How the son of a firefighter battled to become the King of Silicon Fen

MIKE Lynch was once described as Britain's Bill Gates and was feted in the worlds of technology, business, politics and sport.

- Robert Kellaway

A self-made man, 59, he became the "King of Silicon Fen" the Cambridge epicentre of England's tech industry.

He made a £500million fortune when he sold Autonomy, his digital analysis business, to Hewlett Packard for £7billion in 2011.

The deal turned sour when HP accused him of falsifying the company's profits through fake accounting procedures - but his response was that HP had run the business badly.

Mr Lynch was extradited to the US after a 12-year legal battle in May last year. But in June he was found not guilty on 15 counts by a jury in San Francisco. He said afterwards he feared he would die in a US jail and crusaded against the extradition procedure between the UK and US. The Irish-born multi-millionaire grew up the son of a firefighter and a nurse in Chelmsford, Essex.

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