There was a landmark victory yesterday for Britain’s six million carers, when the European Court of Justice upheld the right of a woman who was refused time off work to look after her disabled son.

Sharon Coleman, who worked as a legal secretary in south London, fought her case for three years.

She said yesterday: ‘All I was ever asking for was an equal playing field with the same flexibility afforded to my colleagues without disabled children.’

‘This has been a long, hard battle and it is not over yet, but I am thrilled that the European court has ruled in my favour. This decision will mean so much too so many people.’

Her case will now return to an employment tribunal in London which will rule on the facts, and consider how British law needs amending.

Coleman described in evidence how she was picked on by managers after giving birth in 2002. Her son Oliver suffered from the start from deafness and respiratory problems. She claimed that her requests for time off were treated differently from colleagues who asked for time for hospital visits or other tasks involving their children.

The key passage of the court ruling says: ‘Where an employer treats an employee who is not himself disabled less favourably than another employee in a comparable situation, and it is established that the less favourable treatment of that employee is based on the disability of his child, whose care is provided primarily by that employee, such treatment is contrary to the prohibition of direct discrimination laid down by the directive.’