A DARWEN father-of-three who complained he was demoted from food packer to cleaner has lost a fight for compensation for unfair dismissal.

Tasib Khan, 40, worked at Scheff Foods Ltd, Birmingham, but came home to Queen Street, Darwen at weekends.

Mr Khan, who says he is well known in Darwen as "Taz", was employed by Scheff eight months ago as a frozen food packer, a Birmingham employment tribunal was told. He said he was sacked after a few months but successfully appealed against the decision but was demoted to cleaner.

"I was not happy about the cleaning job but it was work," he said. "Then I injured my right leg while using one of the firm's trolleys and a little later I was sacked."

Mr Khan said he believed he was unfairly dismissed and made his claim on a health and safety issue.

The firm opposed Mr Khan's claim and said he had been sacked because the management were not satisfied with the standard of his work and because he had been absent without reason.

The preliminary hearing had been held to enable the tribunal to decide whether Mr Khan should be given the official go-ahead to have his claim heard at a full hearing at a later date.

But tribunal chairman Mr David Owen dismissed Mr Khan's claim. "Mr Khan brought his claim under a health and safety issue because an applicant cannot claim compensation for unfair dismissal unless he or she has been employed by the respondent firm for 12 months," said Mr Owen.

"In Mr Khan's case he was employed for only eight months. Unfortunately, there is no jurisdiction for Mr Khan's claim on health and safety grounds."

Mr Khan said afterwards that his leg injury was not serious and that he was now planning to return to Darwen to look for work.