A conman will fight his conviction by claiming a juror fell for the barrister who led the prosecution.

Darlington fraudster George Steen has learned the female jury foreman sent lawyer Richard Latham QC a bottle of champagne and a note asking: "What does a woman have to do to meet a man like you?"

Steen, who is serving six years for running an international fraud which netted millions of pounds, will now use the proposition as part of an appeal against his conviction.

His solicitor Peter Krivinskas said last night: "This casts doubt on my client's conviction.

"Our point is that this was the foreman - not just a jury member - and, therefore, it has to be potentially assumed she may have slightly more influence and she may have had a leaning."

Mr Latham, a married father-of-three, returned the bottle of champagne to his admirer and told her it would be wrong for him to take it.

The 56-year-old barrister, who specialises in fraud and murder cases, then told Judge Andrew Goyer of the incident.

The bottle of bubbly was sent to Mr Latham after the end of the four-month trial at Southwark Crown Court in London. Mr Krivinskas said: "If it had been during the trial it would have been a lot more problematical, and the judge would have had to discharge the juror.

"There has been a recent court of appeal decision on similar facts but as there was no evidence this infatuation influenced the jury member's duties under oath then it has to be assumed she had complied with her obligations."

Steen, 55, was jailed in June along with accomplices Dennis Alexander and David Andrews, both from East Sussex, after being found guilty of conspiring to defraud.

He had fled the country to his Philippines hideaway towards the end of the trial, but was tracked down by the country's National Bureau of Investigation and deported.

Andrews, 38, was jailed for five years, and Alexander, 47, for two for their part in the scam in which businessmen were offered bogus loans before being fleeced when asked for huge bonds up front.

Mr Krivinskas added: "There will be other grounds of appeal including the prosecution introducing inadmissible evidence without the judge stopping it, and the judge's handling of the summing up.

"The jury foreman's advances form just part of the appeal. She was not observed openly swooning in court. If she had these thoughts she kept them to herself. So it came as a shock to everyone - especially Mr Latham."

A spokeswoman for the Serious Fraud Office, which brought the prosecution, said last night: "If there is an appeal we will resist it."

Steen, who lived in Geneva Road, is being held in an open prison in Kent, but is soon to be transferred to HMP Wealstun, near Wetherby, West Yorkshire.

Mr Latham, who will lead the prosecution of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr in October over the murders of ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, was abroad on holiday and could not be contacted.