Dad phoned me 8 minutes before he fell to his death. That’s why I know it wasn’t suicide – he was murdered by the Russian mafia
By Frances Hardy In her first interview, a bombshell from the daughter of troubled tycoon Scot Young about his fatal balcony fall . . .
ABsoLUtELY nothing about sasha Young’s early life could be construed as normal. Her childhood was one of such unimaginable wealth she now regards its ostentation as ‘obscene’.
Home was an elegant Palladian villa stuffed with £6 million worth of antiques, set in 500 glorious oxfordshire acres. Little sasha and her elder sister scarlet had 15 ponies, six pedigree dogs and a collection of Fendi handbags worth thousands.
‘the tooth fairy would leave us £50,’ she recalls. ‘We flew in concorde to luxury villas in Barbados or the south of France, and christmas was every child’s dream. our parents would fill a room with presents — everything from toys, to designer clothes, bags and jewellery.
‘I didn’t realise then that the life I was leading was abnormal — that we were wealthy to a degree I now think of as obscene — but Dad wanted us to have everything he didn’t have as a boy.’
sasha’s father scot Young — charming, smart and funny — was a self-made billionaire who grew up in a humble street in Dundee and amassed a fortune in the Eighties property boom. He flaunted his wealth, rolling up to collect his daughters from their private school in one of his fleet of 52 luxury cars.
‘He had two vintage Mercedes worth £500,000 each, Baby Bentleys, a Ferrari spider, Porsches.’ sasha reels them off like a shopping list.
Her mum Michelle, a former fashion buyer, routinely spent £10,000 a week in London’s designer boutiques. When their wealth was at its zenith, Michelle and scot Young frittered £2 million a year on clothes alone.
Yet within a decade the idyll was shattered. sasha’s adored father, aged 52, was dead.
In December 2014, he fell from a fourth-floor flat he rented in Marylebone and was impaled on the railings below.
sasha believes that her father’s death, although it had been contrived to appear like suicide, was actually murder.
this is why she is speaking for the first time about it now, in the hope that someone who knows the truth might come forward, and that the police will reopen their investigation.
‘ Dad called me eight minutes before it happened,’ she reveals. ‘there was absolutely nothing in his voice that indicated anything was wrong.’ Everyday pleasantries were exchanged.
‘Dad said, “How are you doing?” and I said everything was fine. I asked how he was and he said it was all good. He said he’d call me the next day and that he loved me. I told him I loved him, too. He didn’t sound stressed or agitated.’
‘After he died, we begged the police to investigate, but the forensic work that should have been carried out at the flat at the time wasn’t done.’
Scot’s
ex- girlfriend — model Noelle Reno — alleges he called her just minutes after he phoned sasha to say he intended to take his life. But sasha questions how her dad seemed so calm and chatty during the call minutes earlier?
sasha, now 23, was just ten when her gilded life began to disintegrate. Fissures developed in her parents’ marriage and the family planned a fresh start in Miami. Michelle and her daughters went there to live in an opulent beachfront house, expecting scot to join them.
But out of the blue his lawyer called Michelle. scot, he disclosed, had lost all his money. the proposition seemed absurd. How could such vast wealth disappear in its entirety, apparently overnight?
sasha’s life was about to change for ever. she returned with her mother and sister to a lavish rented house in Regent’s Park, London, and although scot professed to have no money, the family’s affluent lifestyle continued — for a while, at least.
Michelle and her husband began a rancorous and protracted divorce, played out in the media. When the proceedings were under way, scot began a relationship with Reno, an American-born model and tV presenter.
the acrimonious divorce, meanwhile, continued and after 65 court hearings, scot was ordered to pay his wife £28 million.
But she has never received a penny. sasha believes her father’s fortune — of at least £400 million — is secreted somewhere. But scot continued to insist he’d lost it all, and after failing to provide information about its whereabouts to the divorce court, he was jailed in 2013 for six months for contempt of court.
then, within months of his release from jail he was dead.
sasha’s quiet voice falters as she recalls the day she heard the news. ‘Mum walked into my bathroom holding her stomach. she said: “Your father’s fallen from a building.” she said she’d read about it in a newspaper.
‘My legs were shaking. I felt sick. I wanted to see for myself what had happened. I walked to the flat. I had to see the blood on the street before I would believe it was true.
‘And when I saw a section of the railings had been taken away I threw up all over the street.
‘I bought a huge bouquet and wrote a card for Dad, hiding it near where he had fallen. I wrote that I loved him.’ she rubs away tears. ‘And it was two days before the police came round and told us officially that he had died. He had been impaled through the heart on the spike of a railing.
‘I wanted to see my Dad, to say my last goodbye. I needed that closure. But they told me I couldn’t because his body had started to decompose, and I was devastated.
‘I was at university at the time doing a business degree. I didn’t go back. I couldn’t. Everything was just too much. It still is. I adored dad. We were extremely close. He called me his cheeky monkey and people said we were the spitting image of each other.
‘I can’t think about how he died. I have nightmares. they’re graphic and bloody. I dream he’s hugging me. then someone comes in and injects us with poison that kills us.’
she breaks off, exhausted by the emotion, the horror of it all. there are many reasons she is certain his death was not suicide.
she explains: ‘one day, when I was sitting my GcsEs, everything in my life seemed scary, unstable and horrible.
‘I was embarrassed and ashamed my parents’ divorce was so public. At school, a teacher said: “You know you’ll probably end up in a council flat.”
‘I felt desperate, suicidal, and I remember sitting at home crying and telling Dad I’d considered taking my life.
‘He said: “Never think about doing that, ever again.” He told me it made him scared. He was crying. that day we made a pact. We promised each other we would never, ever contemplate taking our own lives.
‘And he had a terrible fear of
heights. He didn’t even like looking out of a high window. He would never have ended his life that way. Nobody wants to die like that, from impalement. The police said it was one of the worst deaths they’d seen.’
The inquest brought Sasha no resolution. The coroner recorded an open verdict.
‘It makes me feel sick, shaky thinking about what actually happened that day and I really do want to know but I don’t see myself getting any concrete answers.’
The reason she thinks it unlikely is that her father’s business deals were convoluted, shady and secretive. Today, Sasha reveals that she believes he was killed by a professional hitman — on the orders of the Russian mafia. Scot had close links to Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch who was a vocal opponent of President Putin.
And if Sasha’s theories about her father’s death seem extravagant, there is compelling evidence to support them. Five of her father’s friends — all of whom attained huge riches on deals they brokered — met sudden, violent deaths within four years of each other.
They were property magnates Paul Castle and Robbie Curtis; exrock manager Johnny Elichaoff and Berezovsky, found dead at his Berkshire home in 2013 with a ligature round his neck.
A coroner also recorded an open verdict on Berezovsky, while a forensic scientist said he could have been murdered.
Berezovsky was an investor in Project Moscow, a Russian property deal set up by Scot, which collapsed, allegedly costing those involved hundreds of millions.
But did Scot really lose all his wealth in the abortive project? Sasha believes not. She thinks Russian associates could have been involved in hiding her father’s huge fortune, and that they might have had a role in his death, sanctioning his murder by a hitman rather than returning his money when he asked for it back.
‘ People do crazy things for money,’ she says, ‘only my dad knew the truth about where it went. If I thought about it too much I’d go mad. There are too many unanswered questions, too many things I’ll never understand. But what I want to know is the truth about why he died. I want justice for him.’
Sasha’s demeanour is almost diffident. She speaks in a soft, hesitant voice, recalling how her carefree and privileged early childhood descended into chaos, confusion and darkness.
Back in London after her parents’ break-up, Sasha attended the £21,000-a-year Francis Holland School in Sloane Square; her father still gave her a £100-a-week allowance. ‘ We were still living an extremely expensive house,’ she recalls. ‘Dad wasn’t living with us but still called every day. We’d chat about school, everyday things. And he’d reassure me and say, “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
‘But there were lots of rows, and mum was angry. It was difficult for her to understand why her extravagant lifestyle had been curtailed.
‘She’d been used to going to Hermes or Dolce & Gabbana every Thursday and coming out with rails of clothes which would fill her Range Rover.’
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was evidence, too, of Scot’s shady financial dealings. Money started arriving via intermediaries in wads of cash. ‘I was about 13 and I remember a Russian guy — one of Dad’s business associates — handing over about £30,000 in cash outside a hairdressers in Mayfair. I saw it. It was very strange.
‘We began to realise Dad was associated with people who were scary. It came to a head one night when I was about 14. Mum was at the cinema and my sister and I were in the house alone.
‘Dad called us and said people were watching the house; that we were in danger and we had to meet him and leave the country that night. I’m sure he believed it. He wouldn’t have frightened us without reason.
‘We locked ourselves in a bathroom. We were terrified; too scared to leave the house. By the time Mum came home we were trembling and crying.’
Her parents’ ruinously costly and bitter divorce case rumbled on.
Then one day in 2008, Scot rang Michelle with a proposition. He said he would put £100 million in her bank account and give the same to each of their daughters if she would drop the case.
‘He said he would give mum until 3pm the next day to decide,’ remembers Sasha. ‘And Mum hesitated. Scarlet and I were begging her: “Take the deal, take the deal!” We pleaded with Mum.
‘The next day we were walking on Primrose Hill with her and it was HERE
was evidence, too, of Scot’s shady financial dealings. Money started arriving via intermediaries in wads of cash. ‘I was about 13 and I remember a Russian guy — one of Dad’s business associates — handing over about £30,000 in cash outside a hairdressers in Mayfair. I saw it. It was very strange.
‘We began to realise Dad was associated with people who were scary. It came to a head one night when I was about 14. Mum was at the cinema and my sister and I were in the house alone.
‘Dad called us and said people were watching the house; that we were in danger and we had to meet him and leave the country that night. I’m sure he believed it. He wouldn’t have frightened us without reason.
‘We locked ourselves in a bathroom. We were terrified; too scared to leave the house. By the time Mum came home we were trembling and crying.’
Her parents’ ruinously costly and bitter divorce case rumbled on.
Then one day in 2008, Scot rang Michelle with a proposition. He said he would put £100 million in her bank account and give the same to each of their daughters if she would drop the case.
‘He said he would give mum until 3pm the next day to decide,’ remembers Sasha. ‘And Mum hesitated. Scarlet and I were begging her: “Take the deal, take the deal!” We pleaded with Mum.
‘The next day we were walking on Primrose Hill with her and it was near the 3pm deadline. We were saying: “We need to sort this out. Don’t you want all this to stop?” But mum called 15 minutes late.
‘I heard Dad saying: “It’s too late. The deal’s off.” That’s how he was. For Dad, a deal was a deal, no matter who you were.
‘And when I think about it now, if it had been agreed it would have put a stop to everything. Dad would never have gone to prison.
‘There would have been no more court hearings. He would probably still be alive today, because the more his business dealings were exposed in public, the more vulnerable he became.’
She breaks off again, in tears, remembering the court hearings: ‘It was like the War of the Roses,’ she observes: bloody, intractable and seemingly interminable.
By
THEN, Michelle and her daughters were living in reduced circumstances. School fees left unpaid, Sasha left her smart independent school and went to a small private college. Home was a pleasant, but far from pretentious, three bedroom rented flat in Victoria.
‘All the expensive cars had gone,’ she recalls. ‘Mum drove a Mini and I went on a bus for the first time.’
She recalls how she took on the role of unofficial intermediary in the epic marital dispute. ‘ Dad would call and say, “I need you to talk to mum.” Then mum would say, “Tell Dad this.” I was piggy in the middle.’
So desperate was Sasha for peace, she brokered a meeting with them at a cafe in Victoria.
‘They were flirting and laughing, which gave me tremendous hope that they would speak civilly and dispense with the lawyers; perhaps even get back together again.
‘But after the meeting mum said she never wanted to see dad again. She felt so betrayed by all he’d done. I was crushed, devastated. My hopes were raised then dashed.’
Meanwhile, the court decreed that Scot should pay Michelle £27,500 a month in maintenance. But no money ever materialised.
Sasha was sitting her A-levels when her Dad was jailed.
‘I wondered why Dad would rather go to prison than answer questions in court about his money. I cried. I was scared about what would happen to him in jail and I wanted to visit him, but he told me not to.
‘On the day he was released from Pentonville I met him. We gave each other a huge bear hug. He was in a great mood, so happy to be out. I said to him again: “Why didn’t you answer the questions about where the money was?” And he just said: “It’s complicated.”’
Today Sasha remains baffled, grief- stricken, and no nearer to reaching a conclusion.
She is haunted by the fact that when he asked to meet her days before he died, she didn’t go.
‘He said there was something he wanted to say in person that he couldn’t discuss over the phone. I didn’t go. I had a university deadline. I regret it tremendously now, and the guilt stays with me.
‘I think he was scared that someone was trying to get him. He thought he was vulnerable.’
Today her life has changed irrevocably. She lives in an unassuming flat and has just started a £25,000a-year job with a charity. She is pretty and likeable; there is nothing ostentatious about her.
‘Dad was not a normal person,’ she reflects. ‘He was such a huge personality. He couldn’t have lived an everyday life. I thought he was a strong, powerful man.’ She stares ahead, her intense blue eyes brimming with tears.
‘Actually I thought he was invincible. But I was proved wrong.’