A York businessman fighting extradition for the second time must wait until next month to learn if he can stay in this country.

A district judge adjourned a hearing on whether convicted fraudster Paul Williams Donald Blanchard should be sent to Spain until October 18 when he will give his judgement.

It is the second time the Spanish authorities have tried to extradite the 79-year-old retired businessman over allegations that he worked as a financial adviser to criminal gangs.

Blanchard, of St Oswald Court, Fulford, claims he was an undercover state agent for the Spanish police and had told them in 2001 of a timeshare fraud allegedly being committed by the man for whom he was then working as an accountant.

Speaking before the four-day hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Blanchard said he was “feeling confident”.

In 2008, Blanchard was jailed in England for a £4.3 million conspiracy involving a German bank in Dublin and a Spanish bank in Spain that Judge Simon Lawler QC called  “a bold and audacious fraud that very nearly succeeded”.

He pleaded guilty to bank fraud and money laundering and denied passport fraud but was convicted of it after a trial.

In 2020 the Spanish authorities initially obtained an order that Blanchard be extradited to Spain but the High Court over-ruled it saying the European Arrest Warrant issued for his arrest in 2018 was “incoherent and defective”.