A PROMINENT businessman who swindled more than £1m out of wealthy friends as his property dealings hit hard times has been jailed for more than five years.

Details of Guy Brudenell's "financial gymnastics" emerged yesterday (June 3) as he appeared at Teesside Crown Court to be sentenced for a string of frauds and perjury.

The court heard how he got three acquaintances to part with £600,000, £400,000 and £240,000 with the promise of quick profits on deals to buy repossessed houses.

He used the money to service his own huge debts, but also paid for a £15,000 skiing holiday to Switzerland and a trip to St Tropez, said prosecutor Nicholas Dry.

Mr Dry said Brudenell was "robbing Peter to pay Paul" and added: "He used ever more desperate, and ultimately criminal, measures in his bid to stay afloat."

Well-known and respected in the North Yorkshire high society, he had interests in two of Helmsley's leading hotels, and a successful business past.

He told one victim in an email: "I have yet to get a business deal wrong. I have a 100 per cent record for integrity and honesty. My word is my bond."

Judge Howard Crowson branded the 43-year-old "selfish" and told him: "Your intention was to continue your luxurious life by reason of this fraud."

Mr Dry told the court: "He was a friend and acquaintance of many wealthy individuals with whom he would hunt, shoot and generally socialise.

"On the face of it, he too appeared to be wealthy and successful and had interests in The Feversham Arms and Black Swan, luxury getaways on the Moors.

"He lived a high life with beautiful homes, cars, expensive holidays and a helicopter, but by 2008 all of that had become something of a facade behind which lay a reality of spiralling debt and unsustainable borrowing."

The court heard how Brudenell, of Lammas Court, Scarcroft, Leeds, was declared bankrupt the following year after failing to repay any of his three backers.

Mr Dry said: "Jottings in a notebook revealed the extent of his liabilities and the financial gymnastics he was performing servicing high-value, high-interest loans."

Alasdair Campbell, mitigating, said divorcee Brudenell had always planned to repay his investors, but suffered badly with the credit crunch.

The flamboyant tycoon once persuaded the Archbishop of York to perform a charity parachute jump, and in 2006, proposed to construct the region's tallest building - a 375ft-high apartment block, in Middlesbrough.

Brudenell, formerly of Nawton, near Helmsley, admitted 11 charges of fraud and one of perjury, and was locked up for five years and four months.