Prince’s suicide friend linked to gangland thugs

The property tycoon acquaintance of Prince Charles who threw himself under a Tube train was forced to hand over his watch collection to underworld ‘enforcers’ just two hours before he died, it was claimed last night.

Paul Castle, 54, who often played polo with Charles, walked out of his London office on November 17 and died at Bond Street station.

His multi-million-pound empire, which included a Michelin-starred restaurant, had been badly hit by the recession and he faced the threat of bankruptcy.

Now friends have told The Mail on Sunday that he owed money to ‘significant figures’ backed by an organised crime gang.

‘Paul had a visit from some heavies at his office in Mayfair at 11 o’clock on the morning he died,’ said a friend and business colleague.

‘They took his wallet and his watches. Paul loved watches, and would spend tens of thousands of pounds on a single piece.

‘Before these people turned up, he had been behaving as normal. He’d gone for tea at the Grosvenor hotel, as he often did. On top of everything else, perhaps this visit was the final straw.’

The account was confirmed by two other sources. ‘There is a suggestion that some of the people he owed money to weren’t happy that he was living ostentatiously and conspicuously,’ said one source.

Mr Castle, who was due to marry for the fourth time, was said to have had long-standing heart problems which had deteriorated recently. He had also been diagnosed with tumours.

Stephen Brook, his friend and lawyer, said previously that Mr Castle’s finances were ‘perfectly manageable’.

But Mr Brook did not return calls from this newspaper last week.

Scotland Yard said it had not received a complaint about an incident, either from Mr Castle before he died or from any of his staff.

But a friend said: ‘Paul had been increasingly agitated about people putting the squeeze on him. He was getting desperate.’

Mr Castle, once photographed shaking hands with the Queen after a polo match, became Britain’s youngest sponsor of a polo team in the Nineties.

He spent hundreds of thousands of pounds bringing star players from Argentina and Australia to join the Metropolitan team, named after his first property company.

Mr Castle’s property portfolio included an apartment at St Moritz in Switzerland. He would fly there with friends, who included tycoons Sir Philip Green and Robert Tchenguiz, in his private plane.

He also owned homes in London, France and Ascot, where he had lived for two years with girlfriend Natalie Theo, a former fashion editor of the Daily Mail, whom he planned to marry.

But business associates said that he struck ‘disastrous deals’ just ahead of the property collapse and also lost heavily in an oil and gas exploration company.