A policewoman is set to get tens of thousands of pounds in compensation after fellow officers abused her at work.

Barbara Lynford, 38, was hounded from her job as a firearms officer at Gatwick Airport by sexist colleagues who made comments about her breasts and littered the station with topless magazine pictures.

She stands to be awarded up to £100,000 in compensation after a Brighton employment tribunal today found she had been sexually discriminated against.

Speaking after the judgement was announced, Miss Lynford said: "I am pleased the employment tribunal has vindicated my case.

"I hope now Sussex Police will learn from this case and take such complaints seriously in the future so that other female officers are not subjected to this kind of treatment.

"I have been fortunate that the Police Federation have supported me from the outset."

Miss Lynford, from Lewes, said she was belittled by male colleagues while serving at Gatwick where she was the only woman in the team.

In evidence she described an incident where a colleague said: "I promise not to look at your chest" after telling her to sit at the front of a classroom and another where a male colleague shouted, "Go on Barbara" as they exercised as a group and stretched their arms out from their chests.

She said that her health and personal life started to suffer as a result of the taunts and verbal abuse, contributing to the breakdown of her five-year relationship with PC Andrew Sara, a firearms officer with the Metropolitan Police.

Miss Lynford was prescribed anti-depressants by her GP, and has been signed-off duty with work-related stress since August 24, 2005.

The tribunal had been told by Miss Lynford and former officer PC Toby Gough that armed officers at Gatwick had routinely faked anti-terrorism patrol reports, took sick days when they were well and left guns unattended.

The tribunal heard that leaving weapons lying around was a "doughnut offence", punishable by having to buy cakes or doughnuts for the rest of the team.

Miss Lynford told the tribunal that officers in her team, D Section, went to sleep in the van while on duty at nights and used their radios to alert each other to attractive holidaymakers while on patrol around the airport.

It was claimed that they used derogatory terms such as MILF and GILF, shorthand for Mother/Grandmother I'd Like to F***, to describe visitors to the airport.

She also said that officers watched a late-night X-rated television channel in the police station's gym and TV room, which showed people simulating sex.

In evidence one of Miss Lynford's superiors, Sergeant Alastair Cleland, said he had heard an officer on duty using his radio to point out a "MILF" to a colleague and confirmed that officers referred to an area of the airport where air stewards and stewardesses were dropped off and picked up as the "snatch patch" - a reference to how many attractive women could be seen there.

In its judgement, the tribunal panel focused on the claims of sexual discrimination, upholding three of them but dismissing the other claims.

The panel concluded that magazines such as FHM, Maxim and Nuts, which contained pictures of topless women and which were left scattered around the police station, were "discriminatory".

Last night a Sussex Police spokesman would not confirm whether an investigation was being or would be carried out into the further allegations of faked patrol logs, sleeping on duty and "doughnut offences".

He said: "It is very regrettable when such cases come before a tribunal.

"It should be noted that the majority of the claims in this case were not upheld by the tribunal and those that were will be subject of an appeal.

"To that end it would be inappropriate to comment further."

Miss Lynford fulfilled her childhood dream when she joined Sussex Police on August 16, 1993, having written to them asking for a job when she was just 10 years old.

She spent her first nine years of service in Haywards Heath, Hove and Brighton.

In August 2002, she transferred to the Gatwick firearms division as an unarmed officer where she was the only permanent female officer in a staff of 14 constables, three sergeants, and an inspector.

Speaking in evidence, she said: "In all my life I have never been treated as badly as I have been at Gatwick.

"I survived backpacking around India at the age of 19 for a few months, where I was even kidnapped and held against my will for a few days in Bombay.

"Nothing, however, prepared me for the people at Gatwick."

Mohini Bharania, Miss Lynford's solicitor from Russell Jones and Walker, said: "It is regrettable that this experienced officer has had to tolerate this sort of behaviour in the workplace from her male colleagues and supervisors.

"It has taken enormous courage and strength for my client to raise these issues with her supervisors let alone bring them to the employment tribunal."

A remedy hearing - to decide the level of damages - will be held at a later date.