FORMER Northern Rock shareholders turned the clock back two years yesterday by forming a queue to highlight their battle for “fair” compensation.

In a reminder of the queues seen outside branches following the bank’s collapse in September 2007, the private shareholders gathered outside the accountancy firm chosen to carry out a valuation into Newcastle- based Northern Rock.

The investors claim they have been short-changed by the Government’s compensation scheme following nationalisation in February last year.

The gathering outside the London offices of BDO Stoy Hayward took place on the eve of today’s Court of Appeal hearing for the judicial review into the fairness of the compensation terms set by the Government.

Shareholders claim the scheme was based on false criteria, which would lead to shares being valued at, if anything, little more than zero.

They want a declaration that the compensation provisions were incompatible with the human rights principle that the taking of property by the state must be balanced by compensation reasonably related to the value of that property.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton, sitting in London’s High Court, said in February that the provisions made for compensation did not infringe their rights.

The three main appellants in the High Court action are SRM Global, RAB Capital and a representative group of private shareholders.