The owner of a hair salon is being sued for religious discrimination for refusing to hire a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf. Sarah Desrosiers, 32, says she turned down Bushra Noah as a junior stylist to maintain the image of her salon, which specialises in "urban, funky" cuts. She told Miss Noah, 19, she needed her staff to display their hairstyles to the public
But the devout Muslim insisted that wearing her headscarf was essential to her beliefs. Miss Noah, who has been rejected for 25 different hairdressing jobs after interviews, is suing Miss Desrosiers for more than 15,000 pounds for injury to her feelings plus an unspecified sum for lost earnings.
Miss Desrosiers, who set up the Wedge salon in King's Cross, North London, 18 months ago, says she faces financial ruin if she loses the case. She denies any discrimination and insists it is an "absolutely basic" job requirement. Yesterday, Miss Desrosier said: "When a potential client walks past on the street, they look into a salon at the stylists to get an impression of what haircut they are going to get there. "The image I have built my salon on is very urban, funky, punky. That is the look I am going for. "If an employee were wearing a baseball cap or cowboy hat I would ask them to remove it at work.
"It has nothing to do with religion. But I now feel like I have been branded a racist. My name is being dragged through the mud." She went on: "This girl is suing me for more than I earn in a year. "I am a small business and have only had my salon a year and a half. If I lose this lawsuit, my business will fold."
In legal papers setting out her employment tribunal claim, Miss Noah alleges she was discriminated against at her interview in March and wrongly turned down for a job she was capable of doing because of her headscarf.
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Insane British policing again
A DAD grabbed a drunken teenager he thought was trying to break into his home, handed him to police - and was arrested. Now Mark Goldberg fears he could lose his Ministry of Defence job if he is prosecuted.
The head chef, who has children aged five and 15, heard a noise at the window of his townhouse at around 10.30pm. He opened the curtains and spotted the yob teetering on the window ledge. Mark, 38, said: "He must have jumped over railings and climbed up a drainpipe. But when I went out he tried to say he was looking for someone."
While his wife called police in Gravesend, Kent, Mark grappled with the teenager - who may have been attending a nearby party. He managed to flee but Mark chased him and marched him back to waiting cops. To his amazement they arrested HIM for assault. He said: "The police said the guy had a fat lip. We did tussle and fall to the ground but I didn't hit him. He's just making up stories and they believe him, not me. They threw me in a cell for 15 hours."
Mark has been told he must return to the police station on December 6. He is the latest in a string of householders to be arrested trying to protect their homes and property. Mark said: "This country has gone barmy. You can't even protect your own family in your own home any more." A police spokesman said: "Our investigations continue."
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More fatal bungling from an NHS hospital
The husband of the Jehovah's Witness mom who died after refusing a blood transfusion because of her beliefs is blaming the hospital where she lost her life. Anthony Gough, 24, claims medical staff may have been negligent over wife Emma's death - and legal action could follow. He has told friends Emma, 22, WOULD have submitted to a transfusion - if it had used her OWN recycled blood.
Anthony claims when staff brought in a blood-cell salvage machine for the procedure they were unsure how to use it. It's alleged medics were frantically looking on the internet for instructions as Emma died.
The Sun told this week how Emma died from blood loss after giving birth to twins at at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. She had signed a form forbidding a transfusion as they are banned by her religion. Medics urged husband Anthony to overrule her decision but he said he could not. Heating engineer Anthony, 24, of Dawley, Shrops, and his family - who are caring for the motherless boy and girl twins - refused to comment last night.
But a friend of the family said: "Anthony and Emma would not permit a stranger's blood to be used because that would be against their Witness faith. "It was a question of storing blood coming out of Emma and putting it back into her. "But Anthony says the staff on duty didn't know how to operate the machine. He's angry, frustrated and heartbroken."
A coroner has opened an inquest into Emma's death. A spokesman for the Royal Shrewsbury said it had received no complaints about staff conduct, but a full internal inquiry was in progress.
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The great NHS wait
One in ten people are still waiting at least a year for NHS outpatient treatment, it was revealed yesterday. Out of 223,670 cases completed by August, 22,212 had been referred for ops by their GP at least 52 weeks earlier, figures show. Thousands more did not have surgery within six months, and nearly half - 44 per cent - waited for longer than the Government's planned new 18-week target.
Ministers have promised that by the end of 2008 nearly all patients will be seen within that deadline. Tories claimed clinical priorities will be distorted to meet the goal. Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "We need a health service in which professionals are freed from central targets."
Director of NHS Performance David Flory admitted some people would never be treated within 18 weeks as it was not medically appropriate. But he said 90 per cent would be seen within the target. Health minister Ben Bradshaw insisted the NHS was on course to hit the target. He said: "That ten per cent figure is still unacceptable. But ten years ago it was common for people to wait 18 months."
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Naughty Realism again
We read:
"The BBC presenter Sarah Kennedy denied she had caused offence to her listeners when she claimed on air that it was hard to see black people in the dark. She said it was "absolute tripe" to suggest her remarks had been racist and said she wished to draw a line under the matter.
She provoked fury when she interrupted a discussion on road safety on her Radio 2 programme to say she had almost run over a black pedestrian because his dark clothes made him "invisible". "It's lucky he opened his mouth to yawn or do something and I saw him," she said.
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I guess I shouldn't be laughing!
Fake facts about tanning and cancer
Post below lifted from Free students. See the original for links
Here's an example of how wrong "facts" get into the popular culture and are used to increase the levels of government regulation. The London Times is one of the premier newspapers in the world and they recently ran an article about new things that the Nanny state will most likely ban. Included in the list was a ban on teens using tanning beds. They mentioned how one politician in Scotland has already introduced legislation to ban tanning beds -- something the UN's World Health Organization is pushing. In this article the Times claims: "An estimated 100 people die in Scotland each year of skin cancers caused by the use of sunbeds."
The Progressive-Vision blog notes that no source is given for this claim. And they looked at the actual numbers. It turns out that this claim is totally bogus. The total number of skin cancer deaths in Scotland for individuals of all ages, from all causes, is 158. As they note "This would require two-thirds of all skin cancer deaths to be caused by tanning beds which is highly unlikely." In fact most people with skin cancer are the elderly. And I can't imagine (nor want to) the geriatric set in their bikinis and Speedos down at the tanning salon.
The truth is that most these people have skin cancer because of decades of exposure to the sun. The Skin Cancer Foundation says that more than 90% of all skin cancer is caused "by sun exposure". Apparently one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world repeated this "fact" without bothering to verify it. And no doubt others will repeat the claim as a result.
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ -- and featuring again a big coverage of reactions to James "Black IQ" Watson.
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