A WIRRAL businessman’s libel case collapsed in Liverpool High Court yesterday.

Bahram Noorani now faces paying the defendant’s six-figure costs after making a claim that a judge said “should never have been brought”.

He had tried to sue Dick Calver, the former chair of Wirral West Conservatives and a retired orthopaedic surgeon.

The Greasby-based Iranian property developer said an email allegedly sent by Mr Calver to up to 30 members of the local party’s executive committee was libellous.

It supposedly implied Mr Noorani made a series of nuisance silent phone calls and instigated other, more sinister, malicious calls to Mr Calver. The speaker – later revealed to be a 16-year-old boy – said he was an “acid expert from Widnes” who was going to visit Mr Calver’s home to test the effects of acid on his wife’s face.

But the judge told the court Mr Noorani was behind the silent calls and the jury would have found he was “responsible” for the malicious ones as well.

After a delayed start to the third day of the trial, Mr Noorani’s legal team told the court he was “discontinuing” the action.

Mr Calver’s lawyers immediately applied for “indemnity costs” of £100,000. Mr Noorani must pay £50,000 into the court within 14 days. The judge is deciding how much more he will have to pay.