FORMER safe-cracker George Reynolds was back in court yesterday, only this time he was not in the dock. MARJORIE McINTYRE assesses the performance of the new legal eagle.

IN a style reminiscent of Rumpole of the Bailey, he paced backwards and forwards in front of the judge as he locked horns with the finest legal minds in the North-east.

Referring to his adversary, the formidable QC Aidan Marron, as "my learned friend", he joked, he probed and he cajoled to score his points.

Yesterday, industrial tycoon George Reynolds swapped the board room for the court room and slipped easily into his new guise of legal eagle.

The wealthy businessman, who also owns Darlington FC and who is suing Cleveland's Chief Constable for unlawfully detaining and maliciously prosecuting him, decided to conduct his own case after being quoted £60,000 for legal representation.

Among the cream of the North-east's legal profession, the former safe blower revealed he was familiar with court room procedure and admitted he had swotted up on the law during a four-year stretch inside.

And though he has kept to the straight and narrow for over 20 years he told Judge Michael Taylor he was guilty of one crime "that of being successful" an offence, he said, which had made several police officers both bitter and envious.

The 64-year-old Mr Reynolds lacked only the wig and gown as he paced back and forth in front of Judge Taylor at Middlesbrough High Court.

Speaking in front of a packed public gallery, the amateur brief took the court back almost three decades to a time when he claims a Durham officer had brought 30 charges against him.

"One charge accused me of arson on a factory which Hitler's bombers had blitzed in 1943," he told the judge.

All the charges, he said, had eventually been dropped: "I was totally fitted up. Hitler would have been proud of that officer," he said.

Dressed in a black suit, grey shirt and Versace tie, Mr Reynolds accused officers of "conspiring" against him in a long and drawn out vendetta.

Once in the witness box Mr Reynolds agreed with Mr Marron that he possessed all the trappings of the wealthy from a large expensive house to luxury cars.

He also conceded that there had been a series of domestic incidents following his separation from his former wife Karen Brown and while the QC attempted to proceed on with his questioning, Mr Reynolds interrupted: "I can see exactly where you are coming from," he told Mr Marron. "You are like an open book - the Beano."

He also told Judge Taylor that he would be seeking to question all of the officers in what he describes as this incompetent conspiracy.

"I will be asking them a lot of questions to establish that they has indeed been a miscarriage of justice."