A millionaire convicted of kidnapping and threatening to kill two businessmen unless they gave him £600,000 has won the first round of his battle to clear his name.

Volkar Kappler, 38, from Wales, was jailed for 11 years at Teesside Crown Court in October last year after he was found guilty of kidnapping John Wood, 36, and David Langthorne, 40, and trying to blackmail them.

But Mr Justice Wilkie, sitting at London's Appeal Court, ruled yesterday that Kappler had an arguable case that his convictions were unsafe and gave him permission to submit a formal appeal.

His trial was told that Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne had been handcuffed, beaten, had hoods put over their head and were bundled into the back of a van in March last year.

The two men were abducted at Mr Wood's Hartlepool factory by bogus Customs and Excise officials before being driven more than 200 miles to Kappler's Superflexibles plastics factory, in Mold, Wales.

The court was told the men threatened to cut off Mr Langthorne's ear with a knife, rape Mr Wood's wife and kill her and their children unless the two businessmen handed over £600,000 in cash.

Mr Wood and Mr Langthorne were then made to change out of their own clothes and don tracksuits and trainers before eventually being dumped in a field beside the M53 in Merseyside after being given three days to hand over the cash.

Kappler vigorously denied the charges and claimed he had been at home with his wife watching The Simpsons on the night in question.

Yesterday, lawyers on his behalf argued the convictions should be overturned - claiming the trial judge wrongly allowed the prosecution to put damning video evidence before the jury.

No date has yet been set for hearing of the full appeal.