Disabled woman loses battle with Labour

A disabledwoman who claimed she was unfairly denied a job on Tony Blair's 1997 campaign lost her legal dispute to bring a disability discrimination case against the Labour Party yesterday.

Helen Garrod claimed her rejection for a job on the campaign bus was because of her disability. She said she had developed severe psychological problems as a result.

Ms Garrod, 31, from Helston, Cornwall, was born with dystrophic dwarfism and uses a wheelchair. She was turned down while working as deputy editor of Progress, a Labour magazine. Kate Dixon, the editor, was taken on.

The tribunal was told that Anji Hunter, then Mr Blair's personal assistant, had rejected her because she was "unsuitable" for the work.

But the Central London Employment Tribunal, chaired by Elizabeth Potter, ruled there was insufficient evidence to support her claim that post-traumatic stress disorder prevented her from launching her case for four and a half years.

Ms Potter said: "There is no contemporary supporting documentation. The key witnesses have left politics and any recollections they have seem hazy."