Nicholas Van Hoogstraten

by Mike Walsh

  Kelson was a good choice. At the appeal, he carefully dissected the Crown’s case against his client, paying particular attention to the judge’s summing up. The hearing was technical, and hinged on minute points of law. Most of the attending journalists appeared lost in the complexities of the case for most of the time. But as Kelson developed the argument that the jury had been misdirected, the feeling grew in court that the verdict might indeed have to be quashed, just as Hoogstraten had earlier informed the authors. It began to look as if the man who, just a year before, had been jailed for ten years for manslaughter, might be about to get off.

  Everything hinged on what Mr Justice Newman had said about manslaughter as an alternative verdict to murder. He had told the jury that a manslaughter verdict ‘would come into play if you were sure that what Hoogstraten counselled Knapp to do was to frighten Mohammed Raja by, for example, threatening him with force, by assaulting him or kidnapping him … and if you were sure he had not ordered any really serious bodily harm to be done to Mr Raja, but in the event things went wrong … in that event Hoogstraten would be guilty of manslaughter.’

  This direction was at the heart of the matter. For Hoogstraten, Peter Kelson argued that the jury could only reach a verdict of manslaughter if it was sure that Hoogstraten had contemplated the use of a lethal weapon. But in his summing up, Judge Newman had not mentioned the sawn-off shotgun used to kill Mr Raja. This was a serious omission.

  For the prosecution, David Waters, QC, argued that everyone connected with the trial knew that the case centred around the use of a gun and that the judge’s directions to the jury implied the use of a firearm. He was putting a good face on it, but his arguments sounded weak. Things were not going well for the Crown.

  On 23rd July the appeal court gathered to give its verdict. The press benches were crowded, as were the public spaces. Members of both the Raja family and of Hoogstraten’s were present in force. Lord Justice Rose quickly outlined the facts of the case, then moved on to his conclusions. Hoogstraten should only have been found guilty of manslaughter if the jury were sure he had contemplated the use of a lethal weapon – and the jury ought to have been directed of this. Lord Rose ruled that the trial judge’s direction was too wide. It was flawed because it did not focus the jury’s attention – in relation to any intention to frighten Mr Raja – on the use of a firearm.

  ‘That being so,’ said his lordship, ‘There is no alternative but to allow this appeal and to quash the appellant’s conviction.’

  Throughout all this, Hoogstraten remained quiet and attentive. As he sensed victory his jaw took on a firmer set than usual and his eyes became more piercing than ever. But the court of appeal had not finished with him.

  Lord Rose continued, ‘The question which then arises is whether or not, in the interests of justice, there should be a retrial.’ The gravity of the offence plainly pointed to the public interest lying in a retrial for manslaughter, he said.

  Hoogstraten, it seemed, was not yet off the hook after all. A re-trial now faced him, and no one could tell what might happen with a new judge, a new jury, and maybe new evidence.

  Kelson asked for bail, pointing out that his client had not absconded when on bail before the murder trial. But the Crown called Detective Inspector Andy Sladen, one of the police who had investigated Mohammed Raja’s murder, as a witness. Sladen said there were grounds to fear that witnesses could be tampered with. Bail was refused.

  An increasingly indignant Hoogstraten was to stay in prison until the retrial. It was set for February 2004. But there were hurdles in the way before it could start. One question hanging in the air was whether a fair trial was possible, given all the publicity surrounding the first trial and the vilification of Hoogstraten in the press. For the moment the appeal judges left that contentious issue hanging. It would, they said, be for another court to consider.

  The second hurdle was a preliminary hearing which had to be held to ascertain whether there was a case to answer, i.e., whether there was evidence upon which a jury might conclude that Nicholas van Hoogstraten foresaw the act – the firing of a shotgun directly at the victim – which caused Mohammed Raja’s death. Usually – if the prosecution has done its job thoroughly – such a hearing is a formality and the trail goes ahead. But, in the case of Regina versus Nicholas van Hoogstraten, nothing could be taken for granted.

  The preliminary hearing took place at the Old Bailey before the High Court Judge, Sir Stephen Mitchell on 17th November 2003.

  Hoogstraten was represented by another of his formidable new team of barristers, Geoffrey Cox, QC. Cox is a hugely experienced advocate whose expertise includes white collar crime and – of particular interest to Hoogstraten, given his concerns about a fair trial – human rights issues in criminal cases. He set out to persuade Sir Stephen that a retrial should not take place.

  Once again, Judge Newman’s summing up came into play. He had told the jury that manslaughter was an alternative verdict if they thought that, ‘things went wrong, in the sense that Knapp and Croke … went beyond what van Hoogstraten had ordered and killed Mohammed Raja, that would be a circumstance in which … van Hoogstraten would be guilty of manslaughter.’

  Cox advanced a new argument not used by the defence in the appeal. What really mattered was whether or not Hoogstraten could have foreseen that Knapp and Croke would go beyond the intention to frighten Mohammed Raja. If Hoogstraten could not have foreseen that the shotgun would be pointed at the victim and fired, then he was not guilty of manslaughter.

  On 2nd December, Sir Stephen gave his judgement. He agreed with the defence that there was no case to answer. As the law stood, if a secondary party did not contemplate or foresee his accomplice departing from the intended plan to injure or frighten and instead committing murder, then he was not guilty of that action.

  Hoogstraten had won. It was a stunning moment. But he wasn’t quite off the hook just yet. Crown prosecutor David Waters QC asked for leave to appeal. At this Hoogstraten betrayed the pressure he was under. He shouted, ‘It’s an absolute disgrace.’

  Sir Stephen replied sternly, ‘I know this is very difficult for you, but you must not interrupt Mr Waters.’

  Events now gathered pace. Waters was granted his leave to appeal and six days later it was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice by three more judges under Lord Justice Kennedy. Four days after that, these three delivered the final verdict. They ruled that they had no jurisdiction over Sir Stephen’s ruling and turned down the crown’s appeal. Furthermore, the crown could make no further appeal.

  Hoogstraten was finally a free man.

  Outside the court he addressed a throng of reporters, television crews and jubilant friends and associates. Thirty years earlier he’d emerged from another period in jail boasting that he was more powerful and more dangerous than ever. There were no boasts this time. Twenty-two months in jail fighting his conviction while trying to keep his far-flung financial empire afloat had cost him physically. The dandy of the 1960s looked fully his 58 years now. But the venom was still there.

  He told the cameras, ‘This prosecution should never have been brought … I have suffered two years of legal incompetence and dishonesty.’ He had been wrongly and vindictively charged and had sent in a dossier about the police handling of the case and would take legal action if it wasn’t pursued. He made it clear that he wanted retribution.

  A few yards away the shocked family of Mohammed Raja also faced the press. Amjad Raja said, ‘Our family has now been deprived of an opportunity to have the case tried before a jury by what we see as a legal technicality.’

  ‘The family are devastated that the extremely hard work of the police officers involved in the case has been totally undone by what we see as a catalogue of mistakes by the Crown Prosecution Service.’

  Among the appeal court judges the unease at their ruling was palpable. In pronouncing that the lower court had been correct to stop the retrial, Lord Kennedy said that he nevertheless felt that it “thwa
rts the interests of justice.”

  The interests of justice, he said, required that Mr van Hoogstraten should be re-tried for his part in the death of Mr Raja. But under the present law it couldn’t happen. He pondered the possibility of justice being better served in future if the prosecution were allowed to table a murder charge again when a retrial is ordered of someone acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter. “But that is for parliament to decide, not this court,” he said.

  The Hoogstraten case had other consequences. A galaxy of convicted villains followed his lead and signed up with his colourful Italian lawyer, Giovanni di Stephano. They included the mass murdering GP, Harold Shipman, the fearsome underworld boss, Kenneth Noye, Jeremy Bamber, who slaughtered his whole family for an inheritence, the ‘Railway’ sex killer David Mulchy, and the ‘Black Widow, Linda Calvey. Di Stephano was even engaged to try to clear two long-dead killers: the Kray twins. Hoogstraten had always relished the company of villains, but even he would recoil from many on this roll call of infamy.

  Robert Knapp and David Croke protested their innocence as vehemently as Hoogstraten. Knapp argued in letters to the authors that there were flaws in the case that need further airing in court – disputes over the DNA evidence, a phone call that, he alleges, alibis him on the morning of the murder, evidence that the payments to Hoogstraten made to him were indeed loans, and statements from witnesses who saw the killers. Knapp says that in all his years as an armed robber he never shot nor injured anyone, but now is cast as a ‘hit man’ in a murder he asserts he had nothing whatsoever to do with. In truth the case against him was always wafer thin. But on the day that Hoogstraten was given leave to appeal, both Knapp and Croke were denied it. Their one hope, perhaps, is Hoogstraten himself. During and after the trial the tycoon repeatedly dismissed the men who stood in the dock next to him as ‘muppets’. But after his own release, Hoogstraten let it be known that he had high hopes of demolishing the case against his co-defendents just as the case against him was demolished. In July 2004 he claimed that he had evidence that would see them freed within months. Given the wonders he’s worked on his own behalf no one is betting against it.

  EPILOGUE

  Even an age grown accustomed to the triumphs of lawyers was taken aback by Hoogstraten’s emergence as a free man, legally exonerated of any connection to the Raja killing. The Daily Mail called it ‘a mockery of justice’. The Sunday Mirror warned that the law was ‘facing a crisis of confidence in its ability to dispense justice.’ The Mail on Sunday proclaimed that, ‘the smile on Nicholas van Hoogstraten’s face outside the High Court … should have sent a shiver through anyone who cares about Britain’s judicial process.’

  Hoogstraten remained impervious to it all. As was so often the case in the past, the demeanour of the man himself did not help his image. He expressed his gratitude gracefully to his latest team of lawyers, to the judges who’d freed him, and to the prison staff who’d kept him. But the familiar bile was still bubbling. He warned that he would sue ‘just about everybody’ responsible for what had happened to him.

  ‘Be afraid. Be very afraid.’ That, said the Independent on Sunday, was Hoogstraten’s message: ‘Britain’s most notorious landlord was back with a vengeance.’

  There is no doubting his bitter sense of grievance. But the tycoon’s first priority on release was to rescue his empire in Zimbabwe. He spent much of his first six months of freedom there trying to re-establish control where he could.

  His next priority was to overturn the verdict in the fraud case in which Judge Peter Smith had ruled that by his actions the tycoon had forfeited the right of a defence.

  He succeeded here thunderously. In July 2004 the appeal court decided that ‘a serious injustice’ had been done him. At a stroke the sequestration of his property world wide, £1 million in fines and the award of £5 million to the Rajas were all rescinded.

  For the second time in 6 months Nicholas Van Hoogstraten faced the media in triumph. He issued a press release describing himself as the victim of a ‘trail of dishonesty, incompetence, corruption and vindictiveness.’

  The fight with Rajas wasn’t finished. Amjad Raja vowed to continue with the fraud claim against Hoogstraten and Hoogstraten vowed to ‘recover … very substantial costs, damages and compensation’ from the Rajas.

  His third priority should be to build a new personal image. He has always insisted that he has such a terrible public persona because of media lies and distortion. But he remains his own worst PR man. At the end of an interview for the Sunday Telegraph in which his charm and cheek captivated the reporter, he couldn’t resist this: ‘I just hope the police and the judges or their families go to Zimbabwe or South Africa one day. My friends there would make sure they never got out again.’

  There’s a final, bizarre twist in the tale of Nicholas van Hoogstraten. During his time in prison he picked up a new qualification. Imagine the scene: a little old lady is terrified, her life a misery. Her landlord is trying to evict her and the new neighbours upstairs who have moved into the flat above her play loud music twenty-four hours a day. Becoming suicidal, she phones the Samaritans. A low, gravelly voice answers, ‘Hello, Samaritans. Nick speaking. Can I help you?’

  It may sound farfetched but it could happen. Whilst in prison, Hoogstraten picked up a qualification. Its nature is revealed in HM Prison Service document 10380, which reads, ‘This is to certify that Nick van Hoogstraten has been trained by the Samaritans of Bexley/Bromley in listening and befriending skills.’

  It will be interesting to see how he uses those new skills.

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  First published in paperback in 2004

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