BAT takes a £250m battering

ALMOST £250m was wiped off the value of British American Tobacco shares after an Australian judge threw out the company's defence in a smoking damages casebecause it had destroyed documents.

The judge published his decision, made in secret last month, after a jury awarded A$700,000 (£259,000) in damages to 51-year-old grandmother Rolah McCabe, who is dying of lung cancer.

McCabe is the first Australian successfully to sue an international tobacco company, and a wave of legal action could follow. Referring to documents requested by McCabe's lawyers, which they claimed would have shown the company knew of the risk she faced from smoking, Justice Geoffrey Eames, a judge with the Supreme Court in Victoria, said: 'There can be no doubt...that within the defence camp the truth must have been known, that all 15 documents that the plaintiff sought, and many more, had been destroyed in 1998.'

The decision to expose the destruction of the documents took BAT, maker of Lucky Strike and Dunhill, by surprise.

McCabe, a mother of four and grandmother of two, had claimed against BAT for loss of income, care and maintenance costs, and pain and suffering, but did not seek punitive damages.

BAT lawyers claimed the award was excessive, and disputed her claims for past and future care, future medical expenses and loss of future income.

BAT said it wwould seek to overturn the court's decision.

'We don't really agree on the findings of court. We're filing an appeal and we're confident our defence will be restored,' a BAT spokeswoman said.

The company will file an appeal early next month, she added.