HAIRDRESSING wars broke out when a salon's top stylist quit to set up her own business - and the ensuing battle ended up at an industrial tribunal for the second time in two months yesterday.

Peter Moss, who runs The Hilary Hair, Beauty and Fashion Studio, in Durham City, clashed with his former manageress Pauline Fairbairn when she set up a rival business.

A tribunal hearing in January ordered Mr Moss to pay her £559 in lieu of holiday she had not taken, as well as overtime owed.

Yesterday Mr Moss appeared before another tribunal accused of not paying another stylist after she decided to quit. Claire Hodgson told the hearing in Newcastle that she was owed £982 for holiday and commission.

Miss Hodgson said she had joined the salon under the Youth Training Scheme in 1987 and had been given two weeks paid leave during the two years she was on the scheme.

But when she decided to stay on with the salon as an "improver" hairdresser, she was told that she would not get paid holiday for the first year, as was then common practice.

The then manageress of the salon had told her that four weeks paid holiday could be taken the following year, and when she left the company she would be paid the cash in lieu, the tribunal heard.

Miss Hodgson, of Alfreton Close, Durham, who resigned to set up her own mobile hairdressing business last year, said she had not heard from Mr Moss after resigning and had not been allowed to work her notice.

Mr Moss rejected her claims, saying she had not been entitled to commission.

He also claimed that she had taken three weeks paid leave during her year as an "improver", as had then been the practice.

He told the hearing he had also appealed against the finding of the previous tribunal.

At that hearing Mr Moss of Stockley Grove, Brancepeth, had accused Mrs Fairbairn, of Crook, of poaching his customers when she left to set up her own business in the city.

Judgement relating to yesterday's hearing was reserved until a later date