Staff at an Islamic college near Oxford bullied and threatened a woman worker because she refused to assist in obtaining fraudulent visas and work permits, a tribunal has been told.

The 39-year-old woman, from Kidlington, also claims colleagues deliberately excluded her by talking in foreign languages in her presence.

Heidi El-Megrisi is suing the Azad University for sex discrimination, unfair dismissal, race discrimination, breach of contract and several other technical claims.

At the employment tribunal hearing in Reading, Mrs El-Migrisi, who worked as an administrator at the college in Farmoor, said the vice-chancellor had threatened her when she refused to help obtain a fraudulent work permit for his son.

She was told she might be denied her annual leave and not given time off to care for her children if they fell ill.

In a written statement, Mrs El-Megrisi said on another occasion, a student, who was leaving, became abusive when she refused to tell the Home Office he would still be studying at the college, so he could falsely extend his visa.

Mrs El-Magrisi was an academic administrator at Azad University - a college that boasted it was "better than Oxford University" when it employed her. Mrs El-Megrisi started working for Azad, which has a parent institution in Tehran, Iran, in April 2005.

She resigned three months later saying the business was in disarray, work practices were "odd", staff were not allowed lunch breaks and that a women's toilet had not been provided.

The tribunal heard her resignation was not accepted and she continued to work for the college until 2006. The hearing is expected to last nine days.