A woman who has accused the wife of Labour London Mayoral hopeful Frank Dobson of racial and sexual discrimination deserved to be fired, an employment tribunal has heard.

Wangui Wa Goro, a former Hackney council equality officer, alleges she was the victim of "maliciously conceived" disciplinary action by Janet Dobson after the MP's wife claimed she had plagiarised a report of gender guidelines for the borough's schools.

Ms Wa Goro maintains that while the report did rely heavily on a similar document produced by Lancashire County Council, it was not plagiarism.

But, Garry Burton, a former colleague of Ms Wa Goro, told the west London Tribunal she stole the document "verbatim".

He said: "In my view the work was derived in its entirety from the document whose authors were Lancashire Education Authority."

'Dismissal absolutely appropriate'

Mr Burton said he was "shocked, hurt and bewildered" when he realised what she had done.

"We were a small team sharing a certain solidarity as black officers," he said.

He said he felt Ms Wa Goro's action would gravely undermine the good work the equalities unit was doing and would damage the reputation of the unit as a whole.

"Because you are black and an equalities officer does not mean you should be able to get away with this sort of thing," said Mr Burton.

He added: "I considered at the time that dismissal was absolutely appropriate, considering the offence."

But Gerry German, lay representative for Ms Wa Goro, has said the submission of the report was a mix-up which she admitted.

"Ms Wa Goro herself discovered it, reported it and set things in motion to put things right. For her honesty she was mistreated," he said.

Ms Wa Goro, a Kenyan citizen, is claiming sexual and racial discrimination against the council. She is also claiming unfair selection for redundancy.

Accuser in 'very distressed state'

Jane Connor, formerly the women's equality officer for Hackney Council, told the tribunal Ms Wa Goro had come to see her in 1994 in a "very distressed state".

Ms Wa Goro told her she felt she was being undermined and picked on about certain aspects of her work.

"I was very worried about Ms Wa Goro's state of health - she looked and sounded so unwell and seemed to me to be exhausted," he said

Ms Connor said she was "shocked" when she learnt the details of the disciplinary action being taken against Ms Wa Goro.

She said she knew of at least two publications produced for Hackney Council which had relied heavily on reports written by other local authorities, and on both occasions the authors had not faced disciplinary action.

Ms Wa Goro was suspended on full pay for nine months in 1994 after Mrs Dobson, then head of strategic support services for the east London authority's education department, made the allegations.

She returned to work in June 1995, but was made redundant at the end of the year after restructuring in her department.

Since then she has worked as a freelance translator.