SITTING at his dining table desk, papers, phones and calculators spread over it, Nicholas Van Hoogstraten is the only guest at the Courtlands Hotel.

The notorious property tycoon, who was once on first name terms with dictators, runs his business empire from the hotel bar in The Drive, Hove, a street where he claims to own most of the properties.

“We get people out of here by ramping the rates up,” Mr Van Hoogstraten reveals.

“We’re not in the hotel business, we’re in the property business.

“I own nearly everything around here and by own it, I mean own it - there’s no mortgage on anything.

“It’s one of the reasons why nobody can tell me what to do.

“I don’t have to be nice to anybody.”

The property baron, now using the name Nicholas Adolf von Hessen, was speaking after his acquittal at the magistrates court in Brighton last week.

He walked free from court after he was found not guilty over an accusation he suggested a police officer was a “poofter”.

The British businessman made the comment after his son was arrested following a row over clamping at a car park he owns in Hove.

He was cleared by magistrates of behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress.

Mr von Hessen called the proceedings “laughable, a complete waste of public money and a disgrace”.

The 75-year-old told the court that the words he used were “maybe he’s a poofter as well”.

He added: “And since when (is) poof or poofter in any way offensive?”

From an early age he was a great fan of Margaret Thatcher because she made him “proud to be English”.

He left school at 16, joined the Navy and travelled the world. Just a year later he sold his astutely acquired stamp collection for £1,000 and embarked on a business career, buying property in the Bahamas.

In 1999, business partner Mohammed Raja, 62, was shot dead by two men then alleged to be Mr van Hoogstraten’s henchmen, but the tycoon’s conviction for manslaughter was quashed by the Court of Appeal in July 2003 and he was freed five months later.

Following his release from prison Mr Raja’s family brought a £6 million civil action against him.

In December 2005 the civil courts – where the standard of proof required is much lower than the criminal courts – ruled that on the balance of probability, Mr van Hoogstraten was involved in the murder.

High Court judges ordered him to pay £500,000 interim costs but the businessman reportedly stated that Mr Raja’s family would “never get a penny”.

Mr van Hoogstraten said of the Brighton Magistrates’ Court proceedings: “They were all trying to shut me up and I had to take control of proceedings.

“I’m not a liar. A lot of people would like to think I was.

“I don’t give a s**t about anybody.

“That’s how they couldn’t deal with me in that Old Bailey case.”