A FORMER body-building champion and fitness boss told a court yesterday how he feared for his and his sons' lives after a drugs deal went "pear-shaped".

Martin Yates-Brown, who owned four Classic World of Fitness gyms in Darlington, Newton Aycliffe, Bishop Auckland and Crook, was giving evidence at Teesside Crown Court against a group of men he claims he conspired with to supply cannabis.

Jennifer Kershaw, prosecuting, told the jury that two men - Colin Dunn and Raymond Bell - were involved in importing cannabis from Holland to the UK.

Yates-Brown said that in the autumn of 1998 he had put Dunn in touch with contacts who would buy the drugs to sell on.

One of the contacts, he alleged, was John Churchill, the boyfriend of one of his staff in Dumfries, Scotland, who was supplied with 15kg and then 30kg of cannabis, which he paid for.

But, said Yates-Brown, the scam fell apart when a third consignment of 50kg of cannabis, with a street value of £275,000, was not paid for. He said Churchill told him that the drugs were passed to Charles (Chaz) Hardie, in Armidale, Scotland. He said he only found out Mr Hardie's name when "everything went pear-shaped".

He claimed that Mr Hardie told him during a telephone call that the drugs had been picked up by police, so he could not pay the £70,000 owed for them.

"I was responsible for this money. It was my contact," he said. "I was trying to impress upon Chaz that this was most urgent and life-threatening to him as well as me that we had to get this money collected."

He said he was told by Dunn and Bell that the "men over the water" in Holland, who had supplied the drug, had enforcers who would hold him responsible for the money. He believed that if they did not shoot him, they would shoot his sons.

Earlier, he told the court he had unwittingly driven a trailer containing a 105kg stash of cannabis from Todmorden, North Yorkshire, to his business premises in Weir Street, Darlington.

Colin Dunn, 62, of Hollywood Avenue, Gosforth, Newcastle, Raymond Bell, 57, of Eskdale Terrace, Whitley Bay, and John Tansey, 35, of Scira Court, Darlington, are charged with four counts of conspiracy to supply cannabis resin.

John Churchill, 29, of Bellwood Street, Glasgow, Charles Hardie, 44, of Avondale Crescent, Armidale, Scotland, and Clive Jefferson (also known as Aitken), 35, of Woodside Avenue, Cockermouth, Cumbria, are charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply cannabis resin.

Wayne Johns, 31, of Dunrobin Close, Darlington, is charged with possession with intent to supply cannabis resin.

All seven deny the charges.

The case continues.