Noel Edmonds sues former friend over property deal

TV presenter Noel Edmonds is suing a former friend over a failed property deal which left him £500,000 out of pocket.

The Deal Or No Deal star, 62, claims housebuilder and designer Ulrik Lawson, 50, owes him more than £370,000 over the venture on a £2.1million country estate.

Edmonds and Lawson intended to build houses on the site in Devon. But planning permission was never granted and when the property was sold two years later, Edmonds took back just £52,000. Lawson received £300,000.

The quiz show host angrily told Bristol County Court he had been "betrayed" by his friend and said he had been promised a £300,000 lump sum back.

But lawyers for Lawson argued that Edmonds had "made up" his version of events.

And they claimed he used the deal as a vanity project to revive his struggling telly career.

Edmonds told the court: "I believed in my friend. It never occurred to me for a minute that I could be the subject of a betrayal."

But Patrick Lawrence, representing Lawson, claimed the deal had been a facade to help launch Edmonds back into the public eye.

He told him: "You were back in the public eye and it simply suited you to present to the public your position that you were 'bouncing back'."

Lawson has launched a £260,000 counter-claim against Edmonds, 62, for unpaid work on another project. He claims the presenter owes him £260,000 for unpaid building works on St Surfs house in Exeter.

The civil case is expected to last for eight days.

Source: Daily Record

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