PAUL McKENNA, the stage hypnotist, was accused of buying a bogus degree from an American university for $2,615 (£1,400), the High Court was told yesterday.

But, his lawyer said, he was awarded the doctorate in hypnotherapy from Lasalle University, Louisiana, after studying for 18 months. Mr McKenna, 43, is suing the Daily Mirror over an article by Victor Lewis-Smith, which was published in October 2003.

Mr McKenna’s clients have included David Bowie and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. In his article, under the headline “It’s a load of doc and bull”, Lewis-Smith referred to publicity material about Mr McKenna’s PhD, which, Lewis-Smith pointed out, had not been awarded by the “well-respected” Lasalle University in Philadelphia.

He wrote: “I discovered that his doctorate had been awarded by another Lasalle University, an obscure, degrees-by-post establishment based in Mandeville, Louisiana. And, when I rang the university switchboard, I discovered that anyone could be fully doctored by Lasalle within months (no previous qualifications needed), just so long as they could answer the following question correctly: ‘Do you have $2,615, sir?’.”

Lewis-Smith wrote that Thomas James Kirk, the university principal, was under investigation by the FBI and later admitted fraud charges. Soon after that, Mr McKenna’s publicity material removed any mention of his PhD.

Subsequently, Lewis-Smith said, Mr McKenna had obtained a PhD from a genuine business school. But he said: “His newly acquired doctorate shouldn’t blind anyone to the fact that the man made his name by reviving on TV the sort of distasteful and humiliating acts that were banned in this country’s theatres in the 1950s.” Desmond Browne, QC, counsel for Mr McKenna, told Mr Justice Eady: “Victor Lewis-Smith and the Mirror pilloried Mr McKenna as a fraud, claiming that he had a doctorate to which he had no honest entitlement. They can’t prove that to be true.” He said that Mr McKenna, who is dyslexic, wanted a doctorate to atone for his failure at school, make a contribution to the community and add value to his business.

In 1996 it emerged that Lasalle was accredited by a body that turned out to be a fraudulent creation of Mr Kirk. But Mr McKenna did not know this until after he had submitted his final project. This lack of accreditation did not mean that the university was a “diploma mill”, Mr Browne added. Investigations in the US established that Mr Kirk had defrauded innocent students by leading them to believe that their degrees were accredited by a recognised body.

Mr Browne said that Mr McKenna had tried to resolve his difference with the Mirror and Piers Morgan, then the editor, without legal action but the obstinacy of the newspaper had eventually driven him to issue proceedings. Mr McKenna lost a Press Complaints Commission case in 2004.

Mr McKenna attended the 100th birthday party of the Mirror in 2003. After the party, Marcus Partington, the newspaper’s lawyer, wrote to Mr McKenna’s solicitors: “I am assuming from the fact that your client chose to attend the Daily Mirror’s party . . . that your client has decided to put this matter behind him.”

Mr Browne said: “Very substantial damages are needed to vindicate the claimant of the charge of dishonesty and misleading the public. ”

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