ONE of Britain’s leading dealers in antiques was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence yesterday for lying to the High Court during a feud with the family of his dead partner.

Robin Symes has been locked in an 18-month dispute with the Greek family of his deceased homosexual partner, Christo Michailidis, over what is thought to be one of the world’s finest collections of Egyptian antiquities. Symes was found yesterday to have lied over the sale of an Eygptian statue during the battle by Mr Michailidis’s family to obtain half of Symes’s estimated £150 million fortune.

Mr Justice Peter Smith ruled that Symes had “created a false sale” of an ancient Eygptian statue for $1.6 million (£978,000) to hide the fact that it was being sold for $4.5 million. Symes was told that he would face jail if he continued to refuse to disclose the true value of his assets after a judge ruled in favour of Mr Michailidis’s family last month.

Mr Michailidis, who died when he fell down the stairs of the couple’s Tuscan villa during a party in 1999, had been close friends with Symes for 30 years. Mr Michailidis’s family said that they were entitled to half the fortune amassed by Symes’s London-based antiques business because they had been business partners as well as lovers.

Symes remained reticent about their private relationship, but said in court that Mr Michailidis had been his employer. The Michailidis family suggested that they had helped to finance some of Symes’s ventures, while Mr Michailidis had helped to make a success of Symes’s gallery in Central London.

During the course of the hearings Symes was given permission to sell the statue to reduce his company’s debts. The understanding was that $1.6 million was the best price he could get. In fact, the statue was valued on Symes’s books at $3 million and sold to Sheikh Saoud al-Thani for $4.5 million, the judge said. The sheikh paid one third of the price as a down-payment, but is refusing to pay the rest because he disputes the statue’s authenticity.

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