A RACE bias claim by one of its own officers against a Racial Equality Council has collapsed.

Arshad Mohammed, the £20,000-a-year equality officer with the Burnley and Pendle race harmony group, alleged racial discrimination and unfair treatment at a Manchester Industrial Tribunal.

He claimed REC chairman Dr Qazi Jehangir and the all-Asian personnel committee acted improperly in not making him acting director of the organisation on the retirement of Aziz Chaudhry.

Instead, he alleged, Dr Jehangir and REC secretary Ejez Hussain made a "strange decision" and appointed themselves to the temporary post.

But the tribunal dismissed 51-year-old Mr Arshad's application after he failed to put up the £50 demanded for the case to continue.

Tribunal chairman Anna Woolley had ordered the cash deposit after a preliminary hearing because "the applicant's case is so weak in respect of each element of the claim that he is unlikely to be able to achieve a determination in his favour."

But today Mr Mohammed said he believed he had been right to bring the case.

Along with other staff, he had been made redundant from the post he had held for six years after council funding was withdrawn from the controversial organisation,

In his written statement to the tribunal, Mr Arshad, of Wilkie Avenue, Habergham Eaves, Burnley, said he had in the past deputised for the director in his absence, but the chairman and his team had refused to appoint him acting director.

Burnley and Pendle REC continues to operate as a voluntary organisation.

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