A BUSINESSMAN has been ordered to hand over £6.5 million to his former employers after falsely claiming that he was suffering from depression to avoid appearing in court.

Paul McKenzie sent the document, known in Scots Law as a soul and conscious certificate, to a judge at the Court of Session in Edinburgh after being being sued for breaking the terms of a severance package.

Mr McKenzie had sold his debt collection agency Mackenzie Hall Holdings Ltd for £33.5 million to a US-based company January 2012,.

However he had eventually left to work for a rival in breach of an agreement. The company brought the action against Mr McKenzie, a member of the Blue Knights consortium that failed to become the preferred bidder for Rangers after it went into administration in 2012.

Lord Doherty, in a ruling on the case on Wednesday, said the entrepreneur sent the sick note to avoid appearing before him.

He said his clerk checked with the medical staff at NHS Lanarkshire in East Kilbride, who purportedly issued the note but they denied either treating the businessman or signing the communication.

Mr McKenzie, of Strathaven, South Lanarkshire, then obtained a sick note from his GP, which suggested he had depression.

But after being contacted, Dr Craig Smith told Lord Doherty that he was withdrawing the note. Dr Smith claimed his patient told him "untruths" about his actual condition.

The doctor said that he would not have agreed to it had he known the situation.

Lord Doherty called the document invalid.

He said Mr McKenzie has failed to provide any proof that he was too ill to attend court.

Lord Doherty wrote: "It does not emanate from a clinician at the Psychological Therapies team. No satisfactory explanation has been provided by the defender in relation to that important and remarkable matter.

"In particular, no explanation has been proffered to the effect that he consulted a qualified and clearly identified medical practitioner elsewhere and that indeed a doctor is the signatory of the document."

Mr McKenzie sold Kilmarnock-based Mackenzie Hall Holdings Ltd in 2012 to Virginia-based Portfiolio Recovery Assets for $51 million (£33.5m).

He had stayed on with the business which employed hundreds of people at its headquarters and call centre.

However, the new owners later terminated Mr McKenzie's employment at the company after he had said he would sign an agreement that he would not do anything to negatively affect the company if he left.

Mr McKenzie then began working for a rival firm.

In December 2012, Mackenzie Hall obtained an interim interdict from a court which was designed to stop him from working for the new company.

Mr McKenzie ignored the order.

He tried to get the court action against him postponed for a year, but Lord Doherty refused to grant the request.

Mr McKenzie then faced a court action at the Edinburgh court.

He had been due to appear at a hearing last week.

Mr McKenzie had claimed to have lost most of the millions he made from selling shares in his old business through spread betting on the financial markets and gambling.

It had also been spent on a £440,000 house and he paid out £500,000 to his former wife as part of their divorce and had to pay for the upkeep of their children.

He also said that despite owning two properties in Cape Verde, they could not be sold.

In his ruling, Lord Doherty added: "While I recognise the sum sued for is a very large one and that the proper measures of damages is in issue, the defender has only himself to blame for not appearing at the proof."