At just 17, Claire* would cry before going to work because she faced being sexually harassed by her boss.

Working part-time in a coffee shop while studying at university, she was subjected to a barrage of inappropriate comments and behaviour at the hands of her line manager, who was in his 40s.

This would range from comments about her breast size to being pushed against a wall as he tried to kiss her – and all of it was ignored by her colleagues and even a senior manager.

Speaking ahead of the launch of a new sexual harassment legal service in Scotland tomorrow, Claire, from Edinburgh, admits that – at the time – she was naïve and unaware of her rights and now regrets not taking action against her former employer.

She said: “I was made to feel uncomfortable very early on. There were a lot of jokes when I got the job that it was because I was a girl and I was young and I was blonde and all of those sorts of things.

“I brushed it aside as I really needed the money and quite quickly it got quite a lot worse.

“He would make really inappropriate comments and that escalated to him making sure that he was opening or closing the shop with me so that it was just the two of us there, and when I was restocking or doing anything like that he would come up really close to me, press up behind me, just make me feel uncomfortable.

“Occasionally it would get really bad and he would push me against cupboards and try to kiss me, or he would push his crotch up against me, it was really horrible.”

Despite the harassment, Claire stayed at the shop for four years because she needed the job and was not fully aware of how inappropriate the behaviour was.

“I didn’t feel like I could quit and I just thought ‘this is what it’s like, a lot of men are like this’,” she said. “I didn’t fully understand how inappropriate it was.

“I was the youngest working there and a lot of the staff, even the regional manager, were aware of the behaviour.

“They all thought it was a bit of banter and it was funny.”

She is now backing the launch of a new service by the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre which will offer women affected by sexual harassment at work, in higher education or online free legal advice and information.

Funded by the Rosa Justice and Equality fund, the service has been set up in a bid to help boost the low numbers of women who report harassment due to “normalisation and a lack of awareness”.

The centre also claims the service will help to fill a significant gap in access to objective and timely legal advice for women.

Kirsty Thomson, founding director of JustRight Scotland, a partner of the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre, said: “Women who have been sexually harassed may feel humiliated, fearful or ashamed, and this can lead to anxiety, depression and other problems.

“In this context, it can be a struggle for women to seek legal information and advice about their rights to start with, and it is therefore even more important that when a woman does go looking for help and support, we work to ensure that information and advice is widely available, accessible and timely.

“Unless woman get the advice and support they need in order to challenge harmful and hostile working environments, the laws we have prohibiting sexual harassment are failing to make a real difference in the day-to-day lives of women.”

The unique service will offer woman specialist legal support through a weekly legal helpline, legal surgeries and legal representation.

Claire believes that had such a service been available to her, she might have been able to take action against her boss and stop him from harassing her and other young women.

Instead, her mental health suffered as she struggled to cope with the harassment.

She said: “I would feel really depressed, really anxious, I would cry a lot.

“I wouldn’t ever want to go out after work, I would just go home, because I was just done with being around people, especially men.

“Eventually I just decided to leave, it was my final year of university and I didn’t want to be constantly upset.

“I didn’t know I could take legal action. I think had I been made aware of that, I might have gone to get some help to see if there was a way to stop it.”

Speaking about the new service, she added: “Anything that makes it easier for employees to make their workplace safer and better is to be welcomed.”

For more information on the new service, visit www.scottishwomensrightscentre.org.uk/sexual-harassment.

*The name has been changed to protect identity.