The BBC has been warned to settle all outstanding equal pay claims or face further “self-harm” after Samira Ahmed won a landmark judgment against the corporation.

An employment tribunal found in Ahmed’s favour after she argued that she deserved to be paid the same for presenting Newswatch as Jeremy Vine received for presenting Points of View. She is now in line for £700,000 in back pay.

The decision is a boost for the dozens of BBC women either ready to take their equal pay cases to tribunal or still mired in the internal grievance procedure. The corporation has already begun approaching some of them with pay offers.

In Ahmed’s case, the tribunal ruled that the Newswatch and Points of View jobs represented “like work” and the judges were withering in their assessment of the BBC’s case.

Ahmed was paid £440 per episode while Vine was paid £3,000, despite the similarities between their roles. The BBC had argued that Vine brought special skills and a light-hearted tone to a role that required a cheeky “glint in the eye”.

But the tribunal said: “We had difficulty in understanding what the [BBC] meant by a ‘glint in the eye’ and how that translated into a ‘skill’ or ‘experience’ to do a job. How does one acquire such a skill or experience?