A FEMALE car plant worker forced out of her job by male colleagues who watched hardcore sex movies on their lunch break was celebrating last night after an employment tribunal victory against Nissan.

Paint shop worker Beverley Ward said that, despite her unhappiness at work, bosses had held her up as a shining example of Nissan's equal opportunities policy when Tony Blair visited the company's Wearside plant last year. She had sat with the Prime Minister during the VIP inspection.

Miss Ward, of Ferryhill, County Durham, told the tribunal that, because of the hardcore films, she was forced to eat her lunch in a toilet.

Now she could be awarded more than £50,000 in compensation after the tribunal ruled she had been the victim of sex discrimination.

The short-term contract worker said she was not offered a new contract because she was in the way of male colleagues who wanted to watch the explicit sex films at the plant, in Washington.

The tribunal heard that Miss Ward's supervisor, Dean Simpson, told her: "They don't want you, because you're a girl", and that another supervisor, Stuart Wright, said: "It caused disharmony because the men would have to turn off the video when Beverley came in."

Nissan Motors UK yesterday confirmed Miss Ward had won her case for unfair dismissal and that company lawyers were studying the employment tribunal's ruling.

The company admitted that it had been alerted to about 25 men allegedly watching "unsuitable" material and said it had acted swiftly to clamp down on the practice.

Managing director John Cushnaghan was said to have been "apoplectic", and to have personally told every manager and supervisor on site that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

Wayne Bruce, head of public relations at Nissan, refused to comment on whether any of those implicated in the allegations had been disciplined or sacked.

Miss Ward's solicitor, Lawrence Petterson, said she was unwilling to comment until after a financial settlement had been reached.

But he said: "She's highly delighted and she feels fully vindicated in taking the case to a tribunal."