Lawyer in the news

Who? Turhan Wishart, 45-year-old case worker at the London Race Discrimination Unit, based at North Lambeth Law Centre.

Why is he in the news? Represented Khalid Jayyosi, a Palestinian refugee who was told his computer password had been changed to 'suicide bomber' as part of a stream of racial abuse at work.

IT superviser Mr Jayyosi, who last month won his case for unfair dismissal on racial grounds against car makers Daimler Chrysler UK, claimed he was the butt of racist jokes about his Palestinian background, was referred to as a 'bomb maker' by colleagues and was told to go back to the Sangatte asylum-seeker camp in France if he did not like the UK.

He was dismissed in 2002 in what the tribunal called a 'sham' redundancy process.

It was triggered by Mr Jayyosi's request that the company provide him with a letter in support of his asylum application.

Background: BA (Hons) in philosophy from Kent University 1982-85, followed by post-graduate study in philosophy at Birkbeck College in London and the CPE at Birmingham Polytechnic (now University of Central England) in 1987.

He completed his Law Society finals at Westminster University in 1990 and qualified with Birnbergs in 1992.

He then worked for trade union Unison as a legal adviser until 1999, and joined the Race Discrimination Unit in 2001.

Route to the case: 'He attended one of our advice sessions.'

Thoughts on the case: 'As soon as I heard Mr Jayyosi's extraordinary story, I knew that we had a very good case, and given the strength of the evidence I was surprised that Daimler Chrysler decided to fight it.

Although my client feels vindicated by the ruling, he is still very upset that he had to go through the experience, and has become ill and unable to work as a result.

Damages will be decided next month.'

Dealing with the media: 'This case had it all - refugees, asylum-seekers, suicide bombings - everything apart from sex.

The press coverage we've received has been surprisingly positive, and even the newspapers which one may have assumed would take a negative approach to the story have been pretty fair in their coverage.'

Victoria MacCallum