Richard Branson has denied lying about an attempt to bribe him by a director of Camelot in the run-up to the lottery franchise battle.

The 47-year-old entrepreneur told the High Court in London that he was in "no doubt" about what took place over a business lunch with G-Tech lottery company boss Guy Snowden at his Holland Park home in west London in 1993.

The Virgin boss said he was left "angry but not humiliated" by the encounter with Mr Snowden, whose company holds 22% of Camelot.

The attempt to bribe him to withdraw his own bid was "no delusion", he told Mr Justice Morland and a jury on the second day of his two-way libel action with Mr Snowden.

Both parties issued writs following a BBC Panorama programme in 1995 in which Mr Branson accused Mr Snowden of trying to bribe him during the lunch meeting.

Mr Snowden and G-Tech deny that a bribe took place.

Mr Branson is suing them for implying that he is a liar.

He claimed in court that during the lunch Mr Snowden asked him how could he help him personally.

He told the court: "I have never been so flabbergasted in my life. Nobody has ever tried to bribe me before.

"This person was trying to effectively stop us making a bid to run the lottery where all the profits would go to good causes, and I asked him 'What on earth do you mean?"'

Mr Branson said he informed his secretaries and the head of Virgin's publicity that Mr Snowden had tried to bribe him.

He said his solicitor advised him that the best way of dealing with the "bribe" was to go ahead with the bid.

"If I went public there would be public debate which would distract from the bidding process and someone could say we were crying foul," said Mr Branson. "We felt we could win the lottery bid so we decided not to go public at this time."

Earlier, Mr Snowden's legal representative, Richard Ferguson QC, said it would have been "madness" for him to stake his entire career on offering a bribe to Mr Branson, whom he did not know, in front of a witness.

He said: "To offer a bribe to someone who could use that offer against you, to destroy all the hard work you had put into your bid - it doesn't add up, does it?"

Mr Ferguson suggested that Mr Branson had interpreted what was said in the way he did because he had been humiliated as a "crass amateur" by an older, American businessman, who would not join his consortium.

He said that Mr Branson was a "bitterly disappointed man" when he failed to win the lottery bid.

The hearing continues.
 

Back to top | BBC News Home | BBC Homepage	©