"Coloured" a bad word in Britain

Somebody should tell them about the NAACP

Disabled pensioner is banned from using Sainsbury's home delivery service 'for calling their driver a coloured gentleman'

Marian Burke, 73, from Highgate, north London, says she used the term entirely innocently to refer to a ‘lovely’ deliveryman

However Sainsbury's says she has used racist language on three separate occasions and has been banned from using other words

Marian Burke, 73, says she used the term entirely innocently to refer to a ‘lovely’ deliveryman who works for the supermarket.  But she says a manager at Sainsbury’s immediately branded her a racist for saying the word and said her custom was no longer welcome.

Last night the supermarket insisted the ban was justified and accused Mrs Burke of using a ‘racial slur’ on three separate occasions while being aggressive towards staff.

But wheelchair-bound Mrs Burke, who has a Kenyan carer, strenuously denied the charge and said Sainsbury’s should be ashamed of its actions.

Mrs Burke, who suffers from osteoporosis and cannot leave the house, says she is completely dependent on the delivery service for her £80 weekly shop.

Being unfamiliar with computers means online delivery is not an option, so for the last ten years she has phoned the supermarket with her shopping list of food and household goods.

After a string of mistakes in recent weeks with deliveries arriving without several essentials, she called the shop to inform them of their error.  She recalled: ‘When the manager asked me what the name of the delivery driver was, I had to tell him that I didn’t know. I said to him, “I don’t know his name, but he was a lovely coloured gentleman”.’

She continued: ‘Then all hell broke loose. The man on the other end of the phone called me a racist, and said they would never again take an order from me.’

Last night a Sainsbury’s spokesman claimed the company’s ban came after Mrs Burke had been ‘aggressive’ and used ‘racial slurs’.  He said: 'Mrs Burke's version of events does not reflect our experience of her. She was not solely banned for the use of the word 'coloured' but for a range of racial slurs on three separate occasions, used in an aggressive manner against our colleagues.

Last night one of Mrs Burke’s two carers said: ‘I heard the phone call. She was not rude and she was not racist at all.’

Using the term ‘coloured’ to refer to black people is considered to be offensive because it dismisses everyone who is not white as the same.

The term was in widespread use in Britain in the 1960s but is now viewed by many to be racist.

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