Locals call for property tycoon's palace to be requisitioned to house the homeless.

 

Nicholas van Hoogsraten outside Hamilton Palace

If anybody is deserving of the title of Britain's biggest shithouse, it must be the convicted criminal and property speculator, Nicolas van Hoogstraten. I've been reading about his exploits for years. This totally amoral man, who regards most people as "moronic peasants", treats people like doormats or toilet paper, and he's become both notorious and immensely wealthy because of it.

In 1968, he was convicted and served a 4-year prison sentence for paying a gang to attack a business associate. In 2002, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the manslaughter of a business rival. The conviction was subsequently overturned on appeal. In 2005, he was ordered to pay the victim's family £6m in a civil case.

I first became aware of Hoogstraten, when he featured on The Cook Report many years ago. I can remember Roger Cook interviewing him while he repeatedly stabbed him with his umbrella. It was hilarious. Hoogstraten is said to have been a personal friend of the odious bastard Robert Mugabe, who he described as "100% decent and incorruptible." Hoogstraten said that Mugabe didn't believe in democracy and that he believed in rule by the fittest. Hoogstraten, who could have fallen out of the pages of a novel by Dostoevsky, now spends much of his time living in Zimbabwe.

Hamilton Palace, which is bigger than Buckingham Palace, was built to be Hoogstraten's mausoleum, and a monument to his venality, arrogance, and vanity. The building, which is in Uckfield, East Sussex, has stood empty and unfinished since Hoogstraten felt out with the builder more than 20 years ago. Local people in East Sussex, have called for the land and building to be requisitioned to accommodate the homeless and refugees.