THE wealthy tax exile who founded Freeport, the property developer, has been branded a liar by a High Court judge.

Court documents that accuse Sean Collidge of forgery, perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice should now be handed over to the Department of Public Prosecutions, Mr Justice Jack declared after a ruling handed down on Friday.

Sean Collidge, who lives in Monaco, could face jail if he is found guilty of perjury.

The judge’s blistering comments followed a nine-day hearing this month during which Collidge tried to claim that he was owed £1m after he quit the company last year.

Freeport said Collidge had breached his duties as a director of the company because he was fiddling his expenses.

In last week’s judgment, Mr Justice Jack said Collidge had “dishonestly” and “habitually” abused his position to obtain expenses from the company.

The judgment found that: Collidge had billed Freeport for cigars and restaurant meals costing hundreds of euros; He used a company credit card to pay for food and drinks at Trader Vic’s at the Hilton hotel on Park Lane in London; Collidge dishonestly covered up his personal friendship with another business contact to charge hundreds of pounds for airline tickets and a hotel stay on the way to Antigua on holiday; He regularly withdrew cash on a company credit card even though it broke company rules; Collidge charged the company for materials which he bought for renovation work on his French home.

Mr Justice Jack said: “I am satisfied here that Mr Collidge did dishonestly obtain expenses from Freeport on a number of occasions which, taken together, would have justified his summary dismissal.”

The judge also ruled that Collidge had taken a bizarre collection of items, including a Gaggia espresso coffee machine, a stainless-steel refrigerator, a bread oven, a cardboard compactor and a microwave oven from restaurants and cafes that had been closed at a retail village run by Freeport at West Calder in Scotland.

And the judgment ruled that Collidge forged loan agreements supposedly struck with his former driver, Paul Bradshaw, who has since committed suicide. Mr Justice Jack accused Collidge of making a £20,000 payment to Bradshaw, who was having financial difficulties and was in a distressed state of mind, in return for retracting negative statements made against him to Freeport.

Collidge claimed that the payment was in fact a loan. He pointed to a previous £4,000 loan he made to Bradshaw in 2003. Mr Justice Jack said that in his judgment he was “wholly satisfied” that the two loan agreements were “forgeries”. He went on: “That is to say, they were not created when they purport to have been created, and Mr Bradshaw’s signatures were not written by Mr Bradshaw.”

Other accusations against Collidge included improperly taking accessories for a company-owned quad bike.

Collidge is seeking leave to appeal against the judgment despite an application being rejected on Friday. He told The Sunday Times this weekend that he maintains his innocence and insisted the judgment was “flawed”.“It is disappointing but these things happen and we have put the judge on notice that we are appealing,” he said.

Collidge is facing an estimated £590,000 bill to cover Freeport’s legal costs.

Freeport, which now specialises in developing discount designer-shopping outlets in mainland Europe, has seen its market capitalisation slide from £152m to £135.65m over the past year. It recently agreed a takeover by Carlyle, but the American private-equity group has subsequently called on the Takeover Panel to adjudicate whether it can extricate itself from the deal. It will not discuss its reasons.

The Takeover Panel will not disclose when it will make a judgment.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive