Hoogstraten took my baby

Agnes and five-year-old Orrie were abandoned by the tycoon in the south of France three years ago.

Last year Hoogstraten came to visit and took their child away on a holiday. She has not seen either of them since.

The room where Orrie used to play is now empty. The toys that once gave him such pleasure have been packed away.

The only mementoes Agnes has of her son are the photographs of him which, from time to time, Hoogstraten sends her.

Now her time is spent sitting on a balcony overlooking the road, praying that one of the cars that passes will stop and out will spring her beloved son.

She has been watching and waiting now for months and still the cars do not stop.

It is all a far cry from the Agnes Gnoumou of just a few years before. In 1996 she married her millionaire lover after a passionate five-year courtship.

Hoogstraten called her his Queen of Africa and gave her gifts including a car, furs and jewellery.

But when the marriage hit the rocks and passion faded, the presents were taken back. She agreed to a divorce after Hoogstraten said if she did not sign the paperwork she would never see their child again.

In 1998 he drove Agnes and their child to his apartment in Cannes, leaving them £800 a month to live on.

Agnes contacted The Argus in July 1999 to highlight her plight and revealed all about life with Hoogstraten.

The tycoon first met Agnes more than a decade ago. When he finally asked her out on a date, it was via an underling who called her and summoned her to dinner.

Over the £600 meal, Hoogstraten told her it was destiny that they had met. Agnes felt irresistibly drawn to the smooth-talking Englishman.

But even then her friends were warning her off.

On that first night she was given a glimpse of the millionaire's chequered love history. She tried to forget about his four illegitimate children and numerous former lovers. She told herself she was special.

Hoogstraten reminded her of Richard Gere and she felt like Julia Roberts in the film Pretty Woman. The whole thing seemed like a fairytale.

On their second date, she said: "Nick told me I had hit the jackpot. He said I was the Queen of Africa. He opened a dictionary and found the word queen and he pointed to me."

Over the next few years, Hoogstraten controlled every aspect of Agnes's life - her friends, her income, where she went, where she lived and who she saw.

When he asked her to marry him a few weeks after their first meeting, he told her: "The day we met you were my wife." In the midst of her joy, the words sent a shiver down her spine.

For the next few years, Agnes led a life steeped in luxury and excess. Dripping with jewellery and staying in the best hotels, she flitted from Monte Carlo to Martinique, Cannes to Barbados. Her fianc bought her expensive gifts, from a sports car to a white mink coat.

But by 1994, Hoogstraten's fiery temper and obsession with control had sent the relationship spinning into freefall.

When Agnes discovered she was pregnant, she felt she had to have an abortion. Hoogstraten did not agree so he withdrew her allowance and refused to be there on the day.

"I arranged it all myself. When I was ill he thought it was a joke. I asked him to find me a doctor and he wouldn't. It was humiliating.

"Everybody there said I should have someone with me. I was the only person there not to have a visitor. I rang Nick from the clinic and he didn't even ask how I was feeling."

A week later, he finished their relationship and Agnes was left desperate and alone. She had nowhere to live and no one to turn to.

But even though she vowed never to get involved with him again, just a few months later she found herself entangled once more.

He tracked her down and begged her to come back to him, promising he had turned over a new leaf. Setting aside her misgivings, she took him back, only to be trapped in the same situation all over again.

"I was drinking a lot because I was unhappy - he didn't care about me. His princess had become his servant."

Despite her unhappiness, Agnes agreed to marry Hoogstraten when he proposed for a second time.

In 1996, they were married at the Little Chapel of Flowers, Las Vegas. But Hoogstraten kept the ceremony private and refused to allow Agnes to tell her friends.

By the end of the year, their relationship was virtually over. Then Agnes found out she was pregnant. This time she was not willing to terminate the baby.

On July 8 1997 Agnes went into labour while living at one of Hoogstraten's businesses, the Courtlands Hotel in Hove.

She said: "I got up to go to the loo and my waters broke and it went all over the carpet. I rang him downstairs and when he came up the first thing he said was, 'My expensive carpet!'. I had to get on to my knees with a cloth and water from the bathroom."

After scrubbing the carpet, Agnes went to the maternity ward but her husband refused to stay with her. After a ten-hour labour and a caesarean section, she finally became a mother for the first time.

Fatherhood did not change Hoogstraten, however. By the end of that year, he told his wife it was over.

In the years since that day, Agnes has become a shell of her former self. The stress-related eczema that plagued her for years has now scarred her arms, the itching and flaking dead skin keeping her awake.

Worry has eaten away at her once shapely body. Since Orrie left, she has lost about 30lb, stress robbing her of appetite.

She said: "I think Nick enjoyed The Argus articles and I don't regret speaking out for one minute. It wasn't right that he left me out here and it needed to be said."