Gordon Ramsay’s father-in-law jailed for six months
Chris Hutcheson conspired with his two sons to steal information about the celebrity chef in a dispute described by a judge as “dirty linen aired in public”. Gordon Ramsay’s father-in-law has been jailed for six months for hacking company computers to steal information in a high-profile dispute with the celebrity chef.
Chris Hutcheson, 69 – father of Ramsay’s wife Tana – conspired with his sons Adam Hutcheson, 47, and Chris Hutcheson Jr, 37, to hack into the restaurant owner’s emails and find financial and other information, some of which appeared in the now-defunct News of the World. The two younger men were both jailed for four months, suspended for two years.
Judge John Bevan QC, who jailed Hutcheson Sr. “The whole five-month affair amounts to nothing more than an unappealing and unedifying example of washing dirty linen in public,” said Hutcheson Sr, who was involved in a public row with the chef, some of which was aired during legal hearings at the High Court.
After being sacked as chief executive of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Ltd, he colluded with his sons, both of whom had IT roles in the business, to access the company’s systems almost 2,000 times between 23 October 2010 and 31 March 2011. This included accessing information relating to Ramsay’s intellectual property and other material that could have given them an advantage in their legal battle. On one day in February 2011, the court heard, Hutcheson Sr accessed the system 600 times, while Adam Hutcheson accessed the system 282 times.
The court heard stories of the hair transplant and a subsequent fishing trip appeared in the newspapers. After their actions were discovered, Hutcheson Sr told his son Chris in an email: “I guess we were stunned. But it was a bit late.” Prosecutor Julian Christopher QC told the court that after the civil case ended, the families had reconciled and as a result, neither Gordon nor Tana supported the criminal prosecution. Neither was in court on Wednesday. Hutcheson Sr kissed his sons as he was taken away to begin his sentence.
The judge said that despite the seven-figure impact of the civil legal battle between the elderly man and his famous son-in-law, only an immediate prison sentence was appropriate given the seriousness of his crimes. Hutcheson Sr, of Earlsfield, south-west London, Hutcheson Jr, of Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, and Adam Hutcheson, of Sevenoaks, Kent, admitted conspiracy to cause a computer to access programs and data without authorisation at a hearing in April.
