EXCLUSIVE:Liam Payne’s father is being SUED for $10million for defamation… by his late son’s close friend who claims grieving dad has made him a scapegoat for his tragic death

Liam Payne’s father is being sued for $10million for defamation by his late son’s close friend who claims he has been made a scapegoat for the star’s tragic death.

Rogelio ‘Roger’ Nores, an American businessman, was among the last people to see the 31-year-old former One Direction singer alive in Buenos Aires on October 16 last year before he fatally plunged from a third-floor hotel balcony.

Nores was sensationally charged with manslaughter last month for having ‘abandoned him [Liam] to his luck knowing that he was incapable of fending for himself and knowing that he [Liam] suffered from multiple addictions’.

Judge Laura Bruniard said Nores ‘failed to fulfil his duties of care, assistance and help’ towards the singer, who died while staying at the boutique CasaSur Palmero hotel.

Four others – hotel manager Gilda Martin, hotel worker Ezequiel Pereyra, hotel receptionist Esteban Grassi and waiter Braian Paiz – have also been charged in relation with the singer’s death.

But now Nores has accused the star’s father, Geoff Payne, of causing him ‘irreparable damage’ valued at more than $10million, in a lawsuit lodged in Palm Beach, Florida.

All ‘net financial proceeds’ from the legal action will be donated to Liam’s son Bear, Roger maintains.

He claims that Geoff, a mechanic from Wolverhampton, made ‘misleading false and defamatory’ claims, in sworn statements to police detectives in Buenos Aires investigating Liam’s death which have incriminated him.

He claims the ‘false’ statements are:

Geoff told police that Nores and Kate Cassidy were his nurses and were responsible for his care.

But Nores says that while Liam was a dear friend, he never agreed to be and was never the caretaker of Liam and he did not have a legal duty to Liam.

Geoff also allegedly told police that Rogelio [Roger] Nores took Liam to see a new and unnamed psychiatrist in Florida after his doctor, Dr Rhaidy, resigned, and that Nores lied to the new doctor about Liam’s problems with alcohol and drugs in order for him to prescribe psychiatric medication and avoid continuing Dr Rohaidy’s care recommendations.

But Nores claims that he and Liam never visited ‘another psychiatrist’ together, that there was no ‘another psychiatrist’, and that Geoff’s statement is 100 per cent fiction. He could therefore never have hidden any information from the non-existent medical person.

Another claim is that Geoff told police his son could not be left on his own, did not have his own phone and could only be contacted through his girlfriend Kate or Nores.

But Nores says Liam was frequently on his own while he lived in Florida and always had his own phone, apart from a few days after it was broken during an argument with Kate.