A SOLICITOR who told a colleague that she ‘could not stand Jewish people’ has been fined £2,500 by a legal watchdog.

Danielle Morris, 34, made the comment in front of a legal cashier, who was Jewish, at Mulderiggs Solicitors, in Rawtenstall, the Solicitor’s’ Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) was told. The cashier later took the Bank Street firm to an employment tribunal and won a religious discrimination case, the tribunal heard.

Ms Morris had been relaying an incident in which she claimed a Jewish man had ‘made a scene’ at her local doctors’ surgery, demanding to be seen first, when she had taken her baby in for treatment.

The tribunal heard that the cashier asked her not to repeat her remarks. But she replied: “I don’t care. I cannot stand them ever since an incident (at the doctor’s surgery).”

Later Ms Morris, an assistant solicitor who was working her notice at the time of the incident, claimed she did not know the cashier was Jewish. The cashier later referred the matter to the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority, which authorised an SDT hearing.

Giving evidence at the SDT hearing, Ms Morris said she had tried to apologise to her colleague on three occasions, but the cashier refused to meet with her.

She told a three-strong panel she made the remarks ‘without thinking’ and had no intention of being insulting. In mitigation, it was said she was not aware of issues surrounding Jewish persecution, or the Holocaust, and now had a greater understanding of the offence her remarks may have caused. Hearing chairman Ken Duncan said: “The tribunal accepted the remarks made were foolish and ignorant rather than malicious.”

Ms Morris was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay the £5,250 cost of the hearing. The mother-of-two no longer works for Mulderiggs and is now employed at a legal firm in Oldham.