The former Ferrari mechanic at the centre of the Formula One “espionage” scandal says that he is innocent and has accused the Italian team of tracking his movements and trying to frame him.

Nigel Stepney, who has left his home in Italy and is now in hiding, denied that he had copied secret information at Ferrari’s base in Maranello and sent it to Mike Coughlan, the chief designer of Ferrari’s main rivals, McLaren Mercedes. Stepney is alleged to have sent a comprehensive dossier on all Ferrari’s activities to Coughlan, who has been suspended by McLaren pending the outcome of an investigation into the affair by the FIA, the sport’s governing body. Stepney is facing criminal charges in Italy.

“I categorically deny that I copied them [the documents] or that I sent them to Mike Coughlan,” Stepney was quoted as saying yesterday. “I knew I was being watched all the time at the factory and that everything I did or said was being reported back, and that people knew whenever I accessed files on the computer. I have no idea how anything came into Mike’s possession. If he has some documents, they came from another source.”

Stepney also denied claims by Ferrari that he had attempted to sabotage the race cars being prepared for Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa for the Monaco Grand Prix in May. He claimed that he was a victim of Ferrari’s internal politics and said his that trouble began when he told the team management he was unhappy with his job.

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“Ferrari took that badly,” Stepney said. “I began to feel like I was some sort of traitor. As soon as I went against the system at Ferrari, I got squeezed. I’m anxious, naturally, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Stepney, who played a key role at Ferrari during the Michael Schumacher era and started his career in racing with the Broadspeed Touring Cars team at Southam, near his family home in the Midlands, when he was 16, alleged that Ferrari had hired people to follow him in recent weeks.

“There have been high-speed car chases,” Stepney said. “We’ve been followed by more than one car, with Italian plates, and when we cornered one of them last Thursday evening, the men in it refused to speak.

“I don’t believe they were journalists. My girlfriend, Ash, has been stalked at the house. There was tracking gear on my car. Someone was going to get hurt. I had no option but to get out of Italy.”

The Honda team claimed on Friday that Stepney and Coughlan had met Nicky Fry, the team principal, at Heathrow last month. Honda said that the meeting was entirely about the possibility of the two men joining the team and the supposed 500-page dossier of information from Ferrari was not mentioned.

Stepney endorsed Honda’s version of events. “I categorically deny that any technical information passed between Mike and I during that meeting or at any time,” he said.

Despite claims by Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s ringmaster, that neither Lewis Hamilton nor Fernando Alonso would have points deducted should McLaren be found to have been in breach of regulations, an FIA spokesman said: “We cannot rule out action being taken in both [the drivers’ and constructors’] championships.”