Bates sued over 'shyster' article

Mr Bates is pleading his remarks were fair comment

A former director of Leeds United FC has claimed club chairman Ken Bates libelled him when he called him a "shyster".

Businessman Melvyn Levi, 65, has brought a High Court action over a letter and articles in club programmes.

He says he was accused of trying to blackmail the club and of being unscrupulous and dishonourable.

Mr Bates, 78, denies libel, pleading fair comment. The case at London's High Court could last up to two weeks.

His QC, Simon Myerson, told the judge, Sir Charles Gray, that the case centred on the "fall-out" from Mr Bates's purchase of the club in January 2005.

'Enemy Within'

Mr Myerson said that Mr Levi, who lives in Leeds, had been one of the members of a consortium - the Yorkshire Consortium - which bought the club about 10 months before Mr Bates's purchase and had "rescued it from demise".

He told the judge: "It is in October of 2006 that Mr Bates starts what we say is a campaign, or at least a course, of defamatory comment."

One of the "vehicles" he used, said the QC, was his column in the club's programme.

Part of Mr Levi's case is that in an article published in a programme in March 2007, entitled "The Enemy Within", he was accused of blackmail, of being dishonourable and of making unscrupulous attempts to obtain money which had deterred investors in Leeds United.

Ronald Thwaites QC, for Mr Bates, told the court that Mr Levi had not come to court to seek the usual vindication, "but to have a quasi public inquiry about his problems with Mr Bates".

Mr Bates is pleading the defences of justification, qualified privilege and fair comment.

The case is continuing.