A HAMPSHIRE publican, who was awarded more than £20,000 damages in the High Court last year, has now been stripped of the award by the Court of Appeal.

The court held that Barry Plummer, who in 1996 took a five-year tenancy of the Deers Hut, Liphook, is not after all entitled to the damages. The judge sympathised with him.

Inntrepreneur Beer Supply Company Limited and Inntrepreneur Pub Company (CPC) Limited emerged victors in an Appeal Court challenge made by them over the High Court decision in March last year in which Mr Justice Neuberger awarded Mr Plummer £20,930 damages and interest for breach of a contract to renew a lease.

However, in allowing the Inntrepreneur challenge, thejudge, Lord Justice Robert Walker, said he did so Òwith considerable regretÓ.

ÒThe appellantsÕ conduct in 1991 marked a deplorable deterioration in standards of fair dealing which ought to have prevailed in relationships between landlord and tenant in the licensed tradeÓ, he said.

Mr PlummerÕs five-year tenancy included an option to renew for a further term of five years on satisfaction of certain conditions.

In January 1992, he sought to exercise the option but this was refused by Inntreprenneur. In the belief, based on what he was told by Inntrepreneur that the option could not be exercised, he accepted the offer of a new assignable 20-year lease, though on terms said to be more onerous than those which would have applied had he renewed the five-year option.

Four years after entering into the 20-year contract, Mr Plummer took legal proceedings against the company, alleging breach of the original five-year contractÕs renewal clause.

Inntrepreneur admitted that he had been entitled to a new lease when his five-year lease expired in 1991 but argued that he had compromised his claim to renew and surrendered his equitable five-year lease when he entered into the 20-year agreement in 1992.

In the Court of Appeal, Kim Lewison QC, counsel for Inntreprenneur, claimed the judgeÕs damages award failed to take proper account of the value to Mr Plummer of the assignable 20-year lease granted to him and said the judge should have awarded nominal damages only.

He argued that the judge was wrong to award damages calculated by reference to the additional cost to Mr Plummer of occupying the premises for the remainder of the terms of the 20-year lease, compared to the cost of occupying under the terms of a five-year lease.

He said the value of the 20-year lease at the date of the High Court hearing was agreed at £63,000, which sum took full account of the cost to the lessee of paying the rent and complying with the covenants under the 20-year lease for the remainder of the term.

Backing that argument, another of the appeal judges, Lord Justice Aldous, said the effect of PlummerÕs surrender of the five-year lease had been to relinquish his rights to occupy the property under its terms.

He said that in the circumstances he had compromised his claim to renewal and the judge was wrong to award damages.

He said that the fact that no claim had been made for four years implied that Mr Plummer himself thought that his rights had been compromised.