Paul McKenna, the stage hypnotist, told a judge today how he became a "laughing stock" among his competitors after being falsely accused of buying a bogus degree from an American university for $2,615.

The best selling author on hypnotherapy is suing the Daily Mirror for libel over a "spiteful" article by the columnist Victor Lewis-Smith which was published in October 2003.

A dapper figure in dark rimmed spectacles, Mr McKenna told Mr Justice Edeady in the High Court: "Commercial competitors and practitioners have seized on the article and mocked me. My peers made jokes about the article and I became a laughing stock ...

"People were whispering about me behind my back saying I was so vain that I had bought a doctorate in America."

The article was the ninth repetition in both the Mirror and the Evening Standard of malicious allegations first made by Lewis-Smith six years earlier - and he was "devastated."

Mr McKenna, 43, told the hearing: "I am a public figure and from time to time I expect to be criticised in the press. However, what was written about me is a lie. Furthermore, Mr Lewis-Smith has apparently decided to repeat these allegations on something like an annual basis since he has done so now on numerous occasions since he first made them in 1997 in his Evening Standard article."

The court has been told that he was awarded the doctorate from Lasalle University in Louisianna but that it’s principal, Thomas Kirk, who was later jailed for five years had cheated innocent students.

Kirk defrauded them by making them believe that their degrees were accredited by a recognised body - the so-called Council for Post-Secondary Christian Education - which turned out to be his own fraudulent creation.

In an article headlined: "It’s a load of doc and bull," Lewis-Smith wrote: "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?"

But Mr McKenna said today that he did not know about the fraud until he had submitted his final dissertation of 70,000 words and spent 500 hours on study and coursework.

Cross examined by John Kelsey-Fry, counsel for Mirror Group Newspapers, Mr McKenna, who suffers from dyslexia, admitted that he had only two O levels, one CSE and an A level in art after an undistinguished career at Ignatius College in Enfield, north London.

He had decided against applying to take a first (Bachelors) degree after determining that a PhD was more in keeping with his experience in hypnotherapy and authorship.

Mr McKenna said he was "really shocked" that the article had been published as he had only just received a retraction in the Evening Standard to another article by Lewis-Smith just a month before referring to him as "Non-Doctor."

"I was appalled that he had returned to the subject again which seemed to me to be an act of spite," he said. "I felt humiliated and disgusted. I was very hurt as it depicted me as a fraudster who knowingly had bought a degree to defraud the public.

"I worry that as a result of the article people will question not only whether I am telling the truth about my academic qualifications but also about my integrity as a hypnotherapist, broadcaster, author and trainer."

Mr McKenna said he did not believe, either when the article was written or now, that his degree is bogus.

It was not until a few months after his graduation that he became aware he might have been deceived by Lasalle on the subject of his accreditation.

He said he had used hypnosis to assist clients including the Duchess of York, Robbie Williams, Roger Moore, Daryl Hannah, Martine McCutcheon, Sophie Dahl, David Bowie, George Michael, Jerry Hall, Roger Daltry and Sheila Hancock.

The case continues tomorrow.

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