A woman's claim that the owner of a chain of York sandwich shops misrepresented the financial situation of a store she was about to buy was described in court as "a sham".

Penelope Stansfield was accused of doing everything she could to shirk her liability for the closure of the shop in Bridge Street, York, only two months after she bought it from Lawries of York.

Lawries of York is suing Mrs Stansfield for arrears it claims she owes the firm for stock and rent, while Mrs Stansfield is making a counter-claim for £100,000, alleging that company owner David Lawrie did not make clear the shop's turnover was tumbling before she bought the shop.

The accusations against Mrs Stansfield came from John Stiles, representing Lawries, as he made his final submission before a decision on the civil hearing at Teesside Combined Court.

Mrs Stansfield bought the shop, which had been Lawries on the Bridge, in June 1999 and changed the name to Penny's on the Bridge.

She sold the shop back to Lawries of York in August that year after making losses of £1,200 a week.

Mr Stiles claimed Mrs Stansfield began to make inquiries about selling the sandwich shop only nine days after taking it on.

Mr Stiles said: "She had no experience in this type of business whatsoever. It's not surprising that after the changes she made to the business, takings dropped under her management."

He said that, in his opinion, Mrs Stansfield's counter-claim was a "sham" because she constantly tried to wriggle out of the contract and avoid blame for the shop's closure.

However, it is Mrs Stansfield's case that David Lawrie did not make it clear to her that the shop's turnover was declining.

Richard Merritt, representing Mrs Stansfield, said in his final submission that it was Mr Lawrie's duty to give his client full information about the shop's financial situation.

Mr Lawrie was asked by Mrs Stansfield to provide six weeks' worth of financial figures for 1999.

Mr Merritt said that it was not his contention that Mr Lawrie deliberately selected certain weeks of statistics, but that by chance he picked out six weeks that featured much higher average takings than usual for that period.

"What he should have done," said Mr Merritt, "was to go back over a much longer period of time just to make sure that he was giving the widest picture of information."

Misrepresentation did not mean fraud, said Mr Merritt, adding that Mr Lawrie could be seen to have innocently misrepresented the situation or, more seriously, to have been negligent.

Following the submissions by the two counsel involved, Recorder Julian Hallam decided that he would "reserve judgement" on the case and send his decision through the post in the next few days to the two parties involved.

Updated: 11:11 Friday, June 15, 2001