For the record

* Manchester University has been sued by a student after losing his books stored in a bathroom locker. Twenty textbooks owned by Simone Rudich were lost during renovation, Manchester Crown Court heard. It found the university guilty of negligence and ordered it to pay Rudich Pounds 100 in compensation.

Rudich, who came from Italy to study law, had stored the books in a locker at the department over the summer vacation. But when contractors refurbished the bathroom they disposed of the locker and the books. Rudich had refused an ex gratia payment of Pounds 100.

He said: "The money was not the important thing to me, it was the principle. I was fighting a giant and won."