A crisp factory worker today told an employment tribunal he was ''badgered'' into taking part in a role-playing session despite suffering from a severe stammer.

Kevin Alderson, 40, resigned from his £16,000 a year job as a technician with Walkers crisps after he felt complaints into the matter were not handled properly.

The father-of-two told an employment tribunal hearing in Newcastle that he had asked Mary King, his line manager, if he could be excused from the role-playing session which took place in June 1999.

Mr Alderson, who is conducting his own case with the backing of the British Stammering Association, said: ''I felt she (Mrs King) badgered me into taking part.''

The former Walkers employee, who has now taken a job labouring on building sites, was cross-examined by Guy Bredenkamp for the snack food firm.

Mr Bredenkamp asked Mr Alderson: ''Do you not think it reasonable for Mrs King to encourage you to go beyond what you would strictly want to do all the time?''

He replied: ''Not regarding my speech impediment, no. Is she an expert on speech therapy?''

Mr Bredenkamp said: ''One way of looking at what Mary King might have been trying to do is to simply draw yourself out of what you can do.

''She might have been wrong. It is not bullying or harassment to be wrong.''

Earlier Mr Alderson, whose wife Lesley sat beside him at the hearing, told the panel how his disability embarrassed him during the role-playing session at work.

He said today: ''I stammered and stuttered badly and I was embarrassed very badly.

''A stammerer hates being stuck on the spot in front of people.

''I absolutely hate it because it puts the spotlight on you and it makes me more nervous than I already am.''

Mr Bredenkamp said the claimant had filled in an evaluation form after the role-playing course which indicated Mr Alderson had enjoyed the session.

The claimant agreed he had enjoyed ''virtually everything'', but said he made comments on the form expressing his unhappiness at having to speak during the role-playing session.

Mr Alderson, of Oswald Terrace, Easington Colliery, County Durham, resigned in May 2000 after 23 years with the factory in Peterlee.

Since then he has received psychiatric treatment and has suffered depression.

He claims constructive dismissal and that he was the victim of disability discrimination.

The tribunal continues.

Updated: 15.20 Tuesday, July 3