A millionaire businessman faces eviction from a castle on a country estate where King Henry VIII once hunted and jousted.
Simon Giles, 41, could be ordered to leave the south wing of the Grade II-listed Lullingstone Castle, at Eynsford in Kent, over allegations he used it to launder cash.
Father-of-three Mr Giles used the extensive grounds of the castle’s estate to practice landing his helicopter there when he was learning to fly it.
The estate was also visited by Queen Anne and has a vineyard, a 19-acre lake, formal gardens, a Tudor gatehouse dating from 1497 and a chapel.
Millionaire businessman Simon Giles, 41, could be ordered to leave the south wing of Lullingstone Castle, at Eynsford in Kent, over allegations he used it to launder cash
The gatehouse of the home dates from 1497. The estate was once used by King Henry VIII for jousting and hunting
The majority of the estate is owned by the Hart Dyke family, who have presided over it since the 15th-Century.
The present owner, horticulturalist Tom Hart Dyke, is a cousin of comedian and actress Miranda Hart.
Mr Giles faces eviction after losing a court battle against the bank HSBC which centred on where he obtained funds to buy the property, The Times reported.
The businessman had asked London’s High Court to force HSBC to let him carry on paying a £5,665-a-month mortgage to allow him to carry on living in the building.
The bank was trying to repossess the property.
A High Court judge said there were question marks around Mr Giles’s funds.
The estate was also visited by Queen Anne and has a vineyard, a 19-acre lake, formal gardens, a Tudor gatehouse dating from 1497 and a chapel
The court was told Mr Giles bought the home from Kathryn Durnford
According to the documents seen by The Times, Mr Giles’s company, SLF Associates, which is registered in the Seychelles, ‘appears to be the subject of a freezing injunction under anti-money-laundering legislation and whose director appears to be disqualified in England’.
The court was told Mr Giles bought the home from Kathryn Durnford, who submitted documents to the court which branded Mr Giles as ‘untrustworthy’ for his alleged role in a ‘misleading’ pension scheme.
She was listed alongside Mr Giles’s company as a defendant in the case with HSBC because she continues to hold the title deed and mortgage on the property.
The majority of the estate is owned by the Hart Dyke family, who have presided over it since the 15th-Century. The present owner is horticulturalist Tom Hart Dyke
Ms Durnford said that after she put the property up for sale in August 2020, Mr Giles approached her through an estate agent using the name ‘Simon Murray’. She said he made an offer of almost £1.4million for the home.
He said he wanted to buy it under an ‘option to purchase agreement’ through SLF.
How Lullingstone Castle has been owned by the same family since the 15th-Century
Lullingstone Castle was built in 1497 and is a tourist attraction in the area, featuring a 15-acre lake and several gardens containing international plants.
The estate, near the famous Brands Hatch Circuit, has been owned by members of the same family since the 15th century.
The castle, which opens for three days per week during spring to autumn, is shut due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The impressive manor was said to be a favourite of Henry VIII and Queen Anne, with a bathhouse built for the latter still hidden in its grounds.
The land has been owned by the Hart-Dyke family for 20 generations and is one of England’s oldest family estates, with the land mentioned in the Domesday Book.
It was also home to the Lullingstone Silk Farm, established in the early 1930s, which produced material for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation robes and wedding dress.
Lullingstone also features a garden of exotic plants from across the globe, a venture which got off to a dangerous start when horticulturist and heir Tom Hart Dyke was kidnapped while plant hunting in Columbia in 2000.
The 44-year-old was held captive for nine months by suspected Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas in the Darien Gap near Panama.
He had been hunting for rare orchids with his travel partner Paul Winder at the time.
SLF would then make monthly mortgage payments, with the option to buy the home outright at a later date.
But Mrs Durnford claimed that in 2012 she discovered the mortgage payments were coming from accounts in Belize, Zurich, Berlin and the Isle of Man.
‘My accountant expressed concern and suggested I should investigate further the source of funds, as I could be implicated in money laundering,’ she said in a witness statement at an earlier hearing reported by the Daily Mail.
Mrs Durnford then discovered in 2014 an order from the Supreme Court of Seychelles freezing the accounts of SLF under anti-money laundering laws.
She said she told HSBC what had happened and told the bank to stop the transactions coming into her mortgage.
But with no payments now being made on her behalf, she fell into arrears and HSBC launched a claim in November 2018 to repossess the property.
HSBC was granted the possession order at Dartford County Court but SLF then won a stay.
SLF and Mrs Durnford are in dispute over the option to purchase agreement. SLF said she had no right to stop its mortgage payments for the property.
In reference to the use of ‘Simon Murray’ as an alias, Mr Giles said he had used his mother’s maiden name for a period but had never hidden his birth name from Mrs Durnford.
Mr Giles said he was the victim of ‘unfounded and inaccurate’ allegations and added that no mortgage payments had been made by any pension schemes or assets.
He claimed Mrs Durnford withdrew her consent for HSBC to accept mortgage payments to try to bring about a repossession.
In the latest ruling on Wednesday, judge Master Kaye said Mr Giles’s company SLF had ‘provided no evidence at all of its financial means’, according to The Times.
The judge reportedly added that ‘such evidence as it has provided of its ability to fund the redemption is not persuasive’.
As a result, ‘these matters all raise serious concerns about its ability to meet any order for costs’, Master Kaye added.
The judge said a copy of the Seychelles freezing order was submitted to the High Court.
He said it was unclear whether the ‘anti-money-laundering’ order was still in force but that Mr Giles’s company had not addressed this in ‘evidence or submissions’.
Mr Hart Dyke is a cousin of the comedian Miranda Hart