PROPERTY tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten claimed a sweeping victory yesterday in his multi-million-pound legal battle with the family of a man he was once convicted of killing.
Three appeal judges overturned High Court orders that had given victory to the family by striking out Mr van Hoogstraten’s defence in the £5 million claim. They also quashed orders which resulted in Mr van Hoogstraten being fined more than £1 million
for contempt of court for failing to disclose his assets.
Mohammed Raja was in the process of suing Mr van Hoogstraten, a former business associate, when he was shot dead by two men identified at the Old Bailey criminal trial as Mr van Hoogstraten’s henchmen.
Mr van Hoogstraten, 59, was sentenced to ten years in 2002 for manslaughter, but the conviction was set aside by the Court of Appeal last year.
The family of Mr Raja continued with the civil action, in which a High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Smith, imposed severe penalties on Mr van Hoogstraten after he failed to comply with court orders to disclose his assets.
Those assets were frozen worldwide, fines were imposed totalling £1 million and his property was sequestrated.
Mr van Hoogstraten, whose personal wealth in artworks, antiques and property has been estimated at £500 million, issued a triumphant statement after the hearing condemned the "spurious" action brought against him and the "vindictive" orders of the court.
He called the police and judiciary involved in his criminal trial "dishonest, incompetent and corrupt" and the civil action judge "inadequate and vindictive".
The statement read: "The decisions of the Court of Appeal today open the door for Mr van Hoogstraten to recover his very substantial costs, damages and compensation from the Raja family, the sequestrators and others in a series of legal actions to be commenced."
The civil case will now go back to the High Court for a new hearing.
Liability for costs will be decided at a later hearing.
Mr Raja’s son, Amjad, said: "This is not the end. We are definitely going to be fighting on."
In October 2002, Mr Justice Smith, without Mr van Hoogstraten being produced in court from jail, imposed rolling fines of £200,000 a week, increasing by 10 per cent a week, for failing to disclose assets.
When Mr van Hoogstraten finally made it to court in October 2002, he asked Mr Justice Smith what had happened to his application to challenge the freezing order.
He was told that the court appeared to have lost it, but the judge said he would not hear it until Mr van Hoogstraten complied with the freezing order and disclosed his assets.
"Is that not putting the cart before the horse?" asked Mr van Hoogstraten in an observation described by Lord Justice Chadwick as not unfair.
The appeal judge said he allowed Mr van Hoogstraten to bring his appeals against the High Court orders because they were made at hearings at which he was not present, nor represented by counsel.
Lord Justice Chadwick said Mr van Hoogstraten had also made applications to set aside the orders which led to the contempt findings, but the judge had refused to hear them because Mr van Hoogstraten was in contempt.
"If this court were to accede to the claimant [Raja’s] contention that Mr van Hoogstraten should not be heard on these appeals, it would be in danger of compounding what would be a serious injustice and a breach of Mr van Hoogstraten’s convention rights," he said.
Lord Justice Chadwick said he found it "startling" that the High Court judge had decided to go ahead with the contempt hearing without Mr van Hoogstraten being present.
"That approach, as it seems to me, suggests that the judge has already closed his mind to the possibility that there is anything to be said by the alleged contemnor in his own defence."
NO STRANGER TO THE COURTSNICHOLAS van Hoogstraten is no stranger to the courts - his early career in the letting business was interrupted when he was convicted of firebombing the home of a rabbi who displeased him. At his trial, the judge described him as "a sort of self-imagined devil who thinks he is an emissary of Beelzebub".
That was in the 1960s, when the tycoon owned a mere 350 properties in Sussex. Already a millionaire, he was fast gaining a reputation as a feudal landlord. He would buy the freehold to blocks of flats with sitting tenants, and then "persuade" them to leave.
Since his four-year spell in prison,
he has notched up a string of criminal convictions. In 1968, he was jailed for handling stolen goods. He was released in 1972, but was then accused of bribing prison officers to take him luxuries. He was sentenced to 15 months but freed on appeal. Over the years he was fined for forcible entry, attacking a bailiff and contempt of court.
In 1999, during his battle to keep ramblers off his land, he was fined for threatening a barrister.
