Love certainly won’t be in the air next Valentine’s Day in the British High Court when it stages what promises to be a highly explosive court battle.
Nick and Christian Candy are the billionaire property developers behind the One Hyde Park development in Central London. The “Bling Brothers”, as they’ve become known, are being sued for £132m ( $175m) by their former business partner Mark Holyoake.
The trial, due to be heard in February, centres on a joint venture between the parties that quickly turned sour. Holyoake borrowed from Christian Candy’s Guernsey-based company CPC Group Ltd to fund a property deal in Belgravia, Central London.
The British media has already been blocked from reporting some allegations surrounding the case.
Holyoake claims the Candy brothers made aggressive demands for early repayment and violent threats against him and his family, forcing him into paying £38m to settle the loan and sell the property at a loss.
It is an allegation which the Candys strongly deny.
But the case has already thrown an uncomfortable spotlight on the brothers’ lavish lifestyles and, in particular, their complicated tax affairs.
In preliminary hearings Nick, at 43 the elder brother, has been challenged to reveal how he can afford luxuries such as a £26m yacht from the comparatively modest profits derived from his UK-based interior design company. He says he has received £250m worth of “gifts” from his younger brother Christian, 42, as a show of “natural love and affection”, not a tax dodge.
These “gifts” include a multi-million pound London penthouse, an £85million London house, £10 million in cash and more than £55 million in loans.
Now Heat Street has seen documents which may raise the temperature even higher.
Last year Holyoake subjected himself to a polygraph examination by the UK’s highest level ranking examiner, Terry Mullins, who is the secretary of the British Polygraph Association and a member of the American Polygraph Association.
“This level of test and the subsequent results are used in criminal courts as tier 1 evidence to ascertain the truth for the purpose of convictions,” Holyoake writes in a blistering email to the Candys. He adds that he sat the test “to put beyond any doubt whatsoever the facts of this matter namely that you both individually threatened me and my family in order to extort with menaces monies and returns that were not due to you.”
The 20 polygraph results, published below, certainly make interesting reading.
Holyoake passed every one of them, though it is important to say that polygraph test results are considered by some lawyers to be open to interpretation.
The tests include him being asked if Christian Candy repeatedly made personal threats, including the allegation that Candy said: “I will ruin your fucking life,”; “I will nuke you,”; and “I will hold your feet to the flames.” There is also mention of an allegation relating to a veiled threat about Holyoake’s pregnant wife.
“Your ability to claim that such events did not occur is now forever removed,” writes Holyoake in an email to the Candy brothers. “I have at least personally shown you both the good grace you never afforded me in sharing this with you prior to its release to the authorities.”
A spokesman for Holyoake said: “The polygraph test fully supports Mr Holyoake’s claims that the heinous threats made against him and his family are unquestionably true. Mr Holyoake invited the Candy brothers to take a polygraph test. Unsurprisingly, they refused. Mr Holyoake was even willing to pay for their tests and this offer still stands. However, he has a feeling they won’t be taking him up on his offer any time soon. He therefore looks forward to seeking full resolution at trial next February.”
A spokesman for the Candys said: “Mark Holyoake’s claim against Nick Candy, Christian Candy and Christian’s company, CPC Group, has no foundation. It is a sad reflection of the weakness of Mr Holyoake’s claim that he is now relying on a polygraph test to prove his case rather than having it properly decided in a court of law. A polygraph test has no evidential value in court. In our view this is a ‘shakedown’ designed to extract money from the defendants and distract a long line of other creditors who seek settlement of debts from Mark Holyoake’s failed business promises.”
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