Designer in court over size discrimination:

The fashion world is still quaking in it's fluffy boots after last week's test case against a clothes home shopping catalogue was granted a continuance to obtain more evidence. The claimant, who cannot be named for fears of reprisal from fashion models, has to be measured by the defence team's own group of doctors to prove that the shopping network do not in fact supply the trousers in question in the claimant's size.

The claim itself uses wording mostly from the racial, sexual and disability discrimination acts along with excerpts from government legislation on equality in the workplace. Sue Kindly LLB from the law firm presenting the case attempts to clarify:

"It has always been said that discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated in the UK. Here we have a customer who has been denied the opportunity to wear the trousers she wants because the manufacturer simply refuses to produce them in her size."

The response to this allegation is that it would be 'uneconomical' for the designer to produce them in that size because the customer in question has shorter legs than the majority of women. Ms Kindly elaborates:

"The bottom line is money. Because they won't make any profit from selling trousers in that size they force my client, and other women with short legs, to suffer. It's appalling really."

This case has caused red faces all round especially amongst the government think tanks that developed the wording for the anti-discrimination laws. We spoke to one government aid who said:

"Luckily, no-one else seems to have got ahead of us on this one so there is a chance to make amendments before everyone starts getting sued left, right and centre. It's strange to think that if the claimant in this case had been black, legislation would force us to criminally prosecute the home shopping catalogue for racial discrimination."

Lucky indeed as such comes with an automatic sentence of 18 months.