A businessman recalls the day he had to flee the Capital after men armed with baseball bats attacked his home

EDINBURGH Airport on a busy day in early November. Passengers armed with luggage dashing to check-in desks, others saying farewells to friends and relatives.

Gordon Black*, his fiancee and his son were there too, hearts pounding, frightened for their lives, frantically trying to decide where on Earth to go.

Would London be far enough away? Amsterdam, perhaps?

It didn't matter, as long as it was away from the men with the baseball bats who had smashed up their home, and far from the threat of more violence to come.

That Mr Black and his family were fleeing the country was certain. Less so was when – if at all – they might feel safe enough to return.

"It's actually harder to flee the country than it looks in the movies," sighs Mr Black, a smartly dressed Edinburgh businessman in his 50s, who never dreamed he'd end up the victim of a complex and violent "white collar" plot to siphon his money, ruin his business and tarnish his name.

"We flew to Stansted – the easiest place to get to," he recalls.

"I'd just signed over my share of the business I had and the property assets I held in it – against my will. I had to, I had no choice.

"Can you imagine what it's like to be followed around, to be threatened and have people in your house with baseball bats?

"We needed to get away."

It sounds bizarre: who would believe that members of Edinburgh's learned society – lawyers, bank staff and other professionals – might be embroiled in a tangled web of violence, illicit deals and muddy cover-ups?

At the heart of it all is a former business partner – a millionaire property developer with a network of legal contacts, bankers and other professionals, apparently willing to help him bend and even break rules.

The pair had worked together for several years until Mr Black discovered in 2003 that professional complaints had been upheld against his partner. Shocked, he attempted to split the company and retrieve his personal investments and assets.

With his associate dragging his heels, it was a slow process, and in April 2004 Mr Black's concerns grew when police arrested Donald Mackenzie, a one-time RBS business manager of the year, who had woven a 21 million web of false accounts and fraudulent loans.

Mackenzie's loans included 800,000 to pay for 20 of Mr Black's and his business partner's properties – and Mr Black was stunned to find several missing from the company's portfolio.

Mr Black's partner resigned from the business, only to launch two fictional financial claims against it, both aided by a business recovery firm with which he had personal links.

Annoyed by his former partner's actions, Mr Black was even more upset by the behaviour of the business recovery firm, which sent representatives to his home early one morning – an act he regards as designed to intimidate – and then refused to allow him to settle the amount to avoid legal action.

Stressful enough, but only the start. Far more chilling events were soon to unfold.

In autumn 2005, Mr Black and his partner were still groggy from a late-night flight from Paris, where he had just proposed.

They were just stirring at their home in the south of the city when someone began banging rapidly on their front door. The caller said he was a "friend of a friend" inquiring about a property. "My hackles were up, something wasn't right," Mr Black recalls.

He was right. Later that day Mr Black, his fiancee and his student son Ian were upstairs when the peace was shattered.

"There was this huge crashing noise," he recalls. "There was glass smashing, like a window.

"My fiancee started shouting about men with baseball bats. I looked down from the landing and saw two of them.

"There was this enormous guy in a balaclava with a bat looking up. I grabbed the first thing to hand – the laundry basket – and chucked it at him.

"I was worried for my fiancee – she'd had two heart attacks and this was terrifying."

The men fled when police arrived. One was later jailed, but would not reveal who had recruited him to carry out the attack.

Shocked by the violence, the family left for a secret address near Dalkeith. But within days Mr Black received a menacing phone call ordering him to sign his side of the property business to his former partner, followed later by an even more aggressive call.

"This guy knew where we were. He said, 'How are you liking it in the Dalkeith area?'

"He said he would follow my son to university, and if I didn't do what I was told, he'd get him there," says Mr Black.

"I decided to go to the lawyers and phone the police to tell them I was being extorted. I was being forced to sign over my business against my will."

Having called in the police to report the extortion, he insisted on two lawyers and two detectives being present at a police station when he signed his interests in the property company into his former partner's name.

The deed done, the trio fled for Edinburgh Airport.

"I signed those papers thinking one day things would be resolved," says Mr Black. "This was 15 years of my work. Everything I had was going down the drain."

Yet his hopes that events would soon be resolved were in vain. He returned to a secret address in Scotland to find himself again the target of a dubious legal action connected to his former partner.

His associate's family property firm had taken over the business – including those properties and assets that Mr Black was trying to reclaim.

And they launched a 140,000 action – using the same business recovery firm behind the earlier failed debt actions – claiming Mr Black had knowingly undersold two of his former company's properties.

"They knew my home address and my solicitors' address, yet the court petition bore an entirely fictitious address and was never served," says Mr Black, suspicious that it was a bid to push through the claim uncontested.

"Naturally, I want to know why they drew up this court paperwork with false addresses."

Yet, as Mr Black has found, raising complaints with professional organisations is no guarantee of gaining answers.

"I've written to the Insolvency Practitioners Association about the recovery firm and all I got back was an acknowledgement."

The Law Society has refused to reopen an earlier complaint on the grounds it was later withdrawn – despite Mr Black's claims he only withdrew it under duress.

"It seems that rogues have carte-blanche to do what they like."

Mr Black now lives at a secret address and is looking for a specialist legal recovery firm to take up his fight. He is separated from his one-time fiancee and estranged from his mother and brother, who refuse to believe he was not to "blame" for the attack at his home.

"They think, like a lot of people, there's no smoke without fire, but I did nothing wrong. I've lost everything.

"These people wear suits and a collar and tie, people trust them with their affairs, but in my opinion they are crooks, and the professional organisations supposed to watch over them are useless.

"I wouldn't want anyone to go through what I have. It's been sheer hell."

*Names changed for legal reasons