A KITCHEN porter has lost his claim that he was unfairly dismissed by a Oxford prep school and discriminated against for being Albanian.

Gazmir Dema, pictured, told an employment tribunal he was called a gypsy and a terrorist when he worked in the kitchen at The Dragon School in North Oxford.

But last Thursday his case against the school for racial discrimination and unfair dismissal for his sacking in February last year was thrown out.

Former pupils of The Dragon include Tim Henman, Hugh Laurie and Emma Watson.

Mr Dema started working at the school in September 2007, but was dismissed in February 2011 after making what a school investigation ruled was a false allegation that colleague Robert Hubbard had assaulted him.

Mr Hubbard was arrested at school by police but the matter was dropped within 20 minutes, the tribunal said.

Tribunal judge Robin Lewis said while there were some problems with the school’s process in dismissing Mr Dema, now 30, overall it had been fair.

He added: “Dismissal, in the circumstances, was plainly in the range of reasonable responses, having regard to the existence of a final written warning (previously, for other issues), and to the patent impossibility of the claimant returning to work with Mr Hubbard in a pressured environment.”

The tribunal also struck out the claim for racial discrimination, ruling Mr Dema had complained too late for the tribunal to be able to rule on some of his allegations.

Judge Lewis said there had been an argument between Mr Dema and another colleague, Mr Godwin, in which the latter had used the word Albanian in an insulting or derogatory manner in 2008, but this had been dealt with informally at the time.

Ruling Mr Dema had waited too long to complain to the tribunal, Judge Lewis said: “We note that there appear to have been a number of incidents of heat-of-the-moment speech.

“It does not seem to us right to require an employer to answer an allegation of a heat-of-the-moment remark made so long before the allegation is presented that it is incapable of investigation or fair consideration.”

The tribunal also ruled that there was no evidence that Mr Dema, of Market Street, Charlbury, was treated differently from other staff because of his nationality.

Judge Lewis concluded: “We have no hesitation in stating that we find that race was not a material factor, or indeed a factor of any degree, in the decision to dismiss.”