FORMER Shepherd Neame brewery boss Stuart Neame has revealed the pain caused by a rift with his family, saying that his cousins Jonathan and Bobby had not spoken to him since the day he left his office in October.

At the end of a three-day tribunal hearing in Ashford, the company's one-time vice-chairman admitted he was paying a high price for “speaking out to shareholders what I believe to be the truth".

He said: “Part of that cost is losing my job, my salary and a lot of my pension, and all the very good friends I had at Shepherd Neame.

“I am very sad about that but it was a price that had to be paid. I haven’t spoken to Jonathan (chief executive) between the day I left the company six months ago and when we met in court two days ago. Nor Bobby (chairman).”

Mr Neame triggered one of the most bitter boardroom rows in the Faversham brewery’s 300-year history by publicly suggesting the company was not as profitable as it claimed and asserting that Robert Neame, 70, should step down.

He said that he had no alternative but to resign and applied to the tribunal to hear his claim for constructive dismissal.

Outside the tribunal building, he repeated his contention that having a father and son at the top of a company was “not good corporate governance” and it was right for any director to step down at the age of 70, “because corporate culture needs to be refreshed.”

His authority as vice-chairman had been undermined, he said, when Jonathan Neame allegedly removed his agenda item about shareholder value. He was not consulted as much as he should have been.

“I still needed to retain my role as vice-chairman and it was when I was prevented from carrying that out that the conflict arose,” he said.

Mr Neame said he had rejected the company’s settlement offer, not on financial grounds but because of the strings attached to what he called a “gagging order.”

That would have defeated “precisely the reason I went through all this pain in the first place.” He wanted to warn shareholders of his fears about the firm’s underlying profitability.

By hiring Andrew Hochhauser, an eminent employment barrister, the company had tried to use a “big legal sledgehammer” against him but Mr Neame said he was “not a nut that can be easily crushed.”

He represented himself in the tribunal because a barrister would have cost him at least twice the maximum damages of £50,000 the tribunal is empowered to award.

“I was happy with my evidence,” he said. “I have never cross-examined people before and I could have done an awful lot better if I do it again.” He awarded himself nine out of 10 for evidence and two out of 10 for cross-examination.

But Mr Neame hinted that he might lose. “If I as a first-time virgin litigant am up against the most famous employment barrister in the land, of course the result is not in doubt.”

Mr Neame, who lives in South Street, is organist at Boughton church and a keen tennis player, said he had no plans to sell a major part of his five per cent stake in Shepherd Neame and trigger a possible sale of the company.

But he would continue to campaign for improvements to the firm’s profitability. He believed the company was “as safe as it always was” but it needed a new chairman. “A new chairman is inevitably going to bring in new strategies and policies and that is the point when the company can re-invigorate itself.”

In his summing-up, Mr Hochhauser invited the three-man panel to accept his contention that Mr Neame was not a reliable witness, that some of his actions had not been above board, and some of his behaviour was “nothing less than disgraceful.”

In a statement read out by Jonathan Neame after the tribunal, the company said: “We have always said that Stuart Neame’s claim was wholly lacking in legal and factual foundation.

“The board of Shepherd Neame fully supports and always has supported this chairman and the company’s strategy. “We have defended this case vigorously and we look forward to the tribunal’s decision.

“We are glad this unfortunate distraction has now come to an end. The page has been truly turned and we can now return to running the business for the benefit of all our shareholders and employees.”

The tribunal hearing ended on Wednesday with a ruling expected within the next two weeks.