Eco-warrior pays price for Amazon trip

An explorer who spent decades living on a boat in the Amazon lost his battle yesterday to prove his London flat was sold behind his back while he was campaigning to save the rainforest.

Captain Clive Kelly, who appeared at the High Court in London with his face tattooed with designs, had told Mark Pelling, deputy High Court judge, that he had not seen a penny of the £200,000 sale. He claimed the man who bought the property, Arshad Mahmood, an estate agent, and Keith Steward, a neighbour who looked after the flat while he was away, conspired with a Turkish businessman – who had power of attorney over the flat – to defraud him.

But Captain Kelly lost his claim for compensation after he was unable to prove the conspiracy. Mr Mahmood and Mr Steward were cleared of any wrongdoing. Ibrahim Bakir, the businessman, was not served with notice of the action and the judge did not make any findings in his case. Mark Dencer, representing Captain Kelly, told the judge during the hearing that his client had only two assets of note – a trimaran on which he lived for decades, travelling around the southern hemisphere, and the flat in Kensington, west London.

Captain Kelly, 68, who kept a pencil to make notes in a hole through his ear lobe, told the judge he allowed his heart to rule his head when he granted power of attorney to Mr Bakir allowing him to run his affairs. He said Mr Bakir had offered him $900,000 (£570,000) to campaign and set up a museum of the Amerindian tribes. But he said he had not received any of the money. He said he had been married to a Brazilian woman for eight years and, when he was not at sea, he spent most of his time living in a hut in the Amazon. But he said his trimaran was now a wreck after being damaged in a storm and his hut had been eaten by ants.

"I hoped to use my flat in London for my retirement and as an investment but when I returned I found I was homeless," he said. But the judge said Captain Kelly had been an "unsatisfactory and bombastic" witness who had been "willing to exaggerate". Captain Kelly told the court he had set off for the Amazon after working in the entertainment industry and witnessing how lives were destroyed by drugs.