London: An Indian-origin head mistress at a school in Britain has alleged that she faced racial discrimination at her job and did not get support from authorities.
Sudhana Singh told an employment tribunal on Wednesday that one man was heard saying "bloody Indian woman should not be in charge of our children" while children were reported gossiping that their parents "hated blacks", the Daily Telegraph reported.
Singh, a teacher for 20 years, is suing the governors and Reading council for race discrimination.
She claims she faced a campaign of race discrimination, bullying and harassment and did not get appropriate support from the governors or the council.
"I believe that the campaign to remove me from my post was, in substantial part, related to my ethnic origins," she said in a statement read by the tribunal in Reading.
"The degree of resistance and hostility I was met with was much greater than would otherwise have been the case but for my racial origins," she said.
Singh, who started her career in South Africa in 1989, emigrated to Britain in 2001 and started teaching in Slough, Berks.
In September 2009 she took up the post of head teacher at Moorlands, which has more than 400 pupils, but continued to live in Slough.
She was ordered to take "gardening leave" in July 2010, and suffered a miscarriage shortly afterwards.
She returned to work at the start of the new school year but claimed the bullying, harassment and racial discrimination started again.
She was signed off sick by her doctor in October 2010 and was later diagnosed with depression and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.
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