A former football club chairman jailed for three years after admitting his part in cheating the taxman out of more than half a million pounds lost an appeal against his sentence today.

Judges at the Court of Appeal in London refused to cut the jail term imposed on ex-Darlington FC chairman George Reynolds.

Reynolds was told in October by a Newcastle Crown Court judge that his offence was so serious that only an immediate custodial sentence would suffice.

Reynolds, 69, of Monument Court, Nevilles Cross, Durham, pleaded guilty with his cousin Richard Tennick, 59, to cheating HM Revenue and Customs out of £650,000 in unpaid tax.

Lord Justice Waller, sitting with two other judges, announced that although the sentence imposed in his case was a ''tough'' one, it was not ''manifestly excessive''.

Tennick, of Bowling Green Lane, Manfield, North Yorkshire, also lost an appeal against his two-year jail sentence today.

Reynolds emerged from a childhood of poverty in Sunderland to amass a £260 million fortune, and was ranked 112 in the Sunday Times Rich List in 2000.

He spent millions on a house next door to the Spice Girls in the London suburb of Hampstead, a luxury yacht and villa in Spain and a fleet of top of the range Mercedes cars with personalised number plates.

But the Crown Court heard that he was now almost penniless.

Full story in The Northern Echo tomorrow.