Alison Noble, but also Councillor Dawe and Ms Tee.

Professor Singh, 50, said they wanted to hold top members of the council "to task" on the grounds they should be "setting the tone of the organisation". He also claimed his wife had faced race discrimination when applying for promotions.

He said: "The visibility of ethnic minorities in the council are all in the lowest positions."

Professor Singh opposed a move by lawyers for the respondents to time-bar the case on the grounds it stretched back to 2005. Cases should normally be brought within three months of the alleged incident.

He said: "To ask her to write out a grievance every time they happened - when they were constantly going on - is absolutely preposterous."

Hayley Johnson, representing each of the 15 individual members of the council, said the case should be time-barred.

She said: "For numerous allegations to be considered as a continued act the claimant would have to prove they were linked. These were isolated allegations which should have been lodged as they happened."

Ms Johnson added that she would seek to have Cllr Dawe and Ms Tee excused from the case on the grounds that they have not been accused of specific incidents. Employment Judge Susan Walker said she would have to consider the time bar issue and would respond within six weeks.