A FIREARMS police officer who protected Tony Blair and members of the Royal family faced victimisation at work due to his race, a tribunal has ruled.

Nadeem Saddique's claims that a fellow firearms officer had a racist sticker on his gun holster, and that another armed officer had said "let's go and shoot some P*** kids", were not investigated properly by Cleveland Police's professional standards department, despite being tasked to do so by Chief Constable Jacqui Cheer.

PC Saddique took his employers Cleveland Police to an employment tribunal earlier this year, claiming racial discrimination.

The tribunal has now found that there were 19 instances of victimisation by individuals against PC Saddique, and another 11 of direct discrimination.

PC Saddique said he had been considered a security risk at times, just because he was Muslim, and that "a culture of bullying and discrimination is all too prevalent within the firearms department by certain individuals".

He also claims that his VIP firearms officer status, which had seen him protect Tony Blair and act as a driver for the Royal family on visits to the region, was removed and never returned.

Tonight Sultan Alam, who won almost £1m in a race case against Cleveland Police in 2012, called for officers found to have been guilty of discrimination to be dismissed.

"There is no place in the police force for bigotry," he said.

"The problem with Cleveland Police is there is a culture of trying to hide, rather than dealing with, any problems."

Mrs Cheer had given evidence during the tribunal to say when she arrived at Cleveland Police - a "small force with big problems", there was a "never admit and never apologise" attitude among senior officers, and anyone who complained would be "fobbed off".

Employment tribunal judge Tudor Garnon said that while Mrs Cheer, and her deputy Iain Spittal, had not acted in a directly racist way, they were guilty of trusting others to investigate complaints of racism "without enquiry".

Judge Garnon also criticised the force's handling of the Equality Review, which had highlighted "elements of institutional racism" within the force.

He said the appointment of the then-head of the professional standards department (PSD) Darren Best to draw up an action plan "was an extraordinary plan as PSD had been identified as part of the problem".

And he criticised the fact none of the evidence given in the Equality Review was properly investigated - saying an absence of positive action was "always going to give the impression of a cover-up".

He added: "At various points in evidence we detected some officers resent any colleague giving information against other officers.

"We also detected a view by some senior officers that raising race discrimination unnecessarily distracted the force from its daily work, and those who did so were troublemakers."

Mrs Cheer said: "The unanimous judgement of the tribunal is that the majority of those claims were well founded. I take these findings extremely seriously and all of the issues within the tribunal’s judgement will be quickly and carefully considered.”