'We was waiting for funding', says Yorkshireman who 'tried to sell Ritz Hotel for £250m'

Anthony Lee, 49, said they could only see the "pound notes" at the end of the sale and he was simply the fall guy for a commercial deal gone wrong.

"We was waiting for funding," he told the court.

He accused property dealer Terence Collins and agent Karen Maguire of trying to con Dutch financier Marcel Boerkhoorn out of the 1 million so they could pay Lee a debt from a separate deal.

"For me, they're just jumping the gun all the time to acquire the 1 million from Mr Boerkhoorn," Mr Lee said.

"From what I can see, it's a commercial deal that's gone completely wrong."

Lee, of Broad Lane, Beal, Goole, East Yorkshire, and Patrick Dolan, 68, are accused of targeting Mr Collins through Ms Maguire because of his interest in the high stakes world of trophy properties.

Solicitor Conn Farrell, 57, added credibility to the deal, Southwark Crown Court in central London was told.

The trio sucked them in with false promises that the prestigious hotel in London's Piccadilly was on sale for 250 million, the jury was told.

But today Mr Lee said he never claimed to have any contract for The Ritz, never did any work with the hotel's owners, the secretive billionaire brothers Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay, and there was never any mention of a fixed price.

"We've never had a contract, full stop," he said.

"We was waiting for funding. I've had no scam with any of this, full stop."

He went on: "Ms Maguire has just been pumping it up to do this deal because obviously she's seen the pound notes," he said.

He also insisted that any documents which mentioned the deal were referring to potential funding, rather than any specific contract.

Asked about the letters and documents - signed by his lawyer Farrell - which suggested that he was in a position to offer the contract for The Ritz, Lee said that lawyers, "when they're on a commission basis, sometimes they take things into their own hands".

He went on: "This would never have got out of the stalls, full stop, because there was never funding there."

Lee also told the jury of nine women and three men that Mr Collins just wanted to get Mr Boerkhoorn's money and kept him from contacting the billionaire investor because he would have "blown his cover immediately".

Lee claimed Mr Collins and Ms Maguire owed him a total of 2 million for a separate deal that had fallen through.

But under cross-examination by Anuja Dhir QC, for the prosecution, he agreed that neither Mr Collins nor Ms Maguire received a penny from Mr Boerkhoorn, and that the 1 million payment, which Mr Boerkoorn understood to be a deposit for The Ritz deal, went to the defendant's account.

Lee, Dolan, of Philip Lane, Tottenham, north London, and Farrell, of Cambridge Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, are on bail and all deny conspiracy to defraud between January 1 2006 and March 30 2007.