| The Honourable Sir Mark Thatcher Bt |
|
|---|---|
| Thatcher Baronet | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 26 June 2003 |
|
| Preceded by | Sir Denis Thatcher, 1st Bt. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 August 1953 (age 58) |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | Diane Burgdorf (m. 1987–2005) The Hon. Sarah, Lady Thatcher (m. 2008–present) |
| Relations | Sir Denis Thatcher Bt. (father, deceased) The Baroness Thatcher (mother) The Hon. Carol Thatcher (sister) Alfred Roberts (grandfather, deceased) |
| Children | Michael Thatcher Amanda Thatcher |
Sir Mark Thatcher, 2nd Baronet (born 15 August 1953) is the son of Sir Denis Thatcher and Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative British Prime Minister, and twin brother of Carol Thatcher. In addition to his prominence as the son of one of the world's best known politicians, Thatcher has attracted headlines for his early youthful playboy lifestyle, involvement in motorsports, business associations, and for the role he played in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea, for which role he was fined three million rand (approximately $500,000) and received a four-year suspended jail sentence.
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Thatcher married Diane Burgdorf, the conservative Lutheran daughter of the millionaire Texas car dealer Theodore C. Burgdorf, on 14 February 1987 in Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, London, England. They reportedly met at a party for D Magazine, a Dallas lifestyle publication, while Thatcher was living in Texas as a representative of the luxury automotive company Lotus Cars. The family moved to South Africa, possibly to avoid bad publicity because of allegations against Mark Thatcher of racketeering that resulted in a £4 million civil action in 1994.[1] They have a son (who is heir apparent to the baronetcy) and a daughter:
On 19 September 2005, the couple announced their intention to divorce. Burgdorf married American statistician and sports card millionaire James Beckett in 2008.[3]
In March 2008, Tim Walker revealed in the Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake diary that Thatcher had secretly married Sarah Jane, Lady Francis Russell. She is the ex-wife of Lord Francis Russell (a younger son of John Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford), the daughter of Terence J. Clemence and a sister of The Viscountess Rothermere.[4][5] During his marriage to Burgdorf, Thatcher had had an affair with Russell, about which Burgdorf had confronted her.[6]
In 1982, while competing in the Paris-Dakar rally, Thatcher, his French co-driver, Anne-Charlotte Verney, and their mechanic went missing in the Sahara Desert for six days. On 9 January 1982, the trio became separated from a convoy of vehicles after they stopped to make repairs to a faulty steering arm. They were declared missing on 12 January; after a large-scale search, a C-130 Hercules search plane from the Algerian military spotted the white Peugeot 504 some 50 km off course on 14 January. Thatcher, Verney and the mechanic were all unharmed.
Before competing he said:
About the Paris-Dakar of 1982 Mark Thatcher wrote:
Thatcher also competed, with little success but less notoriety, on the circuits in Sports 2000, Thundersports and eventually graduated to the European Touring Car Championship with semi-works BMWs.
Thatcher was later employed in the jewellery business. His business dealings at the time that his mother was the Prime Minister were the subject of much press attention.
In 1998 South African authorities investigated his firm for running loan shark operations. A company owned by Thatcher offered unofficial small loans to hundreds of police officers, military personnel and civil servants. Those who defaulted were pursued by debt collectors and charged 20% interest rates, according to the Star of Johannesburg.[9] According to The Daily Telegraph of 26 August 2004, "In 1998, he was at the centre of a scandal after he lent huge sums of money at exorbitant interest rates to more than 900 local police officers and civil servants in Cape Town. He admitted lending the cash but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. He is also thought to have profited from contracts to supply aviation fuel in various African countries."
Other widely reported Thatcher embarrassments include allegations of U.S. tax evasion (a criminal case was eventually dropped) and a racketeering case in Texas which was settled out of court. The Sunday Times, quoting "city sources", said he had amassed a personal fortune of £60m, the majority of which is in offshore accounts, attributed to shrewd investments and a series of "astute deals in Africa".[9]
On 25 August 2004, Thatcher was arrested at home in Constantia, Cape Town, South Africa. He was charged later that day with contravening two sections of South Africa's "Foreign Military Assistance Act", which bans South African residents from taking part in any foreign military activity. The charges related to "possible funding and logistical assistance in relation to [an] attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea" organized by Thatcher's friend, Simon Mann. He was released on bail of 2 million rand and spent a period of time under house arrest, but was bailed to London to live with his widowed mother while his wife and children moved to the family's home in Dallas, Texas.
On 24 November 2004, the Cape Town High Court upheld a subpoena from the South African Justice Ministry that required him to answer under oath questions from Equatorial Guinean authorities regarding the alleged coup attempt. He was due to face questioning on 25 November 2004, regarding offences under the South African Foreign Military Assistance Act; however, these proceedings were later postponed until 8 April 2005. Ultimately, following a process of plea bargaining, Thatcher pleaded guilty to negligence in investing in an aircraft "without taking proper investigations into what it would be used for". Thatcher admitted in court that he had paid the money, but said he was under the impression it was going to be invested in an air ambulance service to help the impoverished of Africa. This explanation was not believed by the judge and he was fined three million rand (approximately $500,000) and received a four-year suspended jail sentence.
On 3 April 2005, Thatcher, then living with his mother in Belgravia, London announced that his family home would be in Europe after he was refused a residence visa to live in the United States as a result of his guilty plea in the Equatorial Guinea affair. His children, he stated, will be educated in the United States.
Under the headline "Mark Thatcher — undesirable in Monaco?" French newspaper Le Figaro reported on 20 December 2005:
In Equatorial Guinea in June 2008, Simon Mann claimed during his trial testimony that Thatcher, now resident in Spain, "was not just an investor, he came completely on board and became a part of the management team" of the coup plot.[10]
Thatcher is entitled the usage of the pre-nominal style 'The Honourable' following the elevation of his mother, Margaret Thatcher, to the peerage as a baroness in 1992; he shares this courtesy with his twin sister, The Hon. Carol Thatcher. He inherited the Thatcher baronetcy on the death of his father, Sir Denis, in 2003. The baronetcy, created in 1991 for Sir Denis, was the first (and so far only) baronetcy created since 1964. It was not the first honour to be granted to a spouse of a British Prime Minister: the wives of both Benjamin Disraeli and Sir Winston Churchill were made peeresses in their own right, although the former excited controversy at the time.
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Denis Thatcher 1st Bt |
Baronet (of Scotney) 2003 – present |
Incumbent |
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