LONDON, Oct 14: The art teacher of Prince Harry, the third in line to the British throne, told a tribunal on Thursday that she had secretly taped a conversation with him about cheating on a school exam.

Sarah Forsyth, fighting a claim for unfair dismissal from prestigious Eton College, said she had been ordered by a school administrator to help the young royal pass a finishing exam.

Forsyth told the employment tribunal in Reading, west of London, that she duped Prince Harry as a last resort after her complaints of harassment against another member of staff went ignored by the school.

The tribunal heard the Prince was recorded by his teacher saying of his exam piece, submitted in 2002: "...tiny, tiny bit ... I did about a sentence of it." Nigel Giffen, the lawyer representing Eton College, argued that the "Harry issue" bore no relevance to the case and should be excluded from evidence.

A day of the proceedings was set aside to debate the admissibility of the evidence regarding Prince Harry. The tribunal heard that Forsyth's contract was terminated at Eton on June 16, 2003. But, aware of her "precarious position", Forsyth took Prince Harry into her room minutes before the start of his A-Level (school leaving exam) painting exam on May 15, 2003 to secretly record a conversation about help she had given him on an exam project the previous year.

Robin Allen, the lawyer representing Forsyth, said she had been instructed by Eton's head of art, Ian Burke, in the spring term of 2002 to "carry out certain work on the AS project of Prince Harry" - an AS-level is part of the A-level examination in Britain.

These instructions, he said, were given to her after it was announced by the school that she would not be given a permanent teaching post but instead put on a one-year contract. Britain's royal family has denied the claim, releasing a statement saying: "It is not true that Harry cheated in his exams. -AFP