A prison officer is waiting to hear if her claim for sexual discrimination has been successful, after refusing to conduct intimate rub-down searches on male inmates.

Forty-one-year old Carol Saunders told an employment tribunal that the searches - which involve touching the crotch and buttocks - often provoked innuendoes and unsavoury comments among male prisoners.

She described the experience at Long Lartin of having to intimately frisk male rapists, murderers and armed robbers as "degrading, distasteful and dehumanising".

The deputy governor of the prison argued that to allow Mrs Saunders not to frisk male prisoners would "dramatically change the work" that female prison staff could do and would mean a "significant change of policy". Mrs Saunders, who was moved to another prison after refusing to search a male inmate in November last year, has been off sick since January.

She said she had learned to carry out the searches, which did not require the removal of clothing, during her training in 1987, but cross-sex rub-downs were banned at that time by prison rules.

The tribunal was told that in 1992 the regulations were changed so that female staff could conduct the searches on men if they wished. The policy has since been updated so that all males may be rub-down searched by either sex, whereas females may only be rub-down searched by another female.

Mrs Saunders, from Tewkesbury, told the tribunal: "It is the act of requiring the search of a member of the opposite sex that I feel is discriminatory. A male officer is not put through this."

She said the queue of prisoners for the female officer was usually longer than for the male.

The matter came to a head in November 2003 when Mrs Saunders was asked to account for her refusal to carry out the searches.

Deputy Govenor Ian Evans told the tribunal that if female prison officers all refused to search males then the prison system would be affected.

He said: "I feel the position of having an officer within the establishment who was not able to undertake all of the duties was not an appropriate position for the manager to be in. "

After the tribunal, adjourned for a decision, Mrs Saunders said: "They sent me to Brockhill but the upheaval and stress drove me over the edge."