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A screenwriter who says he invented the heroine that became Lara Croft has fought a 10-year legal battle with the company behind the original Tomb Raider computer game.

Ben Trebilcook, 37, has spent thousands of pounds on lawyers’ fees trying to get recognition for what he says was his role in the creation of the gun-toting femme fatale — played by Angelina Jolie in the hit movie. Eidos, which released the computer game, has denied accusations of copyright infringement.

Mr Trebilcook said he came up with the idea for a “female Indiana Jones” in 1994 after being inspired by his friend Lorna Mills-Knight whom he met working part-time in a Safeway supermarket in Bexley.

The next year he sent a five-page short story and his developed character synopsis to Eidos’s UK game developer company Core Design after seeing an advert for screenwriters in Empire magazine. He failed to get the job. But in 2001 he saw the Tomb Raider film and “instantly knew this was mine”.

After discovering the existence of the computer game, first released in 1996, he wrote to the company, which said the similarities between the characters were “coincidental”.

One of Core Design’s staff, Toby Gard, has historically been credited with inventing Lara Croft.

But in legal papers Mr Trebilcook claimed much of the detail is his. He said the most striking similarities are Lara’s two pistols attached to tight beige shorts, the satchel on her back for artefacts, being British, attending prestigious educational institutions, long hair in a ponytail, being expert in martial arts and her acrobatic movements.

Core Design’s managing director Jeremy Heath Smith said in a letter to Mr Trebilcook that he believed the company and the screenwriter had “independently” come up with the idea. The company later claimed the development of Tomb Raider was under way in November 1994 and a provisional storyboard was ready at the end of the year containing detailed description of and sketches for the character.

Mr Trebilcook has not yet issued a writ for breach of copyright after being told it could cost up to £100,000.

However, with the Tomb Raider franchise’s successful re-boot this year, he is considering pursuing the case further. He said: “It’s an incredibly frustrating, heart-wrenching feeling to know how so many have gained so much from a creation clearly based on my own work.”

A spokesman for Square Enix, which bought Eidos in 2009, said: “Mr Trebilcook approached our company [Eidos] more than 10 years ago making these allegations. Following legal correspondence then, Mr Trebilcook did not pursue his allegations any further. The allegations were baseless 10 years ago and remain baseless today.”