Billionaire brothers ‘like Bond villains’ over £12m loan
BILLIONAIRE Christian Candy became a ‘screaming lunatic’ over a £12million loan and threatened to put a businessman ‘in a deep dark hole’, it was claimed yesterday. Entrepreneur Mark Holyoake said a campaign of blackmail and intimidation left him fearing for his own life, and claimed the property mogul made threats against his pregnant wife, who had previously suffered a miscarriage.
He took the threats so seriously that he turned his home into ‘Fort Knox’, with cameras and armed bodyguards to protect him and his family, he told the High Court in London.
Mr Holyoake claimed Christian had threatened to call in Russian debt collectors and that his brother Nick had told him: ‘You don’t want to have your legs broken.’
The entrepreneur said the highly secretive brothers acted like Bond villains after lending him £12million to finance a property deal.
He added that they considered themselves ‘above the law’ over their tax arrangements.
Mr Holyoake’s dramatic claims about the billionaires – dubbed the Bling Brothers for their vast wealth and lavish spending – came as he gave evidence in a £132million court case against them. The married father-ofa three said Christian, 42, had repeatedly threatened to destroy his life, ruin his business, leave him penniless and take his home, and said he still feared for his personal safety.
He told the court: ‘I remember thinking that it was like I had gone into the business with the devil.’
In one bizarre business meeting, at the luxury Bulgari Hotel in London’s Mayfair, he said Christian behaved like a James Bond villain.
Mr Holyoake said: ‘Chris sat with his body angled away from me, eating a big bag of sweets, rather like a stereotypical Mafia boss or James Bond villain.’
The brothers deny all of Mr Holyoake’s allegations and claim he has invented the threats in a deliberate attempt to extract money from them.
The entrepreneur borrowed £12million from Christian Candy’s company CPC in 2011 to finance a property development scheme, but claims the deal soured within weeks because the brothers attempted to ‘steal’ the project from him.
He alleges he received daily abusive and aggressive phone calls from the tycoon and was coerced into signing a disastrous series of finance deals which saw him repay more than £37million on the two-year loan.
Mr Holyoake told the court he had trusted the Candys because he shared Lost millions: Mark Holyoake
‘You don’t want your legs broken’
house with Nick at university and thought of him like a brother. When his wife Emma suffered a miscarriage in 2010, Nick Candy was one of the few people he confided in, he said.
She was pregnant again at the time of the 2011 loan and Mr Holyoake alleged Christian had threatened her and their unborn child, saying he would ‘feel terrible if anything were to go wrong during the pregnancy for her or the baby’.
Mr Holyoake said: ‘They clearly must have discussed deploying such a heinous subject matter in an attempt to finally exploit me. I will therefore never ever forgive them.’
Mr Holyoake claims he eventually had to pull out of the property redevelopment, at a loss of £100million in potential profits.
He is seeking £132million for lost profits, over-payments, legal costs and aggravated damages.
A spokesman for the Candys said: ‘Mr Holyoake’s claims are denied in their entirety.
‘These matters should, and will, be determined on the evidence at trial by the judge.’
The case continues.