Propping up a 'princess'?

Sara[h] Al Amoudi: a supposed ‘Saudi princess’ who has a history with the British court faces two property investors who claim she duped them into handing her £14 million worth of properties in Central London

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: “Where there’s brass, there’s muck”. The court case brought against ‘Princess’ Sara[h] Al Amoudi, 30, by two property investors, as with the story of Adrian Burford, is indicative of just such.

On meeting Al Amoudi, Amanda Clutterbuck and Ian Paton, two property investors, claim that they transferred six properties in Belgravia and Knightsbridge, said to now be worth £14 million, into her name as they were “keen for her to invest in their business”. Though Clutterbuck and Paton now contest that she duped them and want ‘their’ properties back, Al Amoudi argues that she never participated in any joint ventures with the couple and that the properties are rightfully hers.

It is not the first time that the supposed daughter of Saudi Arabian Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi (who is allegedly worth $4.5 billion) has come to public attention. In 2008 many newspapers reported that a woman of the same name had arrived in Britain in fear for her life and seeking asylum. Subsequently, that particular woman’s father won substantial damages against an online news website named the Ethiopian Review.

The Steeple Times has been unable to confirm whether that Sara[h] Al Amoudi is indeed the same person but in a separate action in 2010, the one now in court with Clutterbuck and Paton currently was nicknamed “The Vamp in the Veil” during a case where her former lover, Patrick Ribbsaeter, went on trial for assaulting her chauffeur.

Ribbsaeter, 33, was ultimately cleared of the assault of Al Amoudi’s chauffeur. He was, however, subsequently convicted in an unrelated case in July 2012 of causing grievous bodily harm to another girlfriend, Wachirapom Sara-Pod, 36, after he discovered her having sex with another man during a swingers party organised by Emma Sayle’s Killing Kittens. How truly charming.

Equally, the “Saudi princess” has been to court with Clutterbuck on another occasion. In 2010, the Daily Mail reported that the property investor told the Central London County Court that after having met another associate, who died in 2009 of alcohol poisoning, named Elliot Nichol, Al Amoudi gained £5.5 million from her in unauthorised money transfers. At that time, Clutterbuck stated:

“The trauma of uncovering Miss Al-Amoudi’s actions and the court case has left me sick”.

“This woman got Elliot [Nichol] to vouch for her bona fides and managed to obtain money and acquire all these properties by saying she had millions in bank accounts in Dubai which she would transfer over imminently”.

“She later claimed she put £10 million back into the joint venture, but there’s no evidence or paper trail of it at all. She claims to be a Saudi princess with millions, but I see no evidence of it”.

In the same article, the paper reported that Al Amoudi also owned country houses in Billingshurst, West Sussex and Truro, Cornwall. They also stated that she was known to use a £50,000 diamond encrusted mobile telephone with a number that ended 666 and gave an ex-boyfriend a Ferrari as a gift. It was also alleged that Nichol, who Clutterbuck suggested first met Al Amoudi in 2002, went from being a teetotal individual to one who became obsessed with the occult and who even phoned her to announce: “I am drowning in Vuitton handbags and Cavalli, we’re thinking of floating them down the Thames”.

Either way, it is now Clutterbuck and Paton who claim that Al Amoudi is a fraud and for them, in court last Friday, their counsel Stuart Cakebread, began:

“The identity of Miss Al Amoudi is a key issue in this action”.

“Her claim to be a Saudi princess and the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi was a key factor which induced the claimants to trust her”.

Mr Cakebread continued:

“Miss Al Amoudi says she received very substantial amounts of money in cash, sometimes more than £100,000-a-week, which was delivered to the UK from the Middle East in a suitcase. She says that she entrusted this money to Mr Paton for safekeeping and also loaned large amounts of this money to him over several years”.

“It is her case that the transfer of the title to the properties at a substantial undervalue was undertaken in order to reimburse the sums loaned by Ms Al Amoudi. Consequently she denies the claimants are entitled to the relief sought as to the ownership of those properties and that they are now rightfully hers. She also avers that Mr Paton still owes her money and that he stole money from the funds she entrusted to him. She counter-claims accordingly”.

At the same hearing, Jonathan Seitler, Al Amoudi’s barrister, argued that the real reason Paton kept secret his dealings with her was because he had had an affair with the alleged princess.

Mr Paton responded: “That absolutely false, that’s absolute nonsense”.

Plainly this upset Al Amoudi as she was escorted from the High Court after becoming “tearful” by three minders (one of whom had been deployed to carry her handbag). As she left, in a full veil and burka, she climbed into a waiting Rolls-Royce Phantom complete with the plate A9 HRH.  She will return to give evidence herself in the coming days.

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