Sexual innuendo and unwanted advances from a hospital boss forced Shirley-Ann O'Hara to quit her job, a tribunal heard.

Colin Jones eventually demanded she be nice to him or he would "run her out" of the Headington hospital where she worked, the hearing was told.

She claimed the chief executive of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust warned her position was at risk after the disability services manager ignored his flirting.

Suing for constructive dismissal and sexual harassment, Miss O'Hara alleges Mr Jones: *Looked down her cleavage;

*Tried to touch her hair;

*Made offensive comments about her Catholicism; and

*Forced her to resign when she rebuffed his "unwelcome" advances.

Miss O'Hara started working at the Nuffield in August 1997. Her main role was to bring forward plans to redevelop the hospital and relocate the Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre and Ritchie Russell House.

She told the industrial tribunal in Reading that she worked extremely hard and was a "one-man band", frequently praised for her efforts. But the 31-year-old found her job more and more difficult as Mr Jones, of The Farthings, Marcham, near Abingdon, made comments that left her "personally offended".

The first time he made "unwelcome" advances was in March 1998, during a retirement dinner for surgeon John Spivey, she said.

"On several occasions, Colin Jones looked down my cleavage. He tried to touch my hair, which he kept commenting on. I had not dyed my hair, but I had curled it especially for the event. "He told me that he had not employed me for what I knew and that he did not listen to me at my interview or even understand my Scottish accent. I replied that an interview panel had selected me and then turned my back on him in disgust."

Describing another incident in early 1998, Miss O'Hara said: "He remarked about my religious beliefs and asked laughingly whether it was true what is said about Catholic girls in bed.

"Despite Colin Jones making these inappropriate comments and making me feel uneasy, I did my best to act professionally and continue to perform the job for which I was employed." But on October 28, 1998, during a journey with Mr Jones, he started talking about his "boy racer car". Miss O'Hara said: "He went on to tell me how much disposable income he had, that he could afford good restaurants and that he and his wife were leading relatively separate lives now that his family had grown up.

"This was clearly an advance to me and I rebuffed it. It was from that moment on that I tried to have as little contact as possible alone with Colin Jones. It was also from that moment that Colin Jones started to exclude me from certain aspects of site redevelopment. "Often I received relevant information second-hand. This made it even more difficult for me to carry out my work properly."

Finally, in February 1999, Mr Jones circulated a revised management structure for disability services, including a vacancy for a new overall director.

The 55-year-old said he did not want Miss O'Hara, of Old Road, Headington, to work on the next stage of the redevelopment and when she retaliated by asking him to send his proposals in writing to her solicitor, he said there was no need because it was not a disciplinary hearing.

"He said that if I was not nice to him, he would ensure that I had no job," she told the hearing. "As I rose from my chair, he moved around the table and said that he was sick of the barrage of abuse that he got about me and said he was the only person who stood up for me, that I should not make an enemy of him and that I would regret it and he would run me out of here.

"I returned to my office. I was extremely upset and in tears." Miss O'Hara resigned in August.

When Mr Jones's solicitor, Raoul Downey, asked her if there were any witnesses to the alleged advances, she replied: "There were never any witnesses and that was the problem.

"He always made sure there were never any other people around when he made these comments." Mr Downey suggested Miss O'Hara looked provocative at the retirement dinner and had been drinking quite a lot of alcohol. She answered: "We were in quite high spirits and it was a lovely evening and I was quite relaxed, yes. I had curled my hair. I wanted to make a good impression for myself, not for anyone else."

Mr Downey said he doubted Miss O'Hara had turned away in disgust, as no-one had seen her do it and Mr Jones had not said anything at all.

She replied: "He did say something and I can only assume that because it was a social evening, he thought he was at liberty to ask such a thing.

"I did turn round, but I didn't want to cause attention at a medical doctor's retirement dinner." The tribunal continues.

Story date: Tuesday 30 November

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.