A newsagent was left stunned after she was asked to disclose her sexuality in a form related to the sale of pre-packed sandwiches.

Aruna Majevadia had been selling sandwiches from Aruna's Newsagent in Gardner Street, Brighton, for more than two years when hygiene inspectors took away a sample for testing.

Last week she received a form, sent by Brighton and Hove City Council, asking her to tick various boxes to ensure she met food hygiene regulations.

Ms Majevadia was amazed that an accompanying service monitoring form requested details of her nationality, religion and sexuality.

She said: "I was flabbergasted. I filled in the form because I didn't want the council to stop me selling sandwiches. The last question asked me whether I was bisexual, heterosexual or lesbian. That threw me.

"What has my sexuality or nationality got to do with selling sandwiches? I'm normally a jolly person but this brought me down. I'm just a single mum trying to earn a living."

Ms Majevadia, a British Asian Hindu, refused to fill in the boxes about her sexuality and added her own box with the words "single mum". Last month she had been asked to complete another form about food sold on the premises and later received a letter stating the sandwich sample was satisfactory.

So she was bemused that the food hygiene form received last week asked her about the premise's water supply.

She ticked the "public (mains) supply" box but rang the council to find out what the relevance was.

She said: "My question was why I needed a water supply to sell pre-packed sandwiches. A woman at the council told me you need to wash your hands each time."

A spokesman said: "Filling in the form about water and facilities helps save taxpayers money because it helps cut down the number of premises we have to inspect.

"The monitoring form is there to ensure outlets run by a particular section of the community, say ethnic groups, are not seen to be attracting any more attention from our inspectors than any other. It's all about fairness and having the statistics to ensure we're being fair."