A BRITISH equity market expecting to endure a quiet session was given a thorough shaking yesterday, with a series of bearish corporate news items mixed with a marginally disappointing inflation report for April and a small setback on Wall Street.

Adding to a generally gloomy background were murmurings that there could be a more sinister reason behind the market's poor performance. One suggestion was that a big rights issue was being lined up, with Prudential one of the names being put forward, dealers said.

"This market took something of a beating and the feeling is that there is something holding it back," said the head of trading at one of the big British securities houses.

The FTSE-100 index closed the day 22.6 lower at 3753.6. Selling pressure was not confined to the leaders; the second-liners were also pressured and the FTSE Mid250 index dropped 15.0 to 3753.6.

The bad news was concentrated mostly in the oil and gas areas, where British Gas remained the market's whipping boy. The shares extended their recent alarming slide and fell to their lowest level since June 1989, partly because of a poor set of first-quarter numbers, but mostly because of the continued fall-out from Monday's Ofgas report.

A big sell-off in oil shares put a large dent in the Footsie, with rumours that a resumption of Iraqi oil sales is all but signed, sealed and delivered said to have been the most damaging factor.

Shell succumbed to profit-taking, prompted by the lack of any sizeable cutbacks in refining capacity, although specialists expect news on this front soon.

But it was not all bad news for the market. On the plus side, Glaxo Wellcome provided much-needed pleasure for shareholders, indicating excellent profits progress for the current year.