THE owner of the Dance Academy nightclub has taken the stand

in his defence and told the jury: “I cleaned up nightclubs in

this city.”

Manoucehr Bahmanzadeh, 52, was in the witness stand for most

of yesterday and described working 24 hours a day to make the

club a success.

He said: “I cleaned up nightclubs in this city. I got rid of

the gangs. I did it and did it all on my own.”

He also told the jury in giving evidence:

Offered to pay for a uniformed police officer to stand

outside the Dance Academy

Couldn't get decent door staff and suspected one was working

for a drug gang

Plymouth City Council had wanted to buy the Dance Academy

for 12 years – and suggested that's why they closed the club

down.

Bahmanzadeh, who the court heard was born and brought up in

Teheran and worked for the Shah of Iran before the country's

Islamic revolution, said he had asked for help from the police

but was told to shut down.

Bahmanzadeh told how he had come to the UK in 1979 and ran a

nightclub security firm in Brighton, branching out into other

business ventures until he bought the old theatre on Union

Street, by then an occasional club known as The Academy.

He said he spent £550,000 on the freehold, raising the last

£50,000 “from family and friends I desperately asked”.

He originally ran the club with his business partner Cathy

Drake. It opened seven days a week and Bahmanzadeh said they

both worked 24 hours a day to make the club a success.

“I lost about a stone,” he said.

“We tried everything. I even tried a Greek night, would you

believe.”

But later Bahmanzadeh told how health problems kept him away

from the club, which by 2005 was open only on Saturday

nights.

Bahmanzadeh said he obtained a late licence and had a

“fantastic” relationship with licensing officers, but bemoaned

the fact the council's licensing officers and police were often

at cross purposes.

He said he attended meetings of Clubwatch but they were

“always the same”, talking about alcohol problems but never

drugs.

When asked how he met co-defendants Tom Costelloe and Justin

Hayward, he said he met Costelloe at a charity event in

London's Camden palace and observed Hayward “working hard” at

the Dance Academy.

“I needed a second person to be licensee, therefore I asked

Justin,” he said.

The flamboyant club owner told the court of the problems he

had in recruiting security staff.

He repeatedly derided SIA training, which he said was just

one day, and said he had offered to pay police £200 to put a

uniformed officer on the door, because the door staff he could

hire “did not know their right hand from their left”.

He claimed on one occasion, all his door staff left because

they were told “The Swilly” were coming down, leaving him to

guard the door alone.

On another occasion he fired a doorman for eating a kebab,

and all the other security staff left in protest, he said.

Bahmanzadeh spoke of Gareth Grimes, the doorman who gave

evidence against him earlier in the trial.

He said he had been suspicious that Mr Grimes wanted to work

for him for just one night a week.

He said Mr Grimes was doing a good job, but added:

“Sometimes people do a fantastic job for you – they clean up

the club, but only to put their own dealers in there and make

thousands of pounds.”

Bahmanzadeh said he sacked Mr Grimes after hearing he and

another bouncer had “taxed” a drug dealer for £150 – allowing

him to stay in the club after a search but pocketing his

money.

The court heard in 2005 Bahmanzadeh had become ill,

suffering from arthritis and eye problems, and had begun to

spend a lot of time away from Plymouth, in Sussex and

Cyprus.

The court heard how pressure from the police to deal with

the drug problem at the Dance Academy had become more

persistent, culminating in the raid which closed the club in

May 2006.

Bahmanzadeh said police had kept him in custody, preventing

him from contesting their temporary closure application in

Magistrates court, and suggested this was because the city

council had always wanted to buy the Dance Academy

building.

He said the council had even sent surveyors and held

discussions with him, but he had refused to sell the venue.

“When the mayor came to the opening of the Cooperage (his

other club, opened in 2006) he shook my hand and told me what

good work I had done for the city. Six months later I'm a drug

dealer,” Bahmanzadeh said, referring to the council's attitude

to him.

He also said the police had targeted him because he made

“too much money too quickly”, and accused officers of playing

at being James Bond.

Bahmanzadeh, 52, of Union Street, Costelloe, 37, of

Westminster Close, Honiton, and Hayward, 26, of Limerick Place,

St Judes, all deny allowing a Class A drug – ecstasy – to be

sold in the Dance Academy.

The trial continues.