Gordon Ramsay in High Court battle over a pub

Gordon Ramsay claims his father-in-law unlawfully used his signature. Picture: PA

Ramsay is claiming the machine was used without his knowledge to sign him up for the £640,000-a-year annual rent for the historic York & Albany pub near Regent’s Park, London.

The 48-year-old Scot is seeking a declaration that the guarantee does not bind him because his signature “was not lawfully authorised” when the 25-year lease was signed in 2007.

The chef says he worked for a number of years with his father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson, who acted as his business manager for his group of companies.

He told Chancery judge Mr Justice Morgan his “deep and extensive trust in Hutcheson was entirely misplaced” and his father-in-law defrauded him and the group “of hundreds of thousands of pounds”.

In 2010, Mr Hutcheson was “summarily dismissed from the group”.

As Ramsay was “piecing his business back together”, his solicitors discovered that his signature had appeared on a personal guarantee in the lease for the York & Albany.

Ramsay told the court discovering the lease guarantee was “a shock – a devastation”.

The father-of-four said: “The company is still in the hook for the lease, and what was devastating for my wife and I was that we were guaranteeing it until 2033.”

He added: “There were many horrific discoveries because I can recognise my signature and pinpoint one forged by machine.”

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The judge was told a key issue in the case was whether Mr Hutcheson was authorised, while managing the Ramsay group businesses, to use a “ghost-writer” machine which he had obtained and which was used to sign Ramsay’s name on the personal guarantee.

Film director Gary Love, who owns the York & Albany, has described Ramsay’s allegation as an “absurd” attempt to wriggle out of his rental commitments. He is opposing Ramsay’s application for a declaration that he is not bound by the guarantee.

Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH) won a bidding war to secure the 160-year-old building in the exclusive area of Regent’s Park According to a newspaper report, this pushed the rent far higher than the market rate, and Ramsay has since turned the pub into an upmarket restaurant, bar and hotel.

The hearing is expected to last six days and Ramsay will give evidence that he had agreed to the use of the ghost-writer, which electronically replicates a signature using a fountain pen or ballpoint, but he had done so “for purposes of merchandising material only”.

However, Mr Hutcheson had “used the ghost-writer far more widely than that, using it to sign various contracts in [Ramsay’s] name”.

Ramsay – who ran the Amaryllis restaurant in Glasgow for three years before it closed in 2004 – maintains Mr Hutcheson used it to sign the York & Albany personal guarantee or loan, even though the chef had not authorised anyone to sign it on his behalf.

Giving evidence, Ramsay said that between six and nine months after Mr Hutcheson was “removed from the business” in 2010, “it was discovered then that the lease was signed by the ghost machine”.

He said it was discovered that “there were several documents that had been forged”.

Cross-examined by Romie Tager QC, for Mr Love, the chef said he could not remember exactly which documents.

He said he and his wife were then “going through a very difficult time”, telling the court that “there were several emails that were hacked so it is hard to categorise exactly when and what we discovered”.

The case continues.

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