Lord Sugar forced to remove tweet by judge

Lord Alan Sugar was ordered to remove a Twitter message earlier in the year by a judge over fears it would influence a jury in a parliamentary expenses case.

During Lord Taylor's trial for expenses fraud in January, The Apprentice star and Labour peer posted a tweet speculating that the accused may be cleared because he was a Tory.

It emerged yesterday that justice Saunders at the high court forced the multi-millionaire businessman to take down the message as it could have unfairly influenced the jurors.

Saunders also referred the matter to the attorney general Dominic Grieve, who had the power to bring charges against Lord Sugar, but decided against the move.

Lord Sugar, who is currently appearing in the latest series of The Apprentice, posted the message on the second day of the trial of former Conservative peer Lord Taylor.

Referring to former Labour MP David Chaytor, who had earlier received an 18-month prison sentence for expenses fraud, Lord Sugar told his 286,000 followers: "Lord Taylor Tory peer in court over alleged expense fiddle. Wonder if he'll get off as he is a Tory compared to Labour MP who was sent to jail."

After learning about the message, Saunders sent the jury out of court and asked lawyers to investigate the case. Lord Sugar removed the offending tweet as soon as he was made aware of the problem.

A spokesman for the businessman said: "Lord Sugar was away in America so wasn't familiar with the restrictions in the case. As soon as he was, it was taken down.

"It was a 20-minute matter and is now finished with. There is absolutely no way that Lord Sugar would want to prejudice any legal process at all."

Lord Taylor was convicted of the charges against him, but Justice Saunders decided not to lift reporting restrictions regarding Lord Sugar's tweet until today, when the expenses trial of Lord Hannington, another Tory peer, was finished.

Lord Sugar is no stranger to controversy on micro-blogging site Twitter, after he previously had high-profile spats with celebrities such as Kirstie Allsopp and Chris Moyles.