A FORMER Rugby League star and a bar manager accused his boss of sexual harassment - after he slept with her in a bid to get his job back.

Clifford Benjamin, 32, who played for league team Batley Bulldogs for two years, hauled the owner of the bar where he worked to a tribunal claiming that she had bombarded him with text messages and letters wanting a relationship which he claimed never happened.

But his attempt to convince the hearing failed after his boss Kim Gibson showed the tribunal text messages sent by him saying: "Now we're f****** I can be manager again."

Mr Benjamin, who also played amateur rugby in Huddersfield, said after the case that he had lodged an appeal against the findings.

He began his attempts at revenge after he was forced to resign after hitting two female bar staff.

Miss Gibson, who was managing director of Elements Bar in Huddersfield, said he resigned the day after the incident in November.

Two days later he asked her round to his house to "talk about things, not to fight." But after drinking a bottle of Sambuca the pair ended up having sex.

Shortly after the pair slept with each other Mr Benjamin accused her of sexually harassing him at work, but she claimed he brought the case only because she refused to re-employ him.

The pair first met in May 2003 when Miss Gibson employed Mr Benjamin's firm Pulse to provide door staff at her new club, Elements Bar.

The pair began a working relationship but over the months became closer - although it never became physical.

In September Miss Gibson offered him the job of bar manager after trouble with her staff.

The tribunal heard evidence from both parties, who were representing themselves, about the different versions of their relationship.

Mr Benjamin told the tribunal in Leeds, that throughout the seven months he worked at the club Miss Gibson made comments, rang him, sent him letters and flirted around him and bought him clothes.

He claimed Miss Gibson had sent him letters, text messages and cards asking him out on dates and telling him she fancied him, even telling people she wanted to have babies with him.

Setting out his claim to the employment tribunal he had returned home from work to find messages written in lipstick across his car and front door.

He said she bombarded him with letters of a "personal and sexual content" saying she wanted something to happen between them and told people they were having a relationship.

She bought him two shirts and then wrote letters to him commenting on how good he looked wearing them.

But Miss Gibson said the only reason she bought them was because his shirt had been ripped one night at the bar and he had asked for a new one.

"I have made it clear to her that I don't fancy her and find her behaviour towards me threatening," the 6ft bouncer told the tribunal.

"After this her attitude towards me changed and I felt that she was trying to make my working environment difficult."

Mr Benjamin said he felt he was "being pushed out" by Miss Gibson who made it hard for him to work and fulfil his role as bar manager and had wanted to leave in October but had been persuaded to stay.

A mutual friend of the pair, Muhammed Gadafi, told the court: "She didn't want him to leave. She told me she was crazy about him and wanted to have sex with him. I told her she was making the situation worse by putting pressure on him with the letters."

The mother-of-one said Mr Benjamin's claims were rubbish and he had only brought the case after the pair slept with each other "when he tried to get his job back". When it didn't work she claims he launched his campaign against her.

Giving evidence Miss Gibson said she would not hide the fact that she had fallen in love with Mr Benjamin after the pair grew closer through work.

"He knew I fancied him but when I sent him texts he would respond in a positive way and would flirt back. There was no way I was stalking him.

"If he was sexually harassed or threatened why did he take the job as manager when I offered it to him?

"The reason why he left was not because I was still chasing him. He left because of gross misconduct. He had hit two of my bar staff."

The tribunal ruled in favour of Miss Gibson because her evidence had the ring of truth about it.

A tribunal spokesman said: "We accept Miss Gibson's evidence that the pair of them had sex on two occasions and we struggle to see how an individual who found themselves threatened should behave in that way."