Competition to win a Knightsbridge flat for £10 per ticket neglects to mention its former occupier, a convicted ‘gay sex plot’ royal blackmailer who died in 2016
Increasingly, with sellers unable to offload prime properties due to Theresa May’s inability to secure any kind of Brexit deal and the ongoing effects of former Chancellor George Osborne’s increases to stamp duty, those with luxury flats and houses are turning to raffling them.
An example of such comes in in the form of a ground and first floor maisonette on the corner of Walton Street and Beauchamp Place in London’s Knightsbridge. Extending to 1,063 square foot and including a large reception room, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, the aforementioned fully furnished property is ambitiously being touted as being worth £3.2 million in spite of having sold for just £1.4 million in 2007 and £575,000 in 2000.
Now marketed in a competition by a company named Your Laddr – run by a former Alexander McQueen merchandiser named Santa Agolli – for £10 a ticket, Flat 1 at 132 Walton Street, SW3 is being promoted without mention of one of its most recent occupants, a controversial and now deceased ‘royal blackmailer’ who’d sought £50,000 for a set of recordings from various national newspapers in 2007.
Tried under the name of Paul Aðalsteinsson (other aliases included Paul Adalsteinsson, Paul Stein and Charles Goldstein), Grimsby trawlerman’s son turned “playboy” Ian Strachan lived at 132 Walton Street after being released following serving a sentence of five years for a gay sex blackmail plot against an unnamed, married member of the royal family. He subsequently had his left leg amputated following a 30-foot fall from a balcony in Imperial Wharf, SW6 in 2013 and then spent 10 months in jail in Dubai in 2015 after crashing an Audi R8. He died aged just 40 of a drug overdose in South Kensington on Christmas Eve 2016.
The winner of Flat 132, Walton Street will have their stamp duty, legal fees and council tax for one year paid as part of the prize. In addition, they will be ‘given’ a 2017 Jeep Wrangler Black Hawk with 800 miles on the clock, a cash amount of upto £4,000 to cover insurance for one year and a cash payment to cover a Kensington and Chelsea parking permit for one year also. Hopefully they’ll have better luck than the tragic Mr Strachan; may he rest in peace.
To enter the competition, click here.
Flat 1, 132 Walton Street, Knightsbridge London, SW3 1RE – The Numbers
August 2018 – Prize draw remains open indicating that ticket sales must be rather slow.
December 2017 – Offered in a raffle for £10 per ticket with a minimum of 380,000 tickets needed to be sold. This would equate to a return of £3.8 million ($4.9 million, €4.2 million or درهم17.9 million) in ticket sales.
November 2007 – Sold for £1.436 million ($1.845 million, €1.581 million or درهم6.776 million).
October 2000 – Sold for £575,000 ($739,000, €633,000 or درهم2.713 million).
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