|PIC1|Police officers have lost their High Court fight against Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's refusal to backdate their pay rise.

Two of the country's senior judges dismissed the test case on police pay rises on Tuesday, saying Smith's actions had not be unlawful.

Lord Justice David Keene and Justice Colman Treacy were asked to rule that Smith was wrong to effectively cut the 2.5 percent award that police had anticipated by making the increase applicable for only nine months.

Police from England, Wales and Northern Ireland had argued at a hearing last month they were being short-changed.

They claimed the 2.5 percent rise effectively worked out at 1.9 percent this year - an average loss per officer of about 200 pounds.

Police officers said they had every reason to expect the pay would be backdated in full following the arbitration settlement.

Keene said that while he appreciated police officers were in a difficult position because they were denied the right to strike, none of their attempts to show that the stance taken by the Home Secretary was unlawful had been proven.

"She (Smith) had reasons which she was entitled to regard as being of greater weight than the PAT award, and she explained those reasons with sufficient clarity," he said.

Afterwards the Police Federation said in a statement they were "extremely disappointed".

"We did not take the decision to bring this matter to court lightly, but the failure of the Home Secretary to fight our corner in government and her unwillingness to accept and implement the findings of an independent Police Arbitration Tribunal left us with no choice," it said.

"We are police officers, we want to fight crime and criminals, we do not want to fight the Home Office and the Home Secretary. We should never have been put in this position by the Home Office in the first place."

Smith, in a statement after the judgment said: "This was a difficult decision but one I stand by.

"It was important to ensure that pay settlements are affordable and consistent with government pay policy in the interests of keeping the cost of living under control for families across the country."