Gordon Ramsay’s father-in-law jailed for hacking into the chef’s emails
Gordon Ramsay’s father-in-law was jailed yesterday for hacking into the chef’s emails to dig up dirt to sell to the media.
Chris Hutcheson broke into Ramsay’s personal files in an attempt to get back at the TV star after being kicked out of the celebrity chef’s lucrative business empire.
The 69-year-old, whose daughter Tana married Ramsay in 1996, conspired with his sons Adam, 47, and Chris Jr, 37, to hack into the Ramsay’s accounts almost 2,000 times.
Hutcheson was jailed for six months, while his sons were given four-month suspended sentences.
Chris Hutcheson with Gordon Ramsay at the opening Party of Gordon Ramsay's new Restaurant and hotel York and Albany, Parkway Camden Town, London in 2008.
During sentencing, Judge John Bevan QC said: “The whole episode amounts to an unattractive and unedifying example of dirty linen being washed in public.
“By seeking deliberately to get Mr Ramsay into serious trouble, it demonstrates the gravity of what was going on. These emails were unsurprisingly embarrassing, damaging and personally distressing to Mr Ramsay.”
Julian Christopher QC, prosecuting, said: “For a period of five months following the dismissal… he repeatedly accessed the company computer network for the email accounts of Mr Ramsay and Mrs Ramsay and a number of employees of the company in order to obtain material that might embarrass Mr Ramsay or be useful in the ongoing dispute.”
He said personal items were taken, including photos “provided to the press which led to considerable intrusion into the privacy of the family”.
Ramsay and his father-in-law were once inseparable, with Hutcheson made chief executive of Ramsay’s business empire. For 12 years, the pair ran the business together, but in 2010 tensions over missing money and womanising led to Hutcheson being sacked.