Van hoogstratens life of controversy

Once heralded as Britain's youngest millionaire, Nicholas van Hoogstraten has never made any secret of his robust approach to business. During one of his many court appearances a judge described the tycoon as a "self-styled emissary of Beelzebub".

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From an early age he aspired to be what he calls a "quality person" and was a great fan of Margaret Thatcher because she made him "proud to be English". He left school at 16, joined the Navy and travelled the world. He holds vast fortunes in the African country and once said: "I don't believe in democracy, I believe in rule by the fittest.

For that he spent four years in Wormwood Scrubs in the s, but he would later face much more serious charges. In , Mohammed Raja, 62, was shot dead by two men identified as Mr van Hoogstraten's henchmen, but the tycoon's conviction for manslaughter was quashed by the Court of Appeal in July and he was freed five months later. In December the civil courts - where the standard of proof required is much lower than the criminal courts - ruled that on the balance of probability, Mr van Hoogstraten was involved in the murder.

Mohammed Raja was stabbed and shot by two 'career criminals' Mr van Hoogstraten also hit the headlines during an ugly spat with ramblers over a public footpath through the grounds of the enormous mansion he built near Uckfield in East Sussex. Called Hamilton Palace, after Bermuda's capital, it is neo-classical, with a copper dome.

It is bigger than Buckingham Palace and has a ft art gallery and a mausoleum designed to hold Mr van Hoogstraten's body for 5, years. The mausoleum's walls are three feet thick because he said he wanted to "make the building last for ever".