MISSING British billionaire tycoon Mike Lynch’s ex colleague and co-defendant in his US fraud trial has died in hospital after being hit my a car, it is claimed.
Stephen Chamberlain was fatally struck by the vehicle on Saturday, just hours before Lynch, 59, disappeared after a yacht he was sailing on sunk today.
The Bayesian luxury vessel was caught in a freak whirlwind off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday.
Six people are still missing, including the entrepreneur and his daughter Hannah, 18.
The boat sank at about 5am local time after its mast snapped, according to witnesses.
Chamberlain, software firm Autonomy’s former vice president of finance alongside chief executive Lynch, was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and was placed on life support.
They had both been embroiled in a 13-year fraud case relating to the company, which came to an end earlier this year.
Chamberlain’s lawyer Gary Lincenberg told MailOnline: “Our dear client and friend Steve Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running.
“He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him.
“Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family.”
Lynch’s family, lawyers, and employees were on board the doomed yacht when it sank.
They were celebrating the businessman’s recent triumph over the fraud charges that left him facing 25 years in a US prison, The Telegraph reported.
The tech tycoon made his riches by selling his software company to US computing giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for $11bn (£8.6bn).
But an intense legal battle following the high-profile acquisition loomed over Lynch for more than a decade, leading to him being flown to the US in chains last year.
Chamberlain left Autonomy in 2012 before becoming chief operating officer for cybersecurity firm Darktrace.
He also volunteered as a finance director for Cambridge United, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Cops have appealed for witnesses after a crash between a pedestrian and a car in Newmarket Road in Stretham, Cambridgeshire, saying a man in his 50s had been taken to hospital with serious injuries.
A police spokesperson said today there was no update on the pedestrian’s condition.
Meanwhile, searchers are continuing to look for survivors of the yacht disaster, with a body found understood to be that of vessel chef Ricardo Thomas, according to the BBC.
By Georgie English
Entrepreneur Mike Lynch is still believed to be missing hours after a £14m luxury yacht capsized in a tornado off the coast of Sicily.
The tech tycoon, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates”, was one of the 22 people sailing onboard the £166,000 a week vessel, the Telegraph reported this afternoon.
Lynch, 59, sold Autonomy Corporation – a tech company for $11b to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He has also been involved in Invoke Capital and cybersecurity company Darktrace.
He was awarded an OBE for his services to enterprise in 2006.
Born in Ilford, Lynch had a firefighter father from County Cork and a nurse mother from County Tipperary.
Away from work, Mike is married to wife Angela Bacares and the pair have two children together.
In 2023, the Sunday Times rich list set the couple’s value at £852m.
Just weeks ago, Lynch was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in San Francisco after a 12-year legal battle over the $11bn sale of his firm, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He was extradited to the US on fraud charges back in 2023 with a judge setting his bail at £79m.
US Marshsals took Lynch into custody at Heathrow, putting him in chains and bundling him on board a United Airlines flight.
However, he had a few things in his favour.
The nature of the case led to a boring and turgid trial, including painstaking parades of emails, reports and spreadsheets filled with jargon, leaving jurors glassy-eyed.
One was even dismissed because he repeatedly fell asleep.
Lynch argued that any questionable activity was entirely immaterial in the context of a thriving business bringing in hundreds of millions a year.
While his lawyers claimed the books were approved by outside accountants and that, by British standards, the deals in question were appropriately accounted for.
Lynch was used as the final witness and rather than going “right for the jugular”, as his head lawyer Brian Heberlig said, the prosecutors simply “reviewed a chronology of documents, with no probing questions”. The jury agreed.
