Gordon Ramsay claims his wife’s father stole $2.3 million from their company to fund a secret second family, writes Jonathan Wynne-Jones

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, The Sunday Telegraph

He is notorious for the fiery rows that boil over in his restaurants’ kitchens, but now Gordon Ramsay has turned up the heat on a dispute much closer to home.

The celebrity chef is suing his wife’s family in an attempt to win millions of pounds in compensation after years of working together in his restaurant empire.

Ramsay is understood to have lodged a writ at the High Court, that includes a series of claims against not just his wife’s father, but also her mother, sister, brother, brother’s wife and her father’s alleged mistress.

Chris Hutcheson, the father of the chef’s wife Tana and former chief executive of Gordon Ramsay Holdings, is accused of withdrawing 1.42 million pounds ($2.3 million) from the company to fund a double life with a secret second “wife” and family, and paying $8,000 a month to a separate mistress. The chef also alleges that his father-in-law hacked into his personal and company files thousands of times, put his real wife and son on the company payroll, and wrote five-figure cheques to himself.

Hutcheson was fired from his role last October, turning a private war into a public feud with Ramsay hinting at his father-in-law’s double life, while he in turn called the chef an egotistical “monster” warped by the celebrity lifestyle.

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