PC claims she was tormented by colleagues

6:34am Wednesday 29th August 2007

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A police firearms officer was hounded from her job by sexist cops who poked fun at her breasts and littered the station with topless magazine pictures, a tribunal heard.

PC Barbara Lynford said she was belittled by male colleagues while serving at Gatwick where she was the only woman in a team of 18 men.

And the officer told how she was left so upset by the abuse she has been off sick for more than two years.

The PC described one incident in which she said a colleague told her, "I promise not to look at your chest" after asking her to sit at the front of a classroom.

On a separate occasion a male colleague is alleged to have shouted, "Go on Barbara" as they exercised as a group and stretched their arms out from their chests.

Ms Lynford, 38, from Lewes, was serving as a firearms officer in D Section at Gatwick when the alleged incidents happened.

She told the Brighton tribunal that as the only woman in her section and as someone who was willing to work hard, her male colleagues had singled her out and made her life a misery.

She claims she was called a "daisy" a "whoopsy" and a "lipstick" by male officers and said: "I didn't have a motorbike, I didn't have an Alsatian dog. I was not in their little club. They just didn't want a woman around.

"They couldn't do all their blokey stuff in the van with me there."

She said that lads' magazines such as FHM and Maxim were often left around the station, open at pages showing topless women which she found offensive.

She said: "I felt sick every time I went to work and cried every time I got home."

Ms Lynford told the tribunal that she had wanted to be a police officer since she was a little girl and had written to Sussex Police to ask for a job when she was just ten.

She joined the force in August 1993 serving at Haywards Heath before transferring to Hove.

In August 2002 she moved to Gatwick to work in the firearms unit and was trained to use a self-loading pistol and an MP5 sub-machine gun.

On August 24 2005 she was signed off sick by her GP with work-related stress and prescribed anti-depressants.

Before this, she had only had one day off sick in the previous four years.

She has not returned to duty since and remains on full pay.

Speaking for Sussex Police, barrister Kathleen Donnelly put it to Ms Lynford that her impression of what she alleges to be sexism was affected by her self-doubt about failing two ongoing firearms assessments.

In a statement Ms Lynford told the tribunal: "It was never my intention to bring proceedings but in the end I felt that what had happened to me was wrong and that no other officer should go through what I have experienced.

"I have been fortunate that the Police Federation is supporting me in my case."

Brian Stockholm, the chairman of the Sussex Police Joint Branch Board, said: "It's always sad when we are unable to resolve workplace problems within the organisation and have to come outside to do so.

"Clearly that is a sign of failure."

The hearing continues.