Gordon Ramsay’s father-in-law kisses his sons in court as he is JAILED for hacking into chef’s computer during bitter family feud
GORDON Ramsay’s father-in-law has been jailed for six months for hacking the chef's personal computer during a bitter business feud.
Chris Hutcheson, 69, plotted with sons Adam Hutcheson, 47, and Chris Hutcheson Junior, 37, to break into the restaurateur's emails and find financial details and other information.
Another of his children, Orlanda Butland, 45, also faced the same charge but it was later dropped.
Having been sacked from his role as chief executive of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Ltd, he conspired with his sons, who both had IT roles in the business, to access company systems almost 2,000 times between October 23 2010 and March 31 2011.
This included accessing information regarding Ramsay's intellectual property rights and other material which might give them the upper hand in their legal spat.
As well as his prison term, the almost decade-long legal fall-out from the men's feud has cost Hutcheson Senior, the father of Ramsay's wife Tana, more than £2 million in damages and legal costs, the Old Bailey heard.
The hack included accessing information regarding Ramsay's intellectual property rights and other material which might give them the upper hand in their legal spat and embarrass the star.
Stories about a "hair transplant" and a "fishing trip" later appeared in the newspapers, the court heard - something Hutcheson Senior denied responsibility for, via his lawyer.
Jailing him on Wednesday, Judge John Bevan QC said: "The whole episode of five months amounts to an unattractive and unedifying example of dirty linen being washed in public."
Hutcheson Snr was today caged for six months at the Old Bailey, while his sons were handed four month jail terms, suspended for two years.
On one day alone in February 2011, the court heard, Hutcheson Senior accessed the system 600 times and Adam Hutcheson 282 times, the court heard.
After their actions were discovered, Hutcheson Senior told his son Chris in an email: "Guess we have been rumbled. Bit late though."
The dispute dates back to 2008, when the restaurant business ran into financial difficulty and 50-year-old Ramsay told the Sunday Times he was forced to sell his Ferrari to help pay debts.
Both Ramsay and his father-in-law dipped into their own pockets in a bid to keep it afloat, with accounts at the time showing the celebrity chef put £3.5 million into the business, while Hutcheson gave £1.5 million.
Hutcheson was sacked in October 2010 after 12 years at Ramsay's side, with the Scot telling Daily Mail weeks later his mother-in-law had told Tana to "get rid of Gordon", something that "tipped me over the edge".
In an open letter to the Standard he accused Hutcheson Senior of running the business as "a dictator", with the older man's friends counter-claiming the rift had been caused by the fiery Scot choosing "to lock him out of the office without notice".
In 2011, Ramsay's lawyers won a High Court ruling allowing Hutcheson Senior's computer to be searched over the hack.
Later that year, details of Hutcheson Senior's private life emerged in a separate hearing at the High Court, which rejected his bid for privacy over allegations published in tabloid newspapers that he had fathered two children by a mistress.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher QC told the Old Bailey on Wednesday that after the civil case ended in 2012 there had been something of a reconciliation and as a result Mr and Mrs Ramsay had withdrawn their support for the the criminal prosecution earlier this year.
Neither was in court on Wednesday.
The trio had admitted conspiring to cause a computer to access programmes and data without authority at a hearing in April.
Hutcheson Snr kissed his sons as he was led away to the cells.
He is the father of Ramsay's wife, Tana, who the chef has four children with, and they previously had a good relationship.
But in 2010, the TV cook had a bitter falling out with his father-in-law after he fired him as chief executive of his business empire.
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The charges took place between between October 23, 2010, and March 31, 2011.
At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Dan Suter explained: "At the time Chris Hutcheson Snr had been dismissed by Gordon Ramsay Holdings Ltd (GRHL), he had previously held a senior position with GRHL.
"The prosecution will say as a result of that dismissal he was motivated to access, unlawfully, the computer system."
He said Hutcheson and his son Adam used Google Mail to access emails and shared a ten page document discussing how to "crack codes" and "access passwords".
The court previously heard an expert employed by Ramsay realised he had been hacked and found the "location and log ins used in the hacking" and tracked the IP addresses - discovering more than 2,000 unlawful entries.
After their actions were discovered, Hutcheson Snr told his son Chris in an email: "Guess we have been rumbled. Bit late though."
Hutcheson Senior, of Earlsfield, Hutcheson Junior, from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, and Adam Hutcheson, from Sevenoaks, in Kent, admitted conspiring to cause a computer to access programmes and data without authority at a hearing in April.
Mr Christopher told the court what had been taken was items including photos "provided to the press which led to considerable intrusion into the privacy of the family".
The hack also saw Hutcheson Junior use Mr Ramsay's own email account to send out a photograph which he had earlier given a legal undertaking not to disseminate on privacy grounds, an illegal move Judge Bevan said was "close to an attempt to pervert the course of justice".
Hutcheson Senior's lawyer Michael Borrelli said the older man had already paid Mr Ramsay more than £1 million in damages and legal costs relating to the civil case, plus his own legal fees of around £1 million and other costs of more than £100,000.
He claimed his client had carried out the hack partly to obtain information about his financial interest in the company.
Mr Borrelli said Mr Ramsay had made a police statement against his client as recently as February 2016 and described the chef's contact with the Crown Prosecution Service shortly before the trio's guilty plea in April as a "publicity stunt to appear to be wanting to disengage".