Carer in legal win over work hours

Sharon Coleman says she suffered "discrimination by association" - and an Advocate-General at the European Court of Justice agreed.

The formal "opinion" is not the last step in her fight; now a full panel of European judges will take the Advocate-General's view into consideration before delivering the final ruling later this year.

But in about 80% of European Court of Justice cases, the judges do back the Advocate-General's opinion.

Ms Coleman says she was forced to leave her job because she was not allowed as much flexibility in her work as parents of other children were.

She was already working with law firm Attridge Law when she gave birth to a disabled son in 2002. He suffers from serious respiratory problems, including apnoeic attacks - an involuntary halt to breathing.

As primary carer, Ms Coleman wanted flexible working arrangements, but accepted voluntary redundancy in March 2005 and began a claim for constructive dismissal five months later.

The case is now set to return to an employment tribunal, which will make a decision on Ms Coleman's complaint that she was not allowed to work from home or work flexible shifts to care for her son, who also has hearing problems.

She claimed her manager had commented that her son was always sick and had accused her of trying to use his condition to get out of work.

An employment tribunal hearing the case decided to refer it to the European Court for a ruling on whether EU discrimination laws covering the disabled can also apply to people not themselves disabled, but closely associated with a disabled person. Advocate-General Poiares Maduro confirmed that.