UK Edition
Property developer Scot Young's final phone call in which he offered wife £30m to be broadcast for first time
The final phone call made by tycoon Scot Young to his ex-wife a month before he was found impaled on railings after falling from a fourth floor London flat is to be broadcast for the first time.
The 52-year-old property developer, who had been locked in a multi-million pound divorce battle with Michelle Young, offered her £30 million before angrily warning that she would end up with “sweet f--- all” when she refused to accept the deal.
The pair had been engaged in a bitter, eight year divorce battle since their marriage ended in 2006, costing Ms Young around £17 million.
A judge awarded her a £26 million settlement but Mr Young never paid her a penny, prompting her to liken the judgement to “an empty paper bag".
He declared bankruptcy, even spending time in jail for refusing to disclose his finances to the courts. But five weeks after that final phone call, he was dead.
Ms Young and his two daughters are convinced that he was murdered.
Friends of the Dundee-born entrepreneur, who was the fifth member of a close circle of friends to die in similar circumstances, said they feared he may have been killed by the Russian or Turkish mafia after getting into debt, citing the strange deaths of four associates, including Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanged in 2013.
The coroner ruled there was insufficient evidence to conclude that it had been suicide.
Ms Young has now spent nearly 12 years trying to uncover what she claims are his missing millions, having once suggested he was “worth a few billion at least”.
She told the Telegraph one Coutts account contained £318million.
During the BBC2 documentary, to be broadcast on Wednesday, she produced a document found on her daughter’s computer called Project Marriage Walk, which contained a detailed list of properties he was said to own worth around £400 million.
In their final conversation, before double checking that his former wife was alone, Mr Young admitted that he had “f----- up” and that she had been a “good wife” who had run him baths, made him tea and was always there for him.
He said: “The judge has awarded you £20million. If I gave you £20million tomorrow, would you be happy?”
When she asked whether the money would come from, he said he would “get cracking on a couple of ventures” before rounding it up to £25 million “because it’s a nice round number” and later, to £30 million.
“Do you want a f------ deal or do you not want to do a deal?” he asked, audibly frustrated.
“If you get £30 million plus 50 per cent of any asset you find, how can you ask for any more than that?”
She told him she had evidence that he had hidden billions and branded him “disgraceful” warning that the other option was to press criminal charges and go to HMRC
“OK you are going to end up with sweet f---- all,” he said. “On that basis, it’s a waste of time.
“I’ve tried to be nice, I’ve signed up to £30 million to get rid of this so you think about it and never threaten me again.”
Dai Davies, former head of the royal protection squad, who has been working for Ms Young, said they had found credible evidence of Mr Young living a lifestyle that was “not of a pauper,” secretly filming him with large wads of £50 notes.
L Burke Files, an international asset recovery specialist working with Ms Young and based in the US, said: "Scot was meticulous in all his business dealings.
“He was very clever. At no time during the divorce or up to his death was there ever any evidence that he had a bank account with his name on it.
“He, through nominees, lawyers and offshore agents controlled a vast amount of cash, property, and securities in private and some public companies.
"Where did all the money go? We might never know.
"But I doubt he lost it.”