Anti-terrorist asset-freezing orders introduced during Gordon Brown's spell as Chancellor are legally flawed because Parliament was "bypassed", the High Court ruled today.

The judgment, which is subject to a possible appeal, is the latest in a series of major blows to the Government's anti-terror strategy.

Mr Justice Collins, sitting at the High Court in London, allowed legal challenges by five men deprived of the right to control their own property and money because they were suspected of "facilitating acts of terrorism".

In total around £500,000 of assets belonging to 70 suspected terrorists has been frozen.

The five denied terrorist links and protested to the court over the "humiliating and devastating" impact designation had had on their daily lives.

Although never charged with criminal offences, the five - referred to as A, K, M, Q and G - were designated terror suspects last year under the provisions of two Orders in Council.

Orders of this kind are not the subject of the same parliamentary scrutiny as normal parliamentary legislation, said the judge.

Each Order was laid before Parliament the day after it was made and came into force on the following day. The Orders were not the proper way to approach asset freezing, and Parliament should step in, the judge ruled.

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