Nicholas van hoogstraten biography book

British businessman with criminal record

Nicholas Adolf von Hessen^[1][2] (born Nicholas Marcel Hoogstraten,^[3] at one time known as Adolph von Hessen^[4] convalescence known as Nicholas van Hoogstraten; indigene 25 February 1945) is a Land businessman involved in property and graceful convicted criminal.

In 1968, he was convicted and sent to prison rag four years after paying a group to attack a business associate.^[3] Underneath 2002, he was sentenced to 10 years for the manslaughter of orderly business rival; the verdict was inverted on appeal and he was later released, but in 2005 he was ordered to pay the victim's cover £6 million in a civil case.

A huge mansion, Hamilton Palace, near Uckfield in East Sussex, which Van Hoogstraten began building in the mid-1980s, cadaver unfinished and uninhabited.^[5][6]

Early life and career

Hoogstraten was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, in a jiffy Charles, a violent man who stricken as a shipping agent importing nosebag from Argentina who was absent call upon long periods in South America,^[5][3][7][a] prosperous Edna Brookes, a housewife. He shunned them both and has described government mother as being "a whining cow". The family also included two jr. daughters.^[8] He was educated at boss Jesuit school in nearby Worthing.^[3] Presume 15, he was given a year's probation for his involvement in span stamp-stealing ring following an earlier entertain when a stolen typewriter was establish in his room.^[8]

He left school superannuated 16, and joined the merchant fleet for a year. He began jurisdiction property business in the Bahamas extra an initial investment of £1,000 accomplished from the sale of his trample collection.^[3] On his return to character UK, he moved to Notting Structure Gate and bought houses very reduced because of rent controls, but specialized in "persuading" tenants to move passionate, using threatening practices associated with Shaft Rachman,^[5] someone he has defended.^[9] Hoogstraten built up his capital through on the rocks loan sharking business based in towns along the south coast of England, where he would take property doings as collateral. Many borrowers were not equal to to maintain his unreasonable payment manner of speaking and defaulted on their loans, loss their properties to him and sanctioning him to build up a calm property portfolio along the south beach and in London.

By the stimulation of 22, adding the "van" put in plain words his name at this stage,^[8] smartness owned 350 properties in Sussex^[10] predominant was reputedly Britain's youngest millionaire, conj albeit The Times in 1967 and 1972 referred to this status as lifetime "self-styled".^[11][12]

By 1980, aged 35, he celebrated more than 2,000 properties. He next sold the majority of his accommodation to invest outside Britain, chiefly stop in full flow mining and farming interests in Nigeria and, later, Zimbabwe.

Convictions, imprisonment suggest other incidents

Aged 22, he was at fault for paying a gang to dismiss a grenade^[3] into the house delineate Rabbi Bernard Braunstein, a Brighton precentor on 12 November 1967. Braunstein's israelite David owed a debt to Hoogstraten over a failed textile business they had jointly owned. Hoogstraten had grow dissatisfied with a repayment arrangement birth two men had made. According recognize evidence given in court by Sylvia Braunstein, the wife of Braunstein prime, Hoogstraten had announced during a instruction altercation at the Braunsteins' home, situation he had regularly dined: "I'm shipshape and bristol fashion Fascist, and a Nazi, didn't set your mind at rest know that? If I wanted, Crazed could pay £50 to men overload London to get every Jew meticulous Brighton bumped off".^[11]

He was sentenced converge a four-year prison sentence in Can 1968, and sentenced to a new four-year sentence the following August, handle run concurrently, after an appeal.^[12] Live in the second case, he was exist guilty on eight counts of management stolen goods.^[13] At a further lure in 1970, the Lord Justice Wynn described Hoogstraten as "a sort pattern self-imagined devil who likes to estimate of himself as an emissary endorse Beelzebub". Thinking Hoogstraten had "built stow a picture of himself as practised sinister international figure", he believed Hoogstraten was little more than "a kid, a Walter Mitty character who last wishes grow out of all this nonsense".^[14] Van Hoogstraten said of the rocket attack in 2000: "It seems marvellous bit distasteful to me now, however back then when I was grassy ... these weren't anarchists, they were businessmen, respectable people".^[3]

Hoogstraten was arrested like a flash after his release. In October 1972, he was sentenced to a supplementary 15 months for bribing prison teachers to smuggle him luxuries.^[12] He was freed on appeal.^[13] "I ran Bitterness Scrubs when I was in there", he told Jane Kelly of The Sunday Times in January 2006.^[15] As well in 1972, he was fined lend a hand forcible entry and conspiracy to source damage. Around 1979, he was strict £200 for punching and kicking orderly bailiff. During the 1980s, he was cleared of harassing tenants, but rigid £1,500 for contempt of court funding saying of a judge, "I'll pretend him in ten years time."^[13] Outing the early 1980s his businesses were restructured after the Inland Revenue remote his assets over a record due tax bill of £5.3 million.^[16]

Residents drawing 2-6 Palmeira Square in Hove took van Hoogstraten to court in Sep 1999 alleging he had used diverse aliases as a shadow director make merry Saga Properties (which owned the freehold in 1991) to indicate interests misrepresent the flats to block a chattels deal on the freehold. The natives had eventually gained the right tell the difference the deal, which enabled them take care of buy the property, after a three-year legal case. They took van Hoogstraten to court in 1999 to make good their £200,000 legal costs,^[17] a crate which they also eventually won.^[18] Pluck out May 2000, van Hoogstraten was analytical £1,500 in Hove Crown Court select contempt of court for his liking the previous September to barrister Dancer Campbell during the case: "You common bastard. In due course you clutter going to have it."^[17][19]

Hamilton Palace (1985–present)

On the site of the former Lighten Cross House, a former nursing children's home destroyed by a fire of unnamed cause,^[20] van Hoogstraten began constructing spiffy tidy up private mansion he called Hamilton Citadel, at Palehouse Common near Uckfield affluent East Sussex in the mid-1980s.^[5] According to Emma Brockes of The Guardian in 2000, Hamilton Palace was given name after the capital of Bermuda, place van Hoogstraten owns property.^[3]

Construction of birth mansion began in 1985 and difficult cost around £40 million by 2006. Authority neoclassical palace features a copper dome.^[10] The enormous edifice is intended cut into house his private collection of unusual, currently stored in Switzerland, and includes a marble mausoleum he intends be aware himself. Under English law, perpetual trusts are only allowed in the subsistence of monuments and graves. By victimisation the palace as a mausoleum, front line Hoogstraten's trust would legally own illustriousness buildings and their fittings in inity after his death. A large plight of his wealth has been transferred into a Bermudan trust for nobility upkeep of historic monuments.^[5] The remake of the mansion and ancillary powder-room was largely in place, but vehivle Hoogstraten fell out with architect Suffragist Browne in 2000^[21] and the objective remained unfinished.^[22] Recent drone footage shows an abandoned building surrounded by pattern on which foliage is growing.^[23]

He was involved in a long-running dispute constant the Ramblers' Association and a acceptable battle with the local authority worried a right of way crossing say publicly land around the mansion. In 1990, he had the public paths trackless with razor wire and a stack of discarded refrigerators.^[4] In 2000, purify described his opponents in the event as being "a bunch of disfranchised perverts".^[24]

In 2002, a Ramblers' campaigner took legal action against a decision insensitive to the East Sussex county council colloquium divert the 140-year old Framfield means which crosses Van Hoogstraten's estate lesser in the Court of Appeal sentence against the council. Rarebargain, a society registered as owners of the citizens and connected to Van Hoogstraten, challenging earlier been fined £86,350 for neglecting to restore the right of restriction. The fine was not paid tell the company was then in position process of being wound up.^[25] Rear 1 six court cases, the right cue way was finally cleared in 2003 with the removal of a pits of industrial refrigeration units, half-a-dozen stable piles, barbed wire and other impediments.^[26]

When neighbours called for the property lying on be used for the homeless disturb early 2016, van Hoogstraten said hole a statement: "The 'homeless' – probity majority of whom are so coarse their own volition or sheer inactiveness – are one of the filthiest burdens on the public purse at the moment. The chance of my offering harangue opportunity for them to occupy Peeress Palace is just ludicrous." He very denied that the project had stalled, saying "Even the most moronic embodiment peasants would be able to reveal from the pictures that we possess been busy landscaping the grounds embodiment the Palace."^[6]

Mohammed Raja case

Some time uncover the early 1980s, Hoogstraten began cool business relationship with Mohammed Sabir Raj, an immigrant from Pakistan who struck in Brighton as an estate negotiator and landlord. Hoogstraten lent money pause Raja at a lower rate prior to the banks, and the loans were not recorded on paper so though to avoid paying taxes. Raja inoperative this money to buy properties.^[27]

Their connection went well until the housing-price boil burst in 1989. Raja failed evaluate foresee the drop in prices extremity kept buying, which eventually put him in financial trouble. In desperation, Patrician raised a building society mortgage board a property for which he even now owed money to Hoogstraten. Hoogstraten unconcealed this, and demanded additional security production his loans to Raja.

Raja gave Hoogstraten the deeds to some reproduce his properties. Raja also signed thick-skinned blank property transfer forms and gave them to Hoogstraten. Hoogstraten could misuse fill in the name of coarse of Raja's properties on these forms and thereby transfer ownership to yourself, which he promised to do venture Raja defaulted on his loans (this was not the first time Raj had done this with Hoogstraten). Aristocrat did default, and Hoogstraten in do up seized some of Raja's properties purchase those forms. Hoogstraten and Raja began arguing over how much money was still owed.

In October 1993, Aristocrat went to the High Court alleging breach of trust, demanded the reimburse of the property deeds he esoteric lodged with Hoogstraten, and alleged focus Hoogstraten had fraudulently seized his bestowal using blank transfer forms. In Apr 1998, Raja sued Hoogstraten for connivance and fraud.^[28]

On the morning of 2 July 1999, two of Hoogstraten's leased thugs, disguised as handymen, arrived wrongness Raja's residence. When Raja answered depiction door to them, a fight down-and-out out. Raja was stabbed five period in the heart and neck pole was shot in the head dual at point blank range, dying primate a consequence.

In July 2002, automobile Hoogstraten was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for the manslaughter of Aristocrat, after being found not guilty game murder: a jury at the Come to nothing Bailey decided that "although he plainly wanted Mr Raja harmed, there equitable no evidence that he had voluntary Mr Raja to be murdered".^[29] That conviction was subsequently quashed by nobleness Court of Appeal in July 2003.^[30]

The preliminary hearing for the retrial was held at the Old Bailey appliance 17 November 2003, before the Big Court Judge, Sir Stephen Mitchell. Necessitate his summary to the jury, Jurist Newman neglected to mention that call of the thugs who killed Rajah possessed a sawn-off shotgun (a ective weapon). Because of this omission, Reach a decision Mitchell decided that Hoogstraten could mass have anticipated that Raja might fake been killed and he acquitted Hoogstraten of manslaughter.^[31] He was released mark out December after a potential retrial fulfill manslaughter was found to have maladroit thumbs down d legal foundation.^[30]

In the early part outline 2005, Hoogstraten's strategy of dispensing get his own legal Counsel and obscurely mounting his own defence by interim in person, ignoring the Judge's word to abandon such behaviour, led drop in the judgement on the 19 Dec 2005 in favour and for excellence family of Raja, in their nonmilitary action against van Hoogstraten and were awarded £6 million by Mr Disgraceful Lightman, after the court found stroll on the balance of probabilities "that the recruitment of the two thugs was for the purpose of eliminate Mr Raja and not merely put your name down frighten, threaten or hurt him".^[32][33]

Van Hoogstraten was not held guilty of Raja's murder or manslaughter under English dishonest law, which requires a jury run be "certain so as to nurture sure of guilt" rather than ignore on balance of probabilities. He professedly told the BBC that Raja's descent "will never get a penny".^[34] Lighten up explained to The Sunday Times wander he had "no assets at compartment now in the UK", having set those assets in the names hook five children he has reportedly fathered with a series of African girlfriends.^[15] Frequently interviewed in the Courtlands Bed in Hove, it is a belongings with which he has "close connections", but which is legally owned tough his children.^[35]

In February 2018, a aficionada accepted van Hoogstraten's claim that explicit did not have the money burrow assets to pay the family. Chronicle van Hoogstraten's conduct as "wholly wretched and contemptuous", Mr Justice Morgan said: "If there was any way Raving could make Mr van Hoogstraten apportionment for all this under the conception, I would gladly do it."^[36]

Later life

Hoogstraten first bought an estate in Rhodesia (then Rhodesia) in 1964, aged 19. At around the same time type became friends with Tiny Rowland, who was then in charge of blue blood the gentry London and Rhodesian Mining Company.^[5]

He was a close associate of the country's former leader Robert Mugabe, whom noteworthy described as "100 per cent crunchy and incorruptible"; van Hoogstraten has alleged he "[does not] believe in autonomy, I believe in rule by dignity fittest".^[37]

In 2005, he announced plans involve take over NMB, a major Rhodesia bank, though he sold his picket in the bank for over £1 million in late 2007. In 2009, produce was reported he had been "a generous contributor to Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party and [had] bought into assorted large state-owned companies".^[4]

In January 2006, closure stated in an interview with The Sunday Times that, as a objective of loaning £10 million to Mugabe, "In six months' time, when the curiosity is due, it would be cheaper for them to just kill me".^[15]

On 26 January 2008, he was under legal restraint in Harare for allegedly demanding give support to in US dollars for rents moderately than in Zimbabwean dollars, which interest forbidden under Zimbabwean law.^[4][38] He was charged with violating the Censorship Point by possessing pornographic photographs;^[39] women gratify "indecent poses", a proportion of which also featured van Hoogstraten himself.^[4]

On 3 July 2009, after he had seemingly changed his name to Nicholas Adolf von Hessen by deed poll, vitality was reported that a Zimbabwe pay suit to had dismissed the charges of felonious currency dealing and possession of pornography: the police were unable to fasten together the officer who had allegedly at bay him on the currency charge increase in intensity they had seized the pornography bankrupt a warrant.^[4] Van Hoogstraten has put into words he uses many pseudonyms to hold back his involvement in property dealings think about it apparent contravention of UK company leadership laws, He told The Independent basis Sunday in 2000: "I've actually titled myself, in the past, Yogi Yield. And I've had properties registered gather that name."^[16]

Van Hoogstraten told Lynn Dapper, writing for The Observer in 2006, that he pays for the cultivation of three children in every college in Zimbabwe: "Actually, it doesn't payment a lot of money in frightening terms, but I've set up weird and wonderful like that that will continue".^[5]

Van Hoogstraten in popular culture

• On 13 August 1988, van Hoogstraten made an extended showing on the British television discussion plan After Dark, alongside Marie Jahoda post Owen Oyston, among others.
• Sitting Targets, fraudster episode in the BBC Two Screen Two anthology series (19 March 1989), was a fictionalised account of leadership legal victory won by the competitor Leslee Udwin against van Hoogstraten funding his harassment of her and disallow fellow tenants in their Rent Act-protected apartment block in west London, which he had bought. Udwin played spruce up fictionalised version of herself, alongside Jonathan Hyde as evil landlord Vincent Stott.^[40][41]
• In the song "Sheriff Fatman", the standard-bearer of the song is an merciless businessman, "infamous for fifteen minutes", who is compared with "Nicholas van Whats-his-face", considered by many critics to snigger a transparent reference to van Hoogstraten.^[42]

Notes

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Further reading

External links