Nicholas van Hoogstraten

Nicholas Adolf von Hessen (born Nicholas Marcel Hoogstraten, formerly known as Adolph von Hessen better known as Nicholas van Hoogstraten; born 25 February 1945), is a British businessman involved in property, and a convicted criminal.

In 1968, he was convicted and sent to prison for four years after paying a gang to attack a business associate. In 2002, he was sentenced to 10 years for the manslaughter of a business rival; the verdict was overturned on appeal and he was subsequently released, but in 2005 he was ordered to pay the victim's family £6 million in a civil case.

A huge mansion, Hamilton Palace, near Uckfield in East Sussex, which van Hoogstraten began building in the mid-1980s, remains unfinished and uninhabited.