By IANS,
London : A senior British lawyer, who is being sued for 33 million pounds by an Indian-born colleague, has denied a “racial culture” existed within his chambers.
Aisha Bijlani, a lawyer at Four New Square in London, is suing three successive heads of the chambers and its senior clerk, alleging they racially discriminated against her, withheld work and failed to collect payments made to her, costing her millions in lost income.
Bijlani’s case against heads John Powell, Justin Fenwick, Roger Stewart and senior clerk Lizzy Wiseman has grabbed newspaper headlines in Britain for the sheer size of the claim and after Wiseman admitted in court she had an affairs with both Fenwick and Stewart.
Bijlani alleges she was viewed as an “educated wog” in the chambers and that white colleagues who joined at the same time as her in 1994 earned an estimated seven million pounds more than she did.
She has accused Wiseman of using her affairs with Fenwick and Stewart to avoid being held accountable at work.
But Stewart told the Central London employment tribunal Wednesday that chambers staff had received equal opportunities training and denied his affair with Wiseman clouded his judgment.
“I myself attended such training. I do not believe that there was any racial culture within chambers,” Stewart, who now lives with Wiseman, said adding he did not have a high opinion of Bijlani as a barrister.
Althea Brown, counsel for Bijlani, told the court last week the clerk’s relationships with Fenwick and Stewart meant she had not been properly monitored.
She said: “You have manipulated your position as senior clerk by your relationships with successive heads of chambers so you are not held properly accountable for the way you have been doing your job since 2000, we would say to date.”
Wiseman denies the allegations.