Pic by David McHugh / Brighton Pictures
A notorious landlord who once hired a hitman to kill his business partner has been acquitted of abusive behaviour after calling a policeman a “poofter”.
Nicholas von Hoogstraten, who is now called Nicholas Adolf von Hessen, admitted making the comment to PC James Breeds during a dispute over clamping in Hove last summer – but said it was a “nonsense” that it was considered abusive.
During his trial today at Brighton Magistrates Court, Hoogstraten accused court staff and prosecutors of lying and said the charge was “laughable”.
He said: “It’s a complete waste of public money and a disgrace.”
When chair of the bench Barbara Dart asked him if this meant he wished to take the stand in his defence, he shouted at her: “Let me finish!” then told the clerk “She won’t be speaking over me.”
Eventually taking the stand, he told the court he had been working across the road in The Drive, Hove, when he received a phonecall from his son’s mother saying he had been arrested, so had gone out to support him.
He denied using any foul language, saying: “I’m not a person who swears even at the worst of times, never have done.”
He then reeled off a string of offensive terms for gay people he had used “back in the day”, adding: “It was said very quietly. The two police officers standing there didn’t even flinch, they didn’t take the slightest notice of it.”
During body worn footage of the incident on 19 August last year, Hoogstraten’s son is heard taunting PC Breeds, calling him “Mad Max” and saying: “People don’t like talking to you even your own officers don’t like talking to you, you can tell you’re not Mr Popular in the office . . . right now you have got your hand on me.”
At that point, Hoogstraten makes a comment which cannot be heard clearly, but he told the court he had said: “Maybe he’s a poofter as well.”
Prosecuting, Melanie Wotton said: “A gentleman complained that he had been clamped illegally.
“There was some dispute between parties about the reasons for that clamping. Initially it was thought it was a civil dispute and then it transpired it was a criminal matter and as a result police officers attended.
“At some point during the interaction it became necessary to arrest the son … a number of other people turned up including von Hessen.
“He spoke with police officers and PCSOs and during the course of the interaction with PC Breeds and his son, while PC Breeds stood there quietly, it appears that the son took objection to that officer.
“During that time Mr von Hessen comes over while his son is talking about PC Breeds having hands on him and at that point Mr von Hessen says he’s a poof.”
PC Breeds told the court: “I initially thought he might be a member of the public who had a misconception about the police and how we were handling this.
“I became aware from comments from Mr von Hessen that it was his son I had in handcuffs.
“He was also confrontational and saying various things, some obstructive, but he had been distanced from me so I wasn’t concerned. Colleagues came to distance him from me.”
He added: “The son said something like I was scared or worried, some derogatory comment, to which his father then says he’s a poof. That was directed at me, quite clearly.
“It’s undermining, it’s aggressive, it’s something you shouldn’t have to hear. It served no purpose, it wasn’t constructive, it just had no bearing on anything.
“The intention was to cause me to fear him or back down in the situation.”
Chair of the bench Barbara Dart said: “We watched the video evidence, we heard Mr von Hessen say ‘maybe he’s a poofter’.
“This was said quietly and was directed towards his son. Mr von Hessen was not confrontational.
“In this context, although the words are unpleasant and rude, we do no think it passes the criminal threshold.
“That’s not to say that in different circumstances these words wouldn’t be a criminal offence.”
Hoogstraten was born in Shoreham in 1945 and by the late sixties he owned 350 properties around Sussex and called himself the UK’s youngest millionaire.
He built his empire with the help of a loan sharking business and was well known for threatening tenants to move out.
Aged 22, he was convicted of throwing a grenade into Rabbi Bernard Braunstein’s Brighton home and was sentenced to four years, with another four years added following an appeal. The rabbi’s wife Sylvia Braunstein told the court Hoogstraten said: “I’m a Fascist, and a Nazi, didn’t you know that? If I wanted I could pay £50 to men in London to get every Jew in Brighton bumped off.”
In 1999, one of his business partners Mohammed Raja was killed by two thugs Hoogstraten had hired. He was convicted Raja’s manslaughter in 2002 and sentenced to ten years, but this conviction was quashed and he was acquitted at a retrial and freed from prison, having spent a year behind bars.
However, in 2005, Raja’s family successfully sued Hoogstraten and were awarded £6 million by Mr Justice Lightman, who found on the balance of probabilities “the recruitment of the two thugs was for the purpose of murdering Mr Raja and not merely frightening or hurting him.”
He subsequently vowed the family would not receive a penny, and put all his UK property into his children’s names, including the Courtlands Hotel in Hove.
He then moved to Zimbabwe where he became a close associate of its dictator president Robert Mugabe.
A very low-calibre individual…
Lower even than that
I expect Hoogstraten probably finds all this amusing – while the more enlightened among us who view his adopted name – which seems to be a reference to Adolf Hitler – and his antics, reveal him to be nothing more than a conceited, arrogant individual with all the worse traits of humanity present – a person with all the signs and symptoms of low emotional intelligence, yet paradoxically, has made a great deal of wealth
He is less than dross.
It is amusing for it shows how weak and woke people have become. As Tiny Rowland used to say if you can given someone “enjoyable annoyance” why wouldn’t you want to?
Mr H has been a good employer both in this country and in Zimbabwe and done far more than the majority of people – the same people who are not enlightened but merely living small lives of quiet desperation. The same people that are happy to post nonsense on line but would not go and see the person face to face – the cowards way
I find it hard to believe you’re defending this lowlife. He accumulated more than the average person because he is unencumbered by respect for law or a sense of decency. He didn’t build his property empire through a shrewd business sense, instead he used violence, intimidation and foreclosing on the victims of his loansharking operation to gain control of properties. Colourful he may be, but let’s not forget he was convicted several times for orchestrating violent (even lethal) attacks on business associates.
As one has made clear, instead of posting this nonsense on line, why not go around to the Courtlands and tell all this to Mr H in person. It is all media hype and I doubt there is a shrewd of evidence. Just selfish and entitled people who do not like it when they are told the truth and are jealous when someone else has worked hard over 60 years to build up their wealth
Cindy – maybe not a shrewd but there is plenty of evidence, it is not his real name, he stole from his mother, he threatened tenants with violence – he does not pay his bills and his many sons from many different mothers appear to have copied his bad behaviours.
He is less than dross.
A very interesting individual – i wonder what Freud would,ve made of him?
a rogue landlord and a bad payer – he still owes £400,000 to the builder who worked on his so called mausoleum in East Sussex- nasty piece of work – stole from his mother and began buying up freeholds so as to evict tenants with threats – notorious in Brighton and Hove all his life.