The Policeman said to have sexually assaulted a woman officer was accused of lying and "covering his tracks'' yesterday.

Lawyer Clare Hatcher, representing the Policewoman, claimed the defendant told lies about the alleged sex attack during a Board of Inquiry tribunal yesterday.

And she claimed the accused man, known as P.c. B, made notes making up a false version of events before the investigation began.

West Indian P.c. B, who denies sexual harassment, is accused of forcing a kiss on his victim in his office at Somerset Police Station.

He is also said to have rubbed his own private parts through his trousers, telling the Policewoman how much he wanted her in the 15-minute ordeal on September 11, 1996.

The accused officer claimed instead that he was hugged by P.c. A, who stared and walked out of the office when he rejected her advances, all in less than a minute.

But Mrs. Hatcher said: "I put it to you that your version is simply not true.'' She added later: "Your evidence makes absolutely no sense whatsoever -- that her complaint just comes out of ether.'' P.c. B, under cross-examination during the Human Rights Commission hearing, said: "The record will show that my version is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'' He repeatedly gave the single answer "incorrect'' during three hours of questioning about P.c. A's evidence at St. Theresa's Cathedral Hall.

The Policewoman said she rang P.c. B at home on a Sunday night to complain about the attack in his office on the previous Wednesday.

But P.c. B claimed the woman constable had phoned to ask him to carry on treating her the same as he always had done.

Mrs. Hatcher asked why he noted down details of the phone call but made no note of the actual incident. And P.c. B said he had not kept his original notes.

But Mrs. Hatcher said: "Were you trained as a Police officer? Were you not trained about the importance of contemporaneous notes?'' P.c. B, laughing, said: "Yes but I didn't feel this phone conversation was something which needed a contemporaneous note.'' Inquiry chairman Tim Marshall asked: "In order to protect yourself, why not record what took place on September 11?'' P.c. B, represented by Richard Hector QC, added: "I know in my mind what happened. It was a personal experience.'' Mrs. Hatcher said: "You were trying to cover your tracks at that point.

"I put it to you that you made that note with your version of events to try to explain why P.c. A would have called you on a Sunday evening.'' Mrs. Hatcher also claimed P.c. B told "just a lie'' when he said Sgt. Anselm Kirby paid him a bar bill on September 9 instead of September 11, the day of the alleged attack.

P.c. A claimed the assault came after paying off her tab at the Somerset Police Recreation Club, the same day as Sgt. Kirby paid his bill.

The accused officer also claimed he was handed an anonymous note informing him that P.c. A had filed her official complaint.

He said he had not kept the handwritten note, adding later: "The note said P.c. A had made a complaint of sexual assault against me...please destroy.'' Mrs. Hatcher said: "We didn't hear that in your evidence yesterday. It said please destroy? So you followed the instructions and destroyed it and that's why you don't have a copy today? What did you do with it?'' P.c. B replied: "Got rid of it.. .disposed of it.'' Mrs. Hatcher asked: "Can you describe the note?'' P.c. B said: "On a piece of paper.'' Mrs. Hatcher asked: "What kind of paper?'' "White paper,'' said P.c. B, saying he could not remember how he found the note in his office but that it had already been brought there "by a person''.

Mrs. Hatcher asked: "But it's not frozen in your memory, seeing the note on your desk or wherever?'' P.c. B said: "You have to remember I was confused. I had this phone call on Sunday night which confused me.

"Now at work the next day I receive this note. You have this feeling that something's amiss, that everybody's trying to avoid you. It puts you off guard.'' The case continues today.