Bankrupt tycoon denies blackmail plot claim

Simon Morris told a jury yesterday his Leeds businesses fell into administration after they were hit by the credit crunch and a downturn in the housing market.

It is alleged that in March 2009, with his business empire “imploding”, he sent Johnathon Ashworth, a 21½-stone bodyguard, to intimidate Hedley Manton into repaying a £100,000 loan.

Morris and Mr Manton had worked together on the board of several property companies but fell out after Mr Manton refused to hand back the money.

Morris told Newcastle Crown Court there would have been no justification for threatening Mr Manton and, at the time of the alleged intimidation, he was concerned mainly with keeping his businesses active.

“I was trying to save 53 businesses with seven different administrators,” he said. “That £100,000 was one of a number of debts I had to deal with. I had gone from running a £100m business to losing control over it, to waking up the next day with nothing to do.”

Morris said, at their peak in 2006, his companies employed 110 people in the head office and “maybe 2,000 to 3,000” working on sites, but the total workforce was only 25 at the time of administration.

He had invested his “entire life” into them, working 70 hours a week, and even putting in £4.4m of his own money in 2007 to shore them up. But the court heard he was forced into bankruptcy in October 2009.

Morris told the jury he had employed Ashworth “a month or two” after he was shot at in a Leeds alleyway in 2007 and insisted his personal protection had been “one of many motives” for hiring the former doorman.

He said he employed three personal assistants at a time but an “oversight” had meant Ashworth was never paid money he was owed for driving Morris and his family in a Rolls Royce during a holiday in St Tropez in 2008.

When Ashworth came to Morris’s office the following year, unemployed and asking for payment, the £100,000 loan to Mr Manton was discussed.

He said Ashworth intended to visit Mr Manton in the hope of securing work and it was suggested he could mention the outstanding debt as a way to “break the ice” between the former business partners.

He acknowledged the disputed loan had caused a “rift” but he had believed the problem could be resolved if they agreed to negotiate.

Earlier, the jury heard from Ashworth, who said Morris had prepared a false witness statement for him to sign after he met Mr Manton.

But Morris insisted he had had no input into the statement, which he said had been prepared by his solicitor. He denied having seen it before it was approved by Ashworth and could not recall whether he was present when it was signed

Morris, 34, formerly of Ling Lane, Scarcroft, Leeds, and Ashworth, 51, of Kestrel Close, Hyde, Cheshire, each deny a charge of conspiracy to commit blackmail between March 1 and April 1, 2009.

Ashworth also denies an alternative charge of blackmail.

The trial continues.