A HOUSING company which was found guilty of racially discriminating against an asylum seeker has failed in its appeal against the tribunal decision.

Roselodge was ordered to pay Palestinian Mohammed Abu-Zahra £9,000 in damages after he was sacked for "spurious reasons" from his job as a night porter at a hostel in Stockton.

The company, which has a Home Office contract to provide housing for asylum seekers, was found guilty last year at a Newcastle tribunal hearing of racial discrimination.

Its appeal has now been dismissed by the tribunal panel, The Northern Echo has learnt.

Mr Abu-Zahra lasted only four days in his job and later took his case to a tribunal, claiming his manager Sylvia Bleasdale had told him she did not like asylum seekers as their aim was to "get what they could from the Government".

He is still waiting for his application for political asylum to be dealt with after fleeing to the UK last April.

Peter Widlinski, spokes-man for the North-East Coalition for Asylum Rights, where Mr Abu-Zahra now works as a support worker, said he had received his cheque for damages yesterday.

He said: "There were no grounds for an appeal. Mohammed is still very angry about the way he was treated, but is putting it behind him and has gone on to take a better job with us."

Roselodge had said Mr Abu-Zahra had been aggressive and had told his manager that residents should be locked in their rooms for most of the evening and night to make his job easier.

It said it was an organisation which operated and strictly enforced a "comprehensive" equal opportunities policy and whose workforce was multi-racial and multi-cultural.