A NORTH-EAST businessman will be extradited to Singapore this week to face double murder charges after he lost a last-ditch attempt to fight deportation yesterday.

Michael McCrea, from Penshaw, County Durham, was "devastated" by a decision from Australia's High Court not to grant him leave to appeal.

He will be escorted by Singapore police from Melbourne jail on to a plane and back to the Asian city state.

The 48-year-old father-of-four is wanted in connection with the deaths of his chauffeur and the driver's girlfriend.

Mr McCrea lived in Singapore as a financial advisor for expats, but left the country in January 2002, days before the bodies of Kho Nai Guan, 46, and Yan La Ming, 30 were found in the back of an abandoned limousine.

Mr McCrea, the son of a coal miner, was arrested in Melbourne in May 2002, where he has been fighting extradition since.

Singapore has undertaken to lift its mandatory death sentence for murder if Mr McCrea is convicted.

He has argued that promise was not legally binding, meaning he could still be executed.

Melbourne judges backed earlier decisions by the Federal Court, saying they believed the undertaking met the requirements of Australia's extradition laws.

Mr McCrea's lawyer, Terry Grundy, said: "The extradition will happen within a couple of days and Michael is devastated."

Lawyers had hoped the British Government would intervene and agree for Mr McCrea to be tried in the UK.