A strip club venture has ground to a halt after a Maidenhead businessman pulled the plug on his investment.

Father-of-five Manowar Hussain said that his name has been dragged through the mud after initially bankrolling the lap dancing venue in Henley-on-Thames, which roused anger among some residents in the town.

The owner of the basement venue, which was expected to open as the Diamonds and Pearls strip club on Saturday, maintains that it was not his decision to mould the nightspot into a lap dancing club, after investing about £250,000 in the project.

“It wasn’t my choice anyway,” he said. “It’s the managers who decide what kind of venue they wanted to run. That’s their job,” he said. “I got dragged into this because my name was on the licence as the investor. I was just an investor. It was never my desire to open a lap dancing club.”

The 38-year-old, who runs a shop in Cookham Road as well as a nightclub in Bracknell, said that he now wants nothing to do with the venue as he looks to sell it on. He admits he regrets getting involved after buying the business last year.

“It’s not a moral thing,” he said of stripping. “I’m a family man and a Muslim and so I have taken my investment out.”

Diamonds and Pearls was due to be based under the unconnected Latino’s nightclub which launches officially today.