The number of ‘bright young’ candidates in series four of the Apprentice were reduced when the second hopeful was fired on Wednesday night.

Expert employment lawyers, from law firm Halliwells, will be keeping a watchful eye on the antics of Sir Alan and his apprentices in a weekly column, published every Thursday.

Christopher Davies, professional support lawyer, Halliwells

Shazia Wahab, who immediately claimed that she was being made a scapegoat, was obviously upset at her early exit. What may be surprising is that at the age of 35 she is one of the oldest candidates in this years bunch of what of have been described by the show’s host as ‘bright young things’.

Age discrimination was made unlawful in October 2006 when the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force. The regulations provide protection to all employees and job applicants against less favourable treatment based on their age. The employer when faced with such a claim could either deny it or attempt to show that the treatment was justified.

In the US there is the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. This provides protection against less favourable treatment for older workers only. In the USA a rejected applicant for the US version of the same show brought proceedings against property tycoon Donald Trump over alleged age discrimination. Richard Hewett had failed to get on the show in 2005 and claimed that Trump and the show’s producers violated the USA age discrimination laws. Hewett claimed that his application was rejected because at the age of 49 he was considered too old.

Subsequently it has been reported that the legal proceedings Hewett brought have been the subject of a settlement the terms of which could not be disclosed. However it is interesting that his claim was based on the statistics that in six seasons, including the latest one called "Apprentice LA", 106 people out of hundreds of thousands of applicants were selected as finalists for these jobs and not one was over 42 years old. Here it has been reported for this season that there were a record 20,000 applications to take part on this series and yet none of those accepted are above the age of 40.

Could an age discrimination claim be brought here?

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