{"id":224717,"date":"2025-06-29T19:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T19:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/224717\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T19:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T19:11:15","slug":"star-wars-safety-boss-sues-after-sacking-for-white-man-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/224717\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars safety boss sues after sacking for \u2018white man\u2019 comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first woman of colour employed as a head of health and safety on a Walt Disney series is suing the production company for unfair dismissal after being sacked for referring to a colleague as a \u201cwhite man\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sadi Khan, a single mother from Nottingham, was employed by the production company Blue Stockings, which is owned by the Disney subsidiary Lucasfilm, making the television series The Acolyte, part of the Star Wars franchise.<\/p>\n

She had previously worked as health and safety co-ordinator on Disney\u2019s remake of Snow White<\/a>, filmed at Pinewood Studios.<\/p>\n

Khan, who is of Pakistani heritage, had received an MBE in 2018 for services to cultural and religious awareness and training and services to the vulnerable.<\/p>\n

She is suing Blue Stockings for unfair dismissal, sex and race discrimination, harassment and victimisation after she was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct in November 2022.<\/p>\n

In her witness statement, Khan claims that she was sacked after blowing the whistle over \u201cunsafe practices\u201d on film sets at Shinfield Studios in Berkshire and Arborfield Studios in Wokingham, including \u201cdangerous working at height activities\u201d that \u201ccould have resulted in a fatality\u201d, scaffolding with no inspection tags and forklifts and other machines with no inspection logs.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence to an employment tribunal hearing in Reading, Khan said: \u201cIf it was Tom Cruise saying they have to take health and safety seriously, they\u2019d have listened to him, but they took no notice of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vernestra<\/p>\n

Rebecca Henderson as Vernestra Rwoh and Lee Jung-jae as Sol in The Acolyte<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI took the view that everyone who came onto the film set was my son \u2014 that\u2019s why I worked so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khan said that, after she had raised concerns, \u201csafety meetings became an intimidating and hostile environment for me. Every time I spoke I was belittled by comments saying \u2018this is the film industry\u2019 \u2026 I felt ignored and not taken seriously\u201d.<\/p>\n

She claimed there was a \u201ccampaign\u201d against her and that the production company hired a man to a more senior role than hers. Khan was sacked for referring to him as a \u201cwhite man\u201d and for \u201cmaking inappropriate comments\u201d to her colleagues, the tribunal was told.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Snow White: how the fairytale became a nightmare for Disney<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Khan said she had spoken to the site doctor on a confidential basis, saying she felt she had been discriminated against because the man had been put in a more senior role than hers.<\/p>\n

She said she had not initially stated that the man was white and that when she used the word it was not in a derogatory sense, but as a factual description. \u201cMy first response was that they\u2019ve brought in an Englishman. They\u2019ve bought a white man in above me when I haven\u2019t done anything wrong \u2026 It wasn\u2019t said in a derogative way \u2014 it was taken out of context.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI was saying that the optics didn\u2019t look right \u2014 he was an Englishman, I was the only woman of colour \u2014 he\u2019d been brought in above me when I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong and he was coming in to take over my position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why she had not raised an official grievance about her alleged treatment, Khan said: \u201cI wanted it off the record. I was told, \u2018you\u2019re the first woman of colour in this position ever for Lucasfilm in the UK\u2019 \u2014 that is a milestone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do a good job. This is my dream job \u2026 I didn\u2019t want to become an issue. I wanted to do the work that I loved \u2026 I didn\u2019t want to ruin my career in the film industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katherine Taunton, for Blue Stockings, told Khan: \u201cThere isn\u2019t a single piece of evidence before the tribunal that anyone ever made discriminatory comments about your race or sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam Teeuw, the vice-president of physical production at Lucasfilm, denied minimising the health and safety concerns she raised, and told the tribunal he believed that he had supported Khan and given her team extra resources to do their job.<\/p>\n

In her witness statement Kahn said that her dismissal has caused her \u201cmental, emotional, financial, physical and reputation harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThe respondent\u2019s removal of my screen credits and defamation of my character with other productions I believe has lost me my career. I have been humiliated, disrespected, embarrassed to my core and feel like I have been physically abused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Stockings denies the allegations, but declined to comment. The case continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first woman of colour employed as a head of health and safety on a Walt Disney series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-224717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114768241411573797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}