Celebrity chef Ramsay loses £1.6mn court fight

London Evening Standard/LondonCelebrity chef Gordon Ramsay suffered a courtroom nightmare yesterday after he was left facing an estimated £1.6 million bill as he lost a battle over the rent on a London pub.A High Court judge ruled that he must personally pay the £640,000 annual rent on the pub after a deal arranged by his father-in-law allegedly using a ghost writer machine.Ramsay, 48, is liable for the rent and £1mn legal costs because of the agreement signed when Christopher Hutcheson ran the TV chef’s business empire. Ramsay had accused Hutcheson in court of using the ghost writer machine to forge his signature. But yesterday justice Morgan ruled that however much Ramsay “regrets” his business relationship with his father-in-law he was committed to guarantee the lease.Ramsay and Hutcheson had an acrimonious break-up in 2010 with the chef accusing wife Tana’s father of “gross misconduct”. Three years earlier a deal had been signed making Ramsay a personal guarantor for the £640,000 annual rent of the York & Albany pub near Regent’s Park. Ramsay came to court last year in an attempt to release himself from the deal because his signature “was not lawfully authorised” when the 25-year lease was signed in 2007. He claimed Hutcheson had used the ghost writer machine - normally employed by authors to sign books and photographs automatically - to forge his signature.He told the judge he had felt “like a performing monkey” when Hutcheson was managing his business.Film director Gary Love, who owns the York & Albany, described Ramsay’s allegation as an “absurd” attempt to wriggle out of his rental commitments. Ramsay was ordered to pay Love’s entire bill, in bringing the case.He must pay £250,000 to Love within 28 days while the final bill is confirmed. The judge said that Ramsay “knew long before” the lease was signed that the ghost writer machine was “routinely used to place his signature on legal documents.” He added that he believed evidence of Ramsay’s shock at discovering he was liable for the rent was “exaggerated.”The judge refused Ramsay permission to appeal.In dramatic evidence Tana Ramsay told how she had made the “extremely distressing” discovery that her father and brother Adam, who was also sacked from the business, had been “systematically defrauding” her husband. She said she had been aware of the use of the ghost writer machine but thought it was for signing merchandise when her husband was unavailable. “It did not even occur to me that the machine be used to sign Gordon’s signature on anything else,” she said.Tana, who married in 1996 and has four children with the chef, also spoke about her “dominating and very clever” father. She recalled “the shock on Gordan’s face” and his horror and disbelief when he found out that he was a personal guarantor on a 25-year lease.