Judge brings mining family feud to an end with £127,000 fine

Published on Wednesday 22 June 2011 18:29

THE head of one of Scotland's richest families has been ordered to pay more than £127,000 to his brother after an acrimonious legal dispute.

Graham Gillespie, 53, whose family made their fortune from mining, and his son Scott were sued for more then 1 million by his younger brother, Steven.

Steven claimed Graham used his company's money to pay off gambling debts, buy horses and hire private jets.

Steven and Graham set up Gillespie Investments Limited (GIL) with their brothers Alan and Gary in 2002.

But Steven - whose skull was fractured by Graham in 2000 - took sole ownership of the property development firm in 2006.

Discrepancies over payments were found after an audit, and Steven sued Graham - a friend of Sir David Murray and Sir Sean Connery - for 534,637 and Scott for 689,556.

Lord Hodge has now found the pair breached their duties as directors of the company. Graham has been ordered to pay GIL 127,040, while Scott has been told to pay 44,416.

They had claimed that as directors they had permission to take the money from the company's funds, but the judge rejected this.

In a written judgment, he said: "Mr Graham Gillespie and Mr Scott Gillespie were guilty of significant breaches of their fiduciary duty to GIL.

"The company had suffered loss as a result. Some of the directors and shareholders of GIL knew of the misappropriations. Mr Steven Gillespie did not know the extent of the misappropriations. He did not consent to the misappropriations of which he was unaware. Thus, all of the shareholders of GIL had not consented to those misappropriations."

Graham and his son did not have to pay the full amount they were sued for as he had contributed to the company paying off an overdraft of almost 3 million to the Bank of Scotland in 2006.

The case held at the Court of Session in Edinburgh earlier heard that the four Gillespie brothers had worked together in the open-cast coal industry and made "considerable sums of money" before moving into property development.

However, the brothers' relationships were volatile at times and there was a history of rows and, on occasion, violence and threats of violence.

Lord Hodge also said he believed members of the family had lied while giving evidence.

The Gillespie dynasty was established by the brothers' father, Jim.

Their GM Mining empire was run in partnership with former Rangers chairman Sir David.