A Qatari diplomat called his driver a “dog”, “donkey” and a “black slave” during a campaign of physical and racial abuse while working at the country’s embassy in London, a tribunal has heard.

Abdullah Ali Al-Ansari, a diplomat who is currently employed as the Embassy’s head of its medical centre, is alleged to have subjected Mahamoud Ahmed, 79, his former driver and the organisation’s night security officer, to mental and physical abuse over a number of years. The attaché allegedly treated him like a “personal slave” who was “on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.

It emerged yesterday during proceedings at the Central London Employment Tribunal that he also allegedly offered Mr Ahmed a £50,000 bribe to drop the unfair dismissal case against him in a bid to “buy his silence”.

Mr Ahmed, a 79-year-old British citizen of Somali heritage, was sacked from the Embassy in 2013.

He wished to bring his case to tribunal years ago, however it was halted for more than a year until a Court of Appeal ruling in a 2015 which meant that embassies could not claim diplomatic immunity against staff bringing legal actions. The landmark ruling meant that Mr Ahmed was able to proceed with his case.