A millionaire on trial for kidnapping two businessmen was posing as a waiter that day to catch out a pal who was cheating on his girlfriend, a court was told yesterday.

Volker Kappler, 37, said he had gone undercover at the Cavendish Hotel, in Chester, because he wanted to see what the friend's mistress looked like.

Mr Kappler told Teesside Crown Court that he then returned home to his wife in Conwy, North Wales.

John Wood, 36, and David Langthorne, 40, alleged they were kidnapped in Hartlepool and taken to Mr Kappler's factory where he told them they would be killed unless they handed over £600,000, which was owed by an associate company.

Mr Kappler said that on the day of the alleged kidnapping, he was in Chester at teatime and he arrived home at 7.30pm. He was certain about the time because Coronation Street was starting and his wife wanted to watch it, but she taped and he watched The Simpsons.

Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne told the court they were grabbed at Mr Wood's industrial hose factory by men wielding nightsticks and handcuffs in March.

Mr Kappler's firm, Superflexibles, supplied Thompson's firm, VPS, in Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

Mr Kappler of The Black Lion Hotel, Llanfairtalh, Conwy, pleads not guilty to two charges of kidnapping and two of blackmail. The case continues.