A MILLIONAIRE who was jailed for 11 years after being found guilty of kidnapping and threatening to kill two North-East businessmen, yesterday launched an Appeal Court bid to overturn his convictions.

Volker Kappler, 41, from Llanfairtalhaiarn, near Conwy, North Wales, was convicted at Teesside Crown Court in October 2003 of kidnapping John Wood and David Langthorne, and trying to blackmail them out of £600,000.

However, top barrister Jim Sturman, for Kappler, yesterday tried to persuade Appeal Court judges the convictions were unsafe and should be overturned.

A decision on the appeal was not made yesterday, and judgement was reserved to a later date.

Mr Sturman argued that jurors had heard prejudicial evidence and that the judge should have halted Kappler's prosecution mid-way through the trial.

Mr Sturman also told the court that fresh evidence had come to light since the trial relating to the business affairs and conduct of Mr Wood, Mr Langthorne and others which, had the jurors been told of it, could have led to a different verdict.

The crown court jury had heard how Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne were handcuffed, beaten, had hoods put over their heads and were bundled into the back of a white Transit van at gunpoint in March 2003.

Judge Richard Lowden described the kidnapping as a professional crime, planned well in advance and carried out by a hired team of hitmen and said that Kappler had been convicted on the clearest possible evidence.

It was the prosecution case that Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne were abducted from Mr Wood's Hartlepool factory by bogus Customs and Excise officials, before being driven more than 200 miles to Kappler's Superflexibles plastics factory in Mold, North Wales.

The men were said to have threatened to cut off Mr Langthorne's ear with a knife, kill the business partners, rape Mr Wood's wife, kill her and their children and cousins unless they handed over £600,000.

Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne said they were made to strip and wear tracksuits and trainers before being questioned by two men.

They said they were dumped, with pillowcases over their heads, in a field beside the M53 near Eastham on the Wirral.

The Crown Court heard Kappler's Superflexibles company and two businesses in France and Germany went bust after his arrest, with the loss of 120 jobs.

Kappler said he had been at home with his wife, watching The Simpsons on television, at the time, and denied all the accusations.