A barrister has lost his legal bid to gain compensation from a high street bank over what he believes are unfair bank charges.

Tom Brennan has been told he cannot continue with his battle for damages from NatWest in relation to money taken from his account in unauthorised overdraft charges.

His application to appeal against the decision has also been denied by City of London County Court.

Mr Brennan, a recently qualified barrister, had claimed at an earlier hearing that the bank acted unlawfully in taking around £2,500 in fees.

Alongside full reimbursement of the charges, Mr Brennan was seeking aggravated damages in recognition of the stress he encountered and the difficulty he had paying rent and purchasing necessary items.

In addition, he was asking for exemplary damages, which are awarded against the defendant when a wrong is deemed to be deliberate, malicious or negligent.

NatWest, which had called for the claim for aggravated and exemplary damages to be struck out and maintained that its fees were lawful, had offered Mr Brennan around £3,000, which he refused.

He claimed the money he was offered did not diminish the damage caused to his credit rating, which could have adverse effects on future applications for credit cards and mortgages.

But Judge Peter Simpson said: "Mr Brennan had a very modest claim which had been fully satisfied.

"He is seeking to enlarge the scope of this but the additional actions of his case are contrived. The facts will not support them."

The Office of Fair Trading has announced it is launching a test case against the major banks in the High Court to establish whether their unauthorised overdraft charges are unfair.

Referring to the OFT case, Judge Simpson added: "By trying to usurp the OFT and duplicate its work this is asking the court to ignore the structures put in place by Parliament to safeguard the interests of consumers."

Commenting on the judge's ruling, a NatWest spokesman said: "We are pleased that the court has dismissed this claim.

"As a gesture of goodwill, NatWest has chosen not to apply to the court to recover its costs from Mr Brennan."

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