03 Dec - UK:

Saleca Faisal-Parkar, 31, was harassed, overlooked for jobs and training and was even branded "lazy" after she became seriously ill while pregnant.

The abuse was led by Stephen Jones, then head of litigation at the leading law firm Shakespeares, who also referred to her as a "flipping nun".

He was also a deputy district judge and a member of the Solicitors Disciplinary Panel, but has resigned both positions in the light of the scandal.

Mrs Faisal-Parkar, who has a young daughter, joined Shakespeares in 2002 as a legal assistant.
Not long after she started, she found out from a fellow worker that she had been nicknamed "Mother Teresa" because she wore a hijab, which covers her head.

Over the course of the following months, she said Mr Jones - who made the derogatory comments in emails - harassed her, refused her training requests and potentially reduced her annual salary increase by the type of work he gave her.

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A soldier who pulled off a man's turban during an Edinburgh nightclub scuffle because he "didn't like" people with turbans has been fined £280.

Raty Yavala, 29, had just returned from fighting in Iraq with the First Scots Regiment when he went out in Edinburgh.

Yavala, from Fiji, was in the All Purple Bar in Hanover Street when he began arguing with another clubber.

Yavala pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to a breach of the peace at the club on 30 September 2007.

Yavala, who is based at Dreghorn Barracks near Edinburgh, shouted and swore at the Sikh man before pulling off his turban and calling him a racist name. [Link]

A drunken lorry driver who ripped off a Sikh taxi driver's turban and then tried to steal a motorist's car keys has been jailed for a year.

William Carr, 36, was aggressive and argumentative as the taxi he was being driven home in pulled into Watford Gap services on the M1 on November 11 last year.

Rebecca Wade, prosecuting, said: "They got out and the defendant started being aggressive towards the taxi driver, being abusive and swearing."

He grabbed hold of Ajit Singh Dhillon's car keys, £120 in cash and a mobile phone, before ripping off his turban and then trying to headbutt him several times.

The taxi driver managed to keep out of his way and called the police as Carr turned his attention to a passing motorist, who had stopped at the motorway service station.

Northampton Crown Court heard last week how Carr approached motorist Vimal Palmer and launched an unprovoked attack, while trying to steal his car keys.

After being arrested, Carr told officers he was so drunk he had no recollection of the incident.

Judge Richard Bray said: "He was drunk and assaulted a taxi driver; a nasty assault of an Asian taxi driver and his turban was taken off his head and thrown away.

"It's a grave insult and an aggravating feature."

Carr, of Fallowfields, in Crick, pleaded guilty to affray, theft of cash and a mobile phone and the attempted robbery of Vimal Palmer's car keys.

Jailing him for a year, Judge Bray said: "The taxi driver was assaulted in a humiliating manner and must have been very upset by your behaviour.

"There has to be a prison sentence.

"Attacks on taxi drivers at night have become all too prevalent," he added.

Claire Howell, defending, said Carr had been shocked by his behaviour after watching the CCTV footage from Watford Gap and wanted to compensate Mr Singh Dhillon.

She said: "This defendant was very, very drunk and was appalled by what he was said to have done. He is deeply ashamed of his behaviour that night." [Link]

The head of the Crown Prosecution Service in West Yorkshire is to undergo “training” in the wake of an employment tribunal that saw a Muslim solicitor awarded a record £600,000 payout for racial discrimination.

Chief Prosecutor Neil Franklin is among a number of senior managers involved in the case who will be given “further guidance and training.”

Halima Aziz was suspended from work by the CPS after joking at Bradford Magistrates’ Court that she was a friend of Osama bin Laden. Earlier this month, an employment tribunal found that there was “not a shred of evidence” to support the treatment of Miss Aziz by the CPS.

The lawyer was working at Bradford Magistrates in October 2001 – a month after 9/11 – when she was accused of blaming the terror attacks in the US on “Jews”. Miss Aziz denied making that comment, saying that she joked, as she was going through a security check at the court, that she was being treated like a friend of Bin Laden.

She was suspended from duty while a complaint from the court was investigated and she was cleared of all allegations in 2002.

The Employment Tribunal found that senior officials at the CPS were guilty of racial discrimination for the way they handled her case and that a previous inquiry run by chief executive Peter Lewis was a “whitewash”. And it identified Mr Franklin as one of the “principal discriminators”.

The CPS said it accepted the recommendations in the judgement and has now revealed that it will provide further guidance and training for the managers involved.

But the CPS does not accept certain elements of the judgement and is seeking a review and appeal on those.

The CPS said the specific elements it was appealing against were the references to the CPS withholding material from the Tribunal, the Employment Appeals Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. [Link]