Trimingham on Hoogstraten

Although he was the defendant, his demeanour was that of a man completely in control of the proceedings. Even when he was sent to prison, he showed no signs of emotion.

The scribes outside the court were busy shouting copy down phones about the ruin of Britain's youngest millionaire and how he was about to swap his 100 guinea suit for prison uniform.

But Hoogstraten emerged from prison with his fortune intact and expanded it to become one of Britain's richest men.

He also managed to keep out of trouble with the police, until last year, and had even taken to boasting about his good relationships with them.

The main stories written about him in the last decade have been about his monumental mansion in Framfield and his efforts to keep ramblers off a footpath through the estate.

Reading them without knowing of his background, you could be forgiven for thinking he was a harmless, wealthy English eccentric landowner. But you would be wrong.

There is no one in Sussex who has a greater reputation for being almost a pantomime villain than Nicholas Hoogstraten. Stories, some factual and some fictitious, abound about this strange and secretive loner.

When I give talks and mention I have met him, the invariable reaction is a hiss followed by a sharp intact of breath, as if I had spoken of Satan. Yet he is more intriguing and complicated than that.

I may be the only reporter around who has met both Hoogstraten and Peter Rachman, whose name has entered the English language as a byword for being a bad landlord.

Whereas Rachman was an out-and-out thug, there is more light and shade about Hoogstraten.

When he got rid of one tenant's possessions in Brighton by throwing them out of the top floor window, he declared; "This is the best bit of fun I've had in years."

Yet I knew a little old lady only a few streets away who declared: "Mr Hoogstraten is a perfect gentleman."

He has his own ideas of right and wrong. He sometimes has the money and power to impose them.

Scum, a favourite word of his, is applied to some of his tenants, or to the ramblers who dare to traipse along the Framfield footpaths past his home.

Hoogstraten likes to play hard to get. You can seldom approach him directly and when you do, he likes to gain the ascendancy early in the interview, Having achieved that, he relaxes to some extent.

Once he starts talking, it is hard to stop the flow. He is only too happy to give his decided opinions on financial dealing, or on other rich men. He tells lurid stories of what happened to former business associates.

His opinions are often scathing and he had nothing but contempt for most other landlords, particularly Mohammed Raja.

Whereas once he was usually alone, now he is often in the company of women, usually young and often black.

Back in the Sixties and Seventies, Hoogstraten was chippy, even cocky, with his menacing looks and air of mystery.

Now in late middle age, the increasingly saturnine multi-millionaire is acutely aware that he cannot control the onset of old age or death.

That is why he has arranged an impressive but bizarre mausoleum at Framfield which will be his last resting place, along with many of his valuables.

Typically, he has not arranged for his vast fortune to be left to anyone. Nor will the mansion be open to the public for viewing - as they might include scum.

There is still no guarantee that this pile, the largest private house to have been constructed in the last century, will ever be finished.

Many years from now, when he is dead and gone, the mansion will remain, strange and unvisited in the countryside, with legends abounding about it. He would like it that way.

The last time I saw Hoogstraten, it was at this palace. We went on to the roof to admire the views just as a thunderstorm was approaching.

Lightning flashed, thunder roared and rain tumbled down as we sheltered in the lift shaft.

In the middle of this natural spectacular, he stood surveying the scene. Some might surmise he was the Devil but to me he was simply Old Nick.