A jailed art expert has launched a £50,000 legal battle against the Home Office after a prison officer tried to seduce his wife as he served his time.

Mary Duddin was repeatedly sexually harassed by the guard as she visited her husband David, a dealer who was jailed for fencing a priceless Rembrandt.

The officer boasted to Mrs Duddin of orgies he had participated in at his previous job and pleaded with her for a date.

On one occasion he grabbed her visitor pass to find out her address and offered to visit her at her Newcastle home.

Newcastle County Court heard today how Mrs Duddin had to tell her husband of her ordeal in a packed vistors' room.

Mr Duddin told the court: "She said that the prison officer - I didn't know his name or anything then and neither did Mary - had been pressurising her to go out with him and basically have sex with him and that she was terrified.

"One of the reasons she was frightened was that the prison officer kept her visitors order for the next week and she knew she had to go back and see that prison officer on the way out."

Mr Duddin said that he was entitled to five visits per month while he was an "enhanced prisoner" - which meant he received special privileges for good behaviour - at Frankland Prison, County Durham.

He told the court: "The visiting system at Frankland was that prisoners posted out visiting orders to the visitors.

"They would would then bring in the visiting order for the week of the visit and also one for the next week.

"I posted them once a month because I was on the enhanced wing so I got four visits a month plus an extra one for being enhanced so I got five. They would be posted out five at a time.

"Apart from her being worried about what would, or might, happen to her outside, she was worried because she had to get the following week's visiting order from him and see him again."

The married warder was hauled before a private disciplinary hearing after complaints from Mrs Duddin.

Mrs Duddin - whose jeweller husband was serving a nine-year sentence - filed a complaint with governors at Frankland.

The warder - only mentioned in court by his surname, Linskill - was suspended during the internal investigation and later summoned to a disciplinary hearing, accused of misconduct.

The warder, who later committed suicide, was found guilty of misconduct following the incident in 1998.

The prison apologised to 56-year-old inmate Duddin, then a C-wing prisoner, for the upset caused to his wife of 33 years.

In a letter, Frankland Governor Peter Leonard wrote to him saying: "Some time ago your wife complained of the way she was treated by a member of staff.

"Following an investigation I conducted a disciplinary hearing. The case was heard under the serious case procedure, misconduct was proved and an appropriate award made.

"I am sorry for the distress this matter has caused you."

A separate letter from the Prison Service was sent to Mrs Duddin, 53.

It read: "Following your complaint, the matter was investigated by the Governor and action taken against the officer involved."

Last year Mrs Duddin was paid thousands of pounds in compensation after a lengthy legal battle.

And now, following his release, her husband, is seeking his own claim for damages.

He is sueing for misfeasance in public office, wrongful exercise of lawful authority, and negligence.

Speaking before the case began, Mrs Duddin, of Newcastle, said: "I felt sickened and frightened by what happened.

"I was on a normal visit seeing my husband - but this man made it clear he had control over my husband's welfare.

"I chatted to this officer before while waiting for clearance to get in and he seemed like a nice man.

"But, out of the blue, his conversation changed from things like the weather to things I didn't want to hear.

"He started talking about his old job and how there used to be wild parties with women on a ship he was building or repairing for the Falklands War.

"Then he asked me where I lived and asked me to go for a drink with him - somewhere out of the way, he said, where he wouldn't be known.

"I kept trying to change the subject, but then he started talking about his wife.

"I said she wouldn't be happy he was inviting me out for a drink - and he said it didn't matter since they slept in separate bedrooms and the marriage was over."

David Duddin, a once respected jeweller and antiques expert, was caught in an undercover police sting by a detective posing as an arts expert.

He was jailed for nine years in 1997 on six charges of handling stolen goods - including a Rembrandt masterpiece.

The 17th century painting - a portrait of the artist's mother - was stolen from the Earl of Pembroke's Wiltshire mansion on Bonfire Night 1994.

It was part of a treasure trove - including a £35,000 snuff box from Newcastle'e Laing art gallery - that Duddin boasted he was able to dispose of.

Although the Rembrandt was never in Duddin's hands he arranged for the undercover policeman to view it in London.

He was released in August 2001 after serving half his sentence.

The antiques dealer was in the news again earlier this year after he was hired by the Historic Houses Association to help recover two of the world's most expensive stolen artworks.