Van Hoogstraten: Property magnate believed rule of fear put him above the law

He had a £400m fortune, a £30m country house and one of the most fabulous art collections in the world. But last night all that meant nothing as Nicholas van Hoogstraten, one of the most arrogant men ever to take the stand at the Old Bailey, spent the first night of what could be a life sentence in jail.

Seldom can one have blown so much and attracted so little sympathy. He was a property tycoon who described his tenants as "filth", ramblers who strayed on his land as "nosy perverts", and council house tenants as "worthless". He cultivated an image of cold ruthlessness and violence, an image that even police had begun to think had made him invulnerable as two crucial witnesses refused to give evidence against him.

But yesterday, after he was found guilty of the manslaughter of Mohammed Sabir Raja, a minor business rival who had had the audacity to sue him, it became clear that his absolute belief that he was above the law was wrong. A landlord with a bad reputation, his methods have been criticised in the House of Commons and on television as being heavy-handed.

During his three-month trial, Van Hoogstraten mocked the suggestion that he had paid two hitmen as little as £7,000 – in instalments – and logged them in his diary simply to terminate a legal row with Mr Raja.

Why, he asked the jury, his bottom lip often shaking melodramatically, should a multi- millionaire throw away everything over a trivial piece of litigation that he could have written off against tax?

Mr Raja, 62, was a fellow property dealer on a much smaller scale than Van Hoogstraten. They had had many business dealings with one another but they had fallen out over property in the Brighton area, where Van Hoogstraten had most of his portfolio. Litigation dragged on, and at one point Mr Raja made an allegation of fraud against the tycoon. On the morning of 2 July 1999, two men arrived at Mr Raja's home in Sutton, Surrey, and shot and stabbed him in an attack witnessed by two of his grandsons.

The court was told that Mr Raja ran bleeding from room to room and shouted that his assailants were "Van Hoogstraten's men" before he died. The killers fled, setting fire to the van in which they arrived, and then vanished.

When the murder took place, Van Hoogstraten was on his way to Gatwick airport to catch a flight to the south of France. Detectives linked him with his co-defendant and career criminal Robert Knapp, who was convicted last Friday with fellow career armed robber David Croke. Knapp's mother lived in a cottage on the tycoon's estate in Uckfield, East Sussex, and the two men had spent time together in prison in 1968.

At the time, Van Hoogstraten was serving four years for ordering a 2am hand-grenade attack on the Brighton home of the father of a business associate who owed him £2,000.

It was a far cry from the Van Hoogstraten the jury saw. They knew nothing of his previous convictions, which ranged from receiving stolen goods to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. They saw a wiry, softly spoken and cultured man who would lapse into long silences whenever emotional matters were discussed.

It was in the absence of the jury that details emerged of refusals of two witnesses to give evidence. Micheel Abu Hamdan, a Lebanese businessman with whom Van Hoogstraten had commercial links, fled to Beirut to avoid the witness box, while Van Hoogstraten's 18-year-old girlfriend, Tanika Sali, withdrew a statement in which she claimed the tycoon had described Knapp as "one of my hitmen".

Mr Abu Hamdan, a multi-millionaire in his fifties, had come to the attention of the police after the killing because he had been involved in litigation with Mr Raja over a property in Brunswick Square, Hove. Police quickly ruled him out as a suspect but in a series of off-the-record conversations over a period of months, Mr Abu Hamdan made a number of serious allegations against Van Hoogstraten.

In the absence of the jury, Detective Inspector Andrew Sladen, number two on the inquiry, told Mr Justice Newman about Mr Abu Hamdan's decision to flee rather than give evidence against the tycoon. Requesting in vain that the Lebanese businessman's evidence be read out in court, he said: "[Mr Abu Hamdan] was in a terrible state before boarding a plane to Beirut. He said he had been told by a man that he had heard that Hoogstraten had said he [Abu Hamdan] would not make it to the end of the trial. And if Hoogstraten went to prison, neither he nor his family would survive."

According to police sources, the Lebanese businessman's decision not to give evidence was taken after an incident in which a man attempted to kidnap the three-year-old son of Mr Abu Hamdan's girlfriend from school. "He saw that as the heat being turned up," said one detective. "And there were other people hanging around outside his home in London, creating an environment in which he was afraid."

Unlike Mr Abu Hamdan, Ms Sali did not ask for protection. Van Hoogstraten met Ms Sali, then aged 16, in Zimbabwe at around the time of the murder. She was finally questioned after she made an allegation of domestic violence against Van Hoogstraten. She claimed that when she was introduced to Knapp, Van Hoogstraten had said: "This is Bob. He's one of my hitmen." Later, however, she withdrew the statement and refused to take the oath in the witness box.

Papers have been sent to the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, who is considering whether to investigate a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Van Hoogstraten, 57, was born in Shoreham, East Sussex. He began building his fortune at the age of 17 when, after a stint in the Navy – his father had been a shipping agent – he sold his stamp collection for £1,000 and bought cheap houses in the Bahamas.

By the time he was 22, Van Hoogstraten had built a portfolio of more than 300 properties in London and the Brighton and Hove areas, where he developed a reputation as a landlord to be feared.

He has tens of millions of pounds worth of property and farms in the US, France, the West Indies and Zimbabwe, though the fate of the African interests under President Robert Mugabe's land reform policies is unclear.

Van Hoogstraten has four sons and a daughter by three different mothers but has said he is making no provision for their future, arguing that they should make their own way in the world.

Instead, he has had a mausoleum built for himself inside Hamilton Palace, the mansion he has been constructing for almost a quarter of a century near Uckfield, East Sussex – some say to take his wealth with him when he goes.

Initially conceived and drawn on a napkin, the mansion – longer than Buckingham Palace – was to have cost £4.5m. At the last count, Van Hoogstraten put it at closer to £30m. Disagreements with architects and craftsmen have caused its completion to be put back again and again.

Two years ago, Van Hoogstraten's company, Rarebargain, which owns the land on which the mansion has been built, was fined £1,600 for blocking a public footpath – to keep out what he called "perverts and riff-raff". Just the sort of people with whom he may now have to spend the rest of his life.