A Falklands War veteran has been given the chop by his home insurance company after he failed to declare a police caution for criminal damage.

Peter Green, who is confined to his house in Clayton due to a disability which restricts his movements, had held a policy with Royal & Sun Alliance since moving 18 months ago.

But the insurance giant has revoked his policy when he tried to claim for his daughter's damaged laptop when it discovered his undisclosed conviction.

Mr Green said he had regarded the incident, which had occurred more than a year ago, as settled when he accepted the caution and did not realise that he should have declared it to his insurer.

But in a statement, Royal & Sun Alliance said it now considered him to be an "unacceptable" risk.

Mr Green said: "Over a year ago I got into a dispute with someone who had parked in a disabled parking spot and I lost my temper and hit their windscreen with my stick, breaking it.

"I called the police and told them I was quite prepared to pay for the damage and received a caution. I am not proud with what happened but it was a fairly minor incident and I paid for it.

"Now Sun Alliance is saying that I should have declared this and that it has cancelled my policy.

"I have been paying more than £30 a month into that policy. It has said it will give me some of my money back but not all of it and of course I cannot now claim for my daughter's laptop which has all her GCSE course work on it.

"I was given a visa to the US after having declared my caution, no problem, and I have since moved to another insurance firm which also had no problem.

"I just think this is outrageous and want to warn other people about it so that the same thing does not happen to them. It was lucky that it was just a computer that was damaged. If something had gone seriously wrong with the house I would be in real difficulties."

A Royal & Sun Alliance spokesman said: "Royal & Sun Alliance aims to act with fairness and integrity when dealing with all claims.

"While we have every sympathy with Mr Green, any police caution, which involves violence to property or persons, is an unacceptable risk to us and we would look to cancel the policy.

"Mr Green had a duty to disclose his police caution to us within 30 days and he failed to do so. He again failed to disclose the incident to us upon renewal in March 2007. We cannot make exceptions when there has been a clear breach in the terms of the policy. To do so would be unfair on all our other customers.

"As such, we are confident that the right decision has been made to void his cover and hence decline the claim."