Yorkshire-based property developer and former Leeds United Football Club director Simon Morris has been sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit blackmail.
Morris, 34, was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court for his part in the £100,000 blackmail of his former business partner, estate agent Hedley Manton. Morris’s bodyguard, John Ashworth, was also sentenced.
Morris was found guilty last month of conspiring to intimidate Manton in March 2009. Morris and Manton, who had worked together in the student rental property market, were involved in a civil court dispute at the time of the offence.
Morris was declared bankrupt in October 2009 after his property group, SRM Holdings, went into administration in 2008.
Morris and Ashworth are expected to appeal against their sentences.
daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com
