A businessman successfully sued his ex-lover for more than £3,000 after she refused to hand over photographs of his family, four years after they split.

Gordon Sherring, 57, was awarded the money at Horsham County Court yesterday after making the claim against his former partner Suzanne Chapman for possessions left at her £1.5 million Horsham mansion in April 2001.

The box of photographs, including pictures of his mother, older children and his daughter with Ms Chapman, was included in the list of more than 20 items Mr Sherring tried to reclaim after he went off with another woman.

District Judge Adam Taylor heard how Mr Sherring sent a series of letters to Ms Chapman in the months after the separation but heard nothing from her until June 2003.

The judge found in favour of Mr Sherring.

He said: "The goods had not been abandoned and even if the defendant had supposed they had been, the letters should have dispelled all doubt from her mind."

Ms Chapman defended herself during the two-day trial.

She challenged the value of several items, claimed she had never been asked to store the goods and disputed whether Mr Sherring even owned some of the possessions he was claiming for.

She said: "He continued to visit my house, he could have arranged to remove any items but didn't do so, nor make any request to do so.

"After a reasonable amount of time I destroyed items he said were his.

"He is not interested in the property left behind but the amount of inconvenience and stress he can cause to me."

But Judge Taylor questioned inconsistencies in Ms Chapman's evidence and highlighted how she made different claims about what she had done with Mr Sherring's possessions.

He said: "Her evidence as a whole is less credible than the claimant's."

Mr Sherring's award included £500 for the family photographs, a Bible and items of "sentimental value".

Ms Chapman was also ordered to pay more than £400 for bags of Mr Sherring's clothing, £200 for a collection of model cars and she will also have to cover her ex-partner's legal costs.

The couple became embroiled in a bitter employment tribunal in March 2002, after Ms Chapman accused Mr Sherring of unfair dismissal from the ceramics company he set-up in Brighton.

She claimed to have lost her job at Active Marketing, which trades as Master Tiles, based on the Longley industrial estate in New England Street, after Mr Sherring started his affair.

Ms Chapman told the tribunal she helped set up the business and worked part-time for £50 a week.

Mr Sherring's original claim had included a request for 12 adult movies and 12 pornographic magazines but the court heard these were deleted from the list of possessions earlier in the hearing.