A BOURNEMOUTH man who claims his cheating wife deceived him into bringing up her lover’s child has failed to win compensation for “17 years of lies and deceit.”

The man took his legal campaign to London’s Appeal Court after a Bournemouth County Court judge dismissed his bid for damages.

In the first “paternity fraud” case to reach a higher UK court, the man, referred to in court as H, claimed his now ex-wife and her lover had deliberately conspired to keep him in the dark.

His barrister, Nicholas Mostyn QC, said it was not until 2004, by which time the girl he thought was his daughter was 18, that DNA tests proved the truth.

Top judges were told how the man’s wife had kept up the pretence, sending her husband birthday and Christmas cards from his “daughter.”

The cheated husband financially supported the girl from birth without a penny in maintenance from her real father, the court heard.

Branding the ex-wife “an inveterate liar,” Mr Mostyn added: “Honesty and good faith lie at the very heart of the contract of marriage.”

The QC insisted that the ex-wife and her lover had “a fixed and certain knowledge” that H was not the girl’s father.

In 2002, the court heard, his ex-wife told H that he was not the girl’s father and filed for divorce the following year. Both she and her lover have denied deceiving H about E’s paternity.

Mr Mostyn stressed that H’s sense of injustice was so great that he intended, if necessary, to pursue his bid for recompense from his ex-wife and her lover all the way to the House of Lords.

Appeal Court judges ruled that H’s prospects of success were slim under the law as it stands and it would be “disproportionate” to allow him to proceed with his case.

While accepting that the case raised “interesting socio-legal arguments,” Lord Justice Thorpe said that if it went ahead it would “visit upon the litigants huge burdens, both financial and emotional, which are disproportionate to any prospects of success.”

The judge concluded: “This whole case can be categorised as a misfortune to all those engaged in it. I would not wish to be the one to extend their misfortunes further.”

H was refused permission to appeal against the dismissal of his damages claim.