DOCTOR'S receptionist Leanne Elliott was too afraid of being unemployed again to refuse when her boss told her to kneel down before him and sew a button on the open fly of his trousers.

It was the 17-year-old's third week in the job and six months of "appalling" harassment, groping and threats of rape followed until she resigned in 1996.

Ms Elliott, who was paid $3.50 an hour by general practitioner Prem Rattan Nanda, yesterday was awarded $15,200 in damages in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in Sydney.

Dr Nanda, 51, did not turn up yesterday to defend himself, however he wrote to the commission several months ago admitting to the button incident but claiming the receptionist volunteered to do it.

Ms Elliott wept as she told the commission that Dr Nanda boasted of sex with a 14-year-old girl and warned that anyone who harmed his reputation would be found floating in a river. But she said she felt trapped in the job because her parents did not want her returning to the jobless queue.

"Once when I was going out to lunch, he asked me to tell him if I got raped or anything so that he could join in," Ms Elliott said.

She worked at the Terrace Medical Centre at Raymond Terrace, north of Newcastle, from September 1995 to March 1996 and was previously unemployed for three months. "Dr Nanda recounted his many affairs with patients and asked me what the chances were of me going to the cops if he locked up the surgery, threw me on the floor, sucked my tits, sucked me down below and then f . . .ed me," she said. "At first I thought Dr Nanda was just being a dirty old man, but after it was happening every day, I started to feel icky, squirmy, very uneasy."

Ms Elliott, now 21, said the strain caused her to gain about 15kg, lose clumps of hair and develop insomnia and bowel and bladderproblems.