News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members other artilces from the August / September 2003 issue RPI news archive

Landlord faces retrial over killing - August / September 2003

Notorious landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten, jailed last year over his alleged part in the death of a business rival, has had his conviction for manslaughter squashed by the Court of Appeal. The jury in the original trial was had been misdirected by the trial judge, said the court.

But Van Hoogstraten was not allowed to walk free. Instead the court said he should remain in jail pending a retrial.

Last October he had been sentenced at the Old Bailey to 10 years in jail for his part in the killing of Mohammed Raja who had been shot with a sawn-off shotgun and stabbed by Robert Knapp and David Croke. The two were subsequently jailed for life for his murder.

Van Hoogstraten, who was originally also charged with murder, had been accused of ordering the hit men to kill Raja with whom he had been involved in a feud over ownership of properties in London and Brighton. Raja had issued a writ against Van Hoogstraten claiming fraud three months before the 1999 killing.

Van Hoogstraten, the owner of a £40m palace in Sussex countryside, is claimed to have accumulated his wealth buying properties with sitting tenants whom he forced to quit so that he could sell, making big profits.
 

other artilces from the August / September 2003 issue

• Accreditation the way forward
• Licensing should be 'unfettered'
• Avoiding unnecessary electrical shocks
• Renting is 'more acceptable' choice
• Opposition to HB penalty plan
• House prices continue to climb
• Landlord faces retrial over killing
• In brief
• Tenant wins right to set off
• Work / live development rules too rigid
• Urgent improvement needed to National Asylum Support Service