Ex-Peabody worker arrested at tribunal
A one-time employee of a London-based housing association is awaiting deportation after coming back into the country to sue her previous employers.
Peace Sandberg worked for the 17,500-home Peabody Trust between March 2007 and November 2007. She was a supported housing officer at a sheltered housing block for older people in Westminster.
The 42-year-old was deported from the country after she was convicted in May 2008 at Isleworth Crown Court of trying to smuggle a three-year-old Nigerian boy into the country to get a flat from Ealing Council.
Ms Sandberg, who is believed to hold joint Nigerian/Swedish citizenship, was sent back to Sweden and should not have been allowed back into the UK until her deportation order was revoked.
But on Thursday last week she made her way to the Central London Employment tribunal in Kingsway to sue the Peabody Trust for race and sexual discrimination, and unfair dismissal.
The housing association’s lawyers alerted the police who arrived at the tribunal and arrested her on the spot.
A spokesperson for the Peabody Trust said: ‘Mrs Sandberg’s employment with Peabody was ended following an extension in her probationary period to eight months.
‘The decision to end her employment within the probationary period went to internal appeal and was turned down at the end of January 2008. She then applied for the case to go to the employment tribunal for consideration.’
A UK Border Agency spokesperson confirmed she was now in UKBA custody and would be deported back to Sweden.
They said: ‘We are committed to removing people from the UK who have no legal right to be here.’
The tribunal case has now been adjourned and Mrs Sandberg will be able to pursue her case from outside the UK, which could mean via phone, written submission or video link.
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Readers' comments (8)
paul ex homeless persons officer | 19/05/2010 9:16 am
This case has all the the hallmarks of a serial fraudster I have no doubt the industrial tribunal was devised long before her dismissal people like this person are not interested in honest endeavour and use the system to make financial gain or abuse our social housing system well done to Peabody for thestand they made and also the border agency for swift action people like her only sully the good name of other hard working imigrants wherever they originate from I would not in the least be surprised if this individual was a small cog in a much larger lets play the system in UK ring i saw it all as an investigative Homeless Case Officer good riddance to her
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Peter Francis | 19/05/2010 10:50 am
A novel way to resolve an ET case!
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the purple avenger | 19/05/2010 12:04 pm
I initially thought that this was cheeck of the highest order. then I thought what asses we are for allowing a system where this can happen.
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john bull | 20/05/2010 1:51 pm
but 'she will still be able to pursue her claim, from outside the UK.'
excuss me, when will this nightmare end, never mind the con/libs what we need is a revolution.
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Comrade Geordie | 21/05/2010 12:10 pm
How did this woman secure a job or position if she didn't have the correct paperwork. Employers are to quick to employ ethnic minorities to tick the right boxes. When they should of being checking all was in order before offering her a position in the first instance. Did she have a CRB check, was anything clarified fully????
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| 25/05/2010 5:02 pm
"Employers are to quick to employ ethnic minorities to tick the right boxes"
How right you are. It all just goes to show how insane and through-the-looking-glass the UK has become under the dark days of NuLab and their bloated army of cronies within the corrupt and divisive race relations industry. I wonder how many indigenous Brits have lost out in the employment game because of this madness? Congrats, you got the job. Is it coz I is black? Most definitely. You ticked the right box. Disgusting. I'd like to see every piece of so-called race relations legislation since '76 repealed along with the dismantling of Trevor Philips' quango that exists solely to create division, promote privilege for ethnics and ensure discrimination against the indigenous population. Can you imagine anything like this happening in Italy or France? Never. It shouldn't happen here either.
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Joe Halewood | 25/05/2010 6:37 pm
Yes people are quick to assume their racist views are correct arent they?
Read the article and specifically where it states she was belived to have Swedish ctizenship. Swedish nationals are allowed to work here as they are part of the EU just as British people are allowed to work in Sweden or elsewhere in the EU.
Keep ticking te boxes ILAG.
NuLab dark days - check your facts and you will see Thatcher was responsible for this under the 1986 SEA (although she only wanted the free movements of goods, services and capital but not peoples - unless it meant Brits being able to work or reside in the rest of the EU!!!)
Comrade Geordie - by virtue of being a Swedish citizen she automatically has the correct paperwork to work here (aka the law!)
To all - she was deported for a crime of smuggling a child, not because she was Nigerian or black. Moreover, she still has a right to Justice for this separate issue of employment law as anyone does. If she was unlawfully dismissed she has a right to seek justice for that and doesnt somehow lose that right as the reactionary mob on here wish that she would. The fact that what she was deported for is repugnant doesnt change that.
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Alex Brown | 28/02/2011 10:48 am
Thanks Joe a little sanity at last. Yes her crime was reprehensible but that is separate from her employment claim, so much as I would like to see it thrown out summarily the law must take it's course
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