A businessman who trussed up an associate and hanged him half-naked from a forklift truck in a row about cash, has been jailed for 33 months.

Muhammed Sheikh, 35, of Sutton Court Road, Plaistow, was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and false imprisonment.

Mr Noor had lent Sheikh some �10,000 to help pay rent on a warehouse and to meet bills, but in July 2010 he asked for the cash back so he could take his family on a holiday to Greece.

Sheikh, said to be heavily in debt, went to Mr Noor’s house on July 4 last year and lured him to the warehouse in Dagenham, Essex, with the promise of sorting out the dispute.

Instead, he was tied up, attacked, threatened with a knife and hanged from a forklift truck, Snaresbrook Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Karen Holt said Sheikh also filmed part of the attack, in which Mr Noor can be seen bound and begging for the ropes to be loosened.When police arrived, Sheikh claimed that Mr Noor had used his name to create fake accounts and forge cheques, stealing around �100,000 from their businesses.

He had called the police to the warehouse and told officers he had executed a “citizen’s arrest” over the stolen cash.

Police found no evidence to back his claims.

Sheikh was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and false imprisonment.

Former co-defendant Micko Kadic, 37, from Pinner in Middlessex, was earlier cleared of both counts by the jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

Barry Myers, defending Sheikh, argued that as prosecutors had claimed the co-defendant was the one who had hanged Mr Noor from the truck, therefore it could not have formed part of the attack.

Judge Jacqueline Beech rejected his argument and said it was one of the most ludicrous defences she had ever heard.