A BLACK worker with a company running schools has won £63,000 damages for racial discrimination.

Richmond Quarshie, 43, who lives in Ridgway, Dalton, worked for Serco, which operates Education Bradford.

He has been awarded the payout after an earlier employment tribunal found he was discriminated against by the company and its senior managers.

The damages included £3,000 aggravated damages for what the tribunal described as the company's "wilful and deliberate" refusal to accept Mr Quarshie's grievance appeal.

Mr Quarshie said: "Whilst I feel that the tribunal's award recognises the suffering that Education Bradford has put me through, I have seen nothing that assures me that the right lessons have been learned from my case.

"The law has been broken and my life has been a misery, but none of the guilty managers have been sacked and the compensation awarded to me won't come out of their pay packets."

Mr Quarshie was a council employee transferred to Education Bradford, the company created by Serco when it won the contract to run the district's schools in 2001.

He was suspended in December 2002 after disagreements at work and was not asked to return until February 2004.

He complained the suspension had been wrong and too long, but the company disagreed and refused to hear his appeal.

The Leeds Employment Tribunal handed down its first judgement in June last year. Serco appealed against the judgement, but the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London dismissed most of the appeal in January.

A spokesperson for Education Bradford said: "We very much regret that this case was not handled well and as a result we acknowledge that Mr Quarshie suffered racial discrimination, financial loss and injuries to his health and feelings."