Asian lawyer who said she was 'Bin Laden's friend' awarded £600,000 race discrimination pay out

An Asian lawyer who was suspended after telling a court security guard she was a 'friend of Bin Laden's' has won a £600,000 record pay out for race discrimination.

Halima Aziz, 47, made the remark as she arrived at Bradford magistrates' court only a fortnight after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

The Crown Prosecution Service lawyer was immediately suspended after being wrongly accused of inciting a riot between white and Asian youths at the court.
She was cleared of the allegations in 2002, but never received an apology from her employers for her suspension.
Now an employment tribunal has awarded her £600,000 compensation after concluding there was no evidence to support her treatment by the CPS.
In comparison, the average payout to victims of the 7/7 London attacks is around £7,500, with bereaved relatives receiving £5,500.

In addition to the compensation award, the case has cost the CPS £500,000 in legal fees, landing the taxpayers with a bill of more than a million pounds.
Speaking to Channel 4 News last night, Miss Aziz said the CPS 'still haven't given me an apology for what they have done. If they had apologised to me right at the beginning words would have been enough'.
She added: 'I am 100% certain this would not have happened unless I had been a Muslim and Asian'.

The tribunal found that senior CPS officials were guilty of racial discrimination for the way they handled her case and had lied at her tribunal.
The Chief Executive of the CPS, Peter Lewis, who led an inquiry into the case, also came in for harsh criticism, after the tribunal concluded that his investigations had been 'deeply flawed' and a 'whitewash'.

It added he 'structured his report to exonerate the discriminators then seems to close the book.'
The judgement said the CPS was 'in a state of denial' that the discrimination ever took place.
They have now been ordered to issue a full and unequivocal apology and to reinstate Ms Aziz following her seven year legal battle.
Branding the body's reaction to Miss Aziz's comments 'astonishing' the judgement states: 'This would be completely unacceptable response on the part of any employer but for a public body like the Crown Prosecution Service it can only be regarded as astonishing.'
Her lawyer Mr Mark Emery of Bindmans solicitors last night called for an independent inquiry, saying the CPS's ability to prosecute race cases is now under doubt.

He said: 'According to this judgment serious questions have got to be asked at Chief Executive level and it is possible that questions have got to be asked higher up the chain - DPP level (Director of Public Prosecutions)? We don’t know. We need to find out.
'It does ask questions about public confidence in the CPS’s ability to handle very sensitive race related prosecutions if at the heart of the CPS, at the senior echelons of the CPS, there is such willful failure to comply with race relations legislation.'

In response to the findings, the CPS said its chief executive denied any allegations that his reports was sham and would not be stepping down from his post.
A spokesman said: 'The CPS accepts the recommendations, and will be implementing them as a matter of priority. We offer a full apology to Halima Aziz.
The Judgement relates solely to the very particular circumstances of this one case. It does not question the overall approach and policies the CPS has pursued.'
Miss Aziz, of Pakistani origin, said the action was never about the money but 'about getting my job back and saying what (they did) was wrong'.

She now plans to use her compensation to build an orphanage in Pakistan.