A businessman whose $1 million-a-year gaming machine enterprise was destroyed by the introduction of legislation prohibiting their use for gambling has lost his bid to have a Supreme Court ruling overturned.

Three Court of Appeal judges turned down an appeal that claimed Neil Inchup Jr?s constitutional rights had been infringed by the complete banning of gaming machines in 2004.

They concluded that Chief Justice Richard Ground was correct in rejecting Mr. Inchup?s attempt to sue Attorney General Larry Mussenden because the livelihood he?d previously made from operating gaming machines was ended by the Prohibition of Gaming Machines Act 2001 ? which took effect three years later.

At the centre of the legal argument was a claim Mr. Inchup?s rights, as enshrined by the 1968 Bermuda Constitution, had been infringed by the legislation rendering his gaming machine business illegal.

Lawyers Dr. Lloyd Barnet and Mark Pettingill, acting on behalf of Mr. Inchcup, had sought to show that their client?s gaming machines, which had been brought into Bermuda legally, had subsequently been ?sterilised? of their intended use by the legislation which affected Mr. Inchup?s constitutional rights, hindering his ?freedom of conscience? and his ?freedom of association? with other persons associated in the gaming machine for gambling activity.

Court of Appeal President Justice Edward Zacca, Justice Sir Murray Stuart-Smith and Justice Gerald Nazareth yesterday rejected the argument in a judgment paper.

Sir Murray said Mr. Inchup?s property had not been taken from him or compulsorily acquired, and furthermore the gaming machines could still be used providing they did not offer players monetary rewards.

And Sir Murray concluded it could not be said the goodwill of the business had been taken away because the business of running or aiding the running of gaming houses in Bermuda was an illegal activity as set out in the Criminal Code Act 1907, therefore Mr. Inchup?s business had ?no valuable goodwill? to lose.

He rejected an argument put forward by Dr. Barnet that the 1907 Act and was at odds with the 1968 Constitution and said the three-year period of grace between the gaming machines being legislated illegal in 2001 and the law being enforced in 2004 did not in any way repeal the earlier 99-year-old Criminal Code banning gaming houses. Dr. Barnet said his client?s constitutional rights for freedom of association were infringed because he could no longer associate with others for the common purpose of using gambling machines.

To this Sir Murray said: ?The short answer is that there is no right to associate for a purpose that is illegal in national law, otherwise conspirators would be able to pray in aid this provision to negative the law of conspiracy.?

On the claim that Mr. Inchup?s constitutional right for ?freedom of conscience? had been infringed by the 2001 gaming machine legislation, Sir Murray said: ?It does nothing of the kind.

?The appellant is at liberty to think that gambling by means of gambling machines ought to be lawful and to try to persuade others to his view. That does not enable him to carry out activities that are unlawful.

?Robin Hood no doubt believed the stealing from the rich and giving to the poor was morally justified. But the Constitution would not have provided him with a defence on a charge of robbery.?

All three Court of Appeal judges agreed the judgment to reject the appeal.