Apprentice evictee Shazia Wahab has hit out at Sir Alan's decision to fire her, and claimed "I would have won if I'd stayed."

Balham girl Shazia, 35, was the second hopeful to be booted out this series, following fellow Wandsworth resident Nicholas de Lacy Brown's departure last week.

Speaking after her exit, Shazia told yourlocalguardian.co.uk: "Sir Alan made a mistake. I was stitched up and didn't deserve to be fired."

The mosaic artist was part of girls' team Alpha, who lost to the boys in a laundry task.

Their gaffes included offering to wash a hotel's dirty laundry for a whopping £4.99 per item, and then charging a paltry £15 to launder and iron a huge pile of dirty clothes.

What ultimately cost her the job, Shazia said, was leaving a well-organised launderette to go and fetch the iron from their house.

"I was instrumental in the task itself. I knew what washing was going where and what belonged to whom, and everything was organised and controlled.

"When I left, it was mayhem. We lost items and gave people back the wrong things.

"I used my initiative to say we should go and secure the iron, but I was told to go by Jenny C.

"I would have won if I'd stayed in the show. I'm a listener as well as a doer, and would have made a fantastic project manager."

Shazia has also vented her anger about her "appalling" project manager, Jenny Celerier.

"She wanted to start by telling us about sales techniques, but she lost the plot for three hours, and time is money.

"She didn't look at the strengths of the other team members.

"We were allocated tasks at a whim, and there was no structure."

The angry evictee went on to slam her project manager's overall treatment of fellow contestant Lucinda, who was reduced to tears at one point in the task.

"Jenny will now think it's ok to treat people the way she does.

"Further down the line she will get caught out. Her true colours are starting to come out.

"Lucinda was completely under-estimated. People think she's weird but she's lovely. I think she should win and will go really far."

Shazia now plans to go back to running her business - Mirror Emporium in Tooting.

Born and bred in Balham, she felt at home living in the flashy Battersea pad which the aspiring apprentices shared during the series.

"I used to cast my eye over the bridge and realise I lived five minutes away. I didn't get homesick," she said.