Ramsay’s mum-in-law in a stew in debt case

AS FAMILY sagas go, it’s almost too lurid to be true — a feast of fame and fortune, coated with one foul-mouthed, supersized ego and rippling with lashings of betrayal.

yet, just when you thought we’d already been treated to the last morsels of Gordon ramsay’s battle with his fatherin-law and one-time business partner Chris Hutcheson, it appears the left-overs are about to be re-heated and served once more in London’s High Court.

And this time, I can disclose, Hutcheson’s wife, Greta, is being thrown into the mix.

Preliminary legal documents reveal Greta, 79, is not only named in an action being brought by a brace of insolvency practitioners against her husband — sacked as chief executive of ramsay’s business empire back in 2010 — but is being sued, by the same pair, in an entirely separate action.

It’s difficult not to feel some sympathy for Greta, who has four children, including ramsay’s wife, Tana, with Hutcheson. Unknown to her, he had two more offspring by a mistress called Frances Collins. The existence of this second, family emerged only after ramsay hired private detectives to unravel what his father-in-law was up to. The findings prompted ramsay to allege Hutcheson had hacked into his personal and corporate files and withdrawn £1.42 million to fund a ‘very complex life’ — including paying £ 5,000- a- month to a second mistress.

Hutcheson took out a gagging order — later lifted by the High Court — and branded ramsay a celebrity- obsessed ‘monster’ who turned Tana against him.

remarkably, a reconciliation was forged two years later — only for Hutcheson to be jailed in 2017 after a court concluded he had indeed hacked into ramsay’s computer and gained access to financial files.

In 2018, Hutcheson declared himself bankrupt. But, months earlier, he’d sold the house he and Greta shared and transferred his share — £328,000 — to her. In effect, said Fiona Cushley, Deputy Official receiver, he had ‘disposed of his only tangible asset to his wife’ even though he knew the ‘money should be shared amongst all his creditors’.

And, ultimately, Hutcheson, who’s banned from running limited companies, has ensured the hapless Greta, loyal to him despite his infidelities, now faces being hauled before the court.