A businessman jailed for seven years for shooting his flatmate yesterday won a £1,500 payout from police who lost his laptop computer.

Stuart Freeborn, 59, blasted care worker David Bickle in the chest with a 9mm automatic pistol at their shared lodgings in Princes Terrace, Kemp Town, Brighton, in 1997.

The bullet pierced 46-year-old Mr Bickle's chest and severed an artery in his arm. He was on a life support machine for six days.

Freeborn served three and a half years in prison after being found guilty at Lewes Crown Court in 1998 of wounding with intent and using a gun to endanger life.

Yesterday Worthing County Court granted Freeborn £1,259 damages after Sussex Police failed to return personal documents and a computer they seized on his arrest. The force was also ordered to pay his £200 costs.

Freeborn first asked for the return of his belongings when he was released from prison in 2001.

When items were missing he lodged a claim for £2,337 but was told by District Judge Carlton Edwards his case had been damaged because he had not got the paperwork.

Freeborn, who said he was a former major in the United States Air Force Auxiliary, said a US passport, US and UK driving licences and scuba diving qualifications documents were among the lost items.

Sussex Police also seized a laptop and telephone. These were later returned but Freeborn said he had already bought replacements.

Freeborn said: "As soon as I got out of prison I started asking for my stuff.

"It was just me appealing to the police to get my property back.

"I got the runaround. No one would do anything - they passed it like a hot potato from one person to the other."

Freeborn had been living in Sussex for ten months when the shooting happened on December 10, 1997.

At his trial 11 months later, the court heard he stepped in when Mr Bickle attacked another housemate, Michael Dalley, in a row about using the phone.

Freeborn said: "I managed to get hold of my gun and shot him just once. He stopped his attack and left my room."

Freeborn said last night he had owned the gun he used to shoot Mr Bickle for 20 years.

He bought it after being attacked in 1979 by two men, one of whom had a knife.

He said: "I have kept it for self-protection ever since. In common with every American I have ever met, I believe I have certain inalienable rights - life being one of them."