A BUSINESSMAN brought up in the North-East is in a Singapore jail after he was extradited to face double murder charges.

Millionaire Michael McCrea, 48, has been flown out of Australia, sources in the Asian city state told The Northern Echo.

The extradition came two weeks after Australia's High Court backed the move - effectively closing Mr McCrea's last avenue of avoiding being sent to Singapore.

It is understood he is in Changi prison awaiting interview by detectives into the deaths of his chauffeur and the driver's girlfriend.

Mr McCrea, who grew up in Penshaw, near Sunderland, had spent three years in Melbourne's Port Phillip prison fighting extradition. He was escorted from there yesterday by immigration officials.

Mr McCrea fled to the UK days before the bodies were discovered hidden in the rear of a limousine in a car park.

He then went to Australia and took sanctuary with his then-wife.

Last night, a British Foreign Office spokeswoman was unable to confirm that Mr McCrea had been extradited, but said: "We have full confidence that the Australian authorities have given the extradition request form Singapore the appropriate scrutiny before reaching a decision."

Singapore had given an undertaking that it would not enforce its mandatory death penalty for murder if Mr McCrea was convicted.

The former financial advisor and insurance saleman, who accepts there was an incident in his luxury apartment but denies murder, has argued that the undertaking had no legal standing and could be withdrawn.

Mr McCrea lived in Singapore working as a financial advisor for expats, but left the country in January 2002, only days before the bodies of Kho Nai Guan, 46, and Yan La Ming, 30 were discovered.

His then-girlfriend Audrey Ong, now 25, is serving a 12-year sentence in a Singapore jail after she admitted disposing of evidence in the case.