EXCLUSIVE: West Ham co-chairman David Gold left NO will for his £130M fortune – meaning estate will go to his Ann Summers CEO daughter Vanessa

• Read more:  Jacqueline Gold’s sister and Ann Summers successor pays tribute

West Ham co-chairman David Gold failed to write a will for his £130m fortune before he died from a short illness in January aged 86, MailOnline can reveal. 

Court documents show the entrepreneur, who owed much of his wealth to soft porn and lingerie, died ‘intestate’, meaning no ‘valid will’ was created before his passing.

According to a High Court document, David’s daughter Vanessa Julia Young has been named administrator of his estate, which has a ‘net value of £125m.’ 

It follows a tragic year for the family after Vanessa’s sister Jacqueline died from breast cancer aged 62 last month, just weeks after their father passed. 

The businessman was not married at the time of his death but had been engaged to long-time partner Lesley for 15 years. 

West Ham co-chairman David Gold failed to write a will for his £130m fortune before he died from a short illness in January aged 86, MailOnline can reveal (Pictured: Gold at his mansion in the Surrey Hills on September 6, 2001)

Gold with his daughters Jacqueline (right) and Vanessa at the National Reality TV Awards in London

Gold dressed up at Ascot Racecourse, Berkshire alongside his fiancée Lesley Manning in 2008

How David Gold and his daughter Jacqueline turned Ann Summers into a national brand 

David Gold with his daughter Jacqueline in 2015

When David Gold bought Ann Summers with his brother Ralph in 1972, it had four stores.

The London-based company served as a standard sex shop under the ownership of its founder, Michael Caborn-Waterfield.

But the Golds had big plans for the firm, and set about turning it into a lingerie boutique with a recognisable high street presence. 

In 1981 David’s daughter Jacqueline was brought into the company.

She quickly set about making her mark, introducing the ‘Party Plan’ concept.

This would see ‘parties’ held at the homes of customers, where women would be given presentations on sex toys and lingerie, as well as play party games.

These proved extremely popular and a good way of getting around laws that prevented sex toys being put on public display. 

Ann Summers now has 80 high street stores in Britain and Ireland, and in the years since has become synonymous with the sale of lingerie and adult toys. 

It is now run by Jacqueline’s sister Vanessa, following the former’s death from breast cancer in March.  

While David’s great passion in life had been football – and he had been close to becoming a professional despite suffering badly from TB as a child – his route out of the East End slums proved to be top shelf magazines, sex shops and lingerie.

David bought Ann Summers when it had just four stores before handing it to his daughter Jacqueline to run in 1981.  The retailer, which is now run by Vanessa, has since boomed to 80 branches with annual sales worth £113.8m. 

His wealth rivalled the Queen’s in the 1970s, after setting aside his rivalry with fellow porn baron David Sullivan to become business partners, a relationship that would lead both men into the world of football.

Following his death, Baroness Karren Brady, who worked with David at Birmingham City and again at West Ham, called him a ‘great man, a great friend for over 30 years and a complete gentleman’.

David Gold and his younger brother Ralph, two years his junior, spoke fondly about their struggle to escape the appalling poverty and anti-Semitism into which they were born in the East End of London in the Thirties.

David grew up across the road from West Ham’s Boleyn ground, and as a talented footballer himself, he had hoped that he would get to be a star there. 

Stepney-born David played for West Ham’s boys team between the ages of 13 and 16. He would later have to settle for buying the club, but was criticised by the fan base after selling up Upton Park and moving to the London Stadium. 

Fans accused him of making huge sums from the deal – but the Hammers were also given an extraordinarily good deal to move to the London 2012 Olympic Stadium.  

And while West Ham never won a trophy under his stewardship, he did own the original FA Cup, bought for just under £500,000.

His market trader father, Godfrey, was in and out of prison for theft, receiving stolen goods and driving a getaway car. 

He also had brushes with both the Krays and the Richardsons, the two gangster families who dominated east and south-east London in the 1950s and 1960s.

Describing what first attracted him to supporting the club as a boy, David told the Independent: ‘I’m seven or eight, my father’s in prison, my mother’s a skivvy, I’m living in abject poverty, so this was a form of escapism.’ 

David and Ralph’s mother, Rose, a waitress, sold buttons and bric a brac from a stall in front of the house. Mr Gold would describe the trauma of seeing his mother spitting blood in bed as she had all her teeth pulled out aged just 30.

Mr Gold and his fiancee Lesley Manning at his home in Caterham. David’s daughter Jacqueline was boss of Ann Summers before she tragically died of breast cancer last month 

David Gold with Karren Brady, who is the current vice chairman of West Ham United 

Stepney-born Gold played for West Ham’s boys team between the ages of 13 and 16. He would later have to settle for buying the club, but was criticised by the fan base after selling up Upton Park and moving to the London Stadium

When Mrs Gold added a few pinup magazines to the table, the boys spotted an opportunity. 

They set up their own stall in the Sixties, selling sci-fi books and magazines near Charing Cross Station and discovered what customers really wanted was the soft porn magazines of the day.

David recalled: ‘Customers came in asking for Spick And Span and Health And Efficiency. It wasn’t my fault that was what they wanted. If they had bought thousands of sci-fi books I would probably be a sci-fi publisher now.’

The Gold soft porn empire flourished and the brothers bought their own shops in Soho, making their first big money in 1967 from the sale of two of the stores – bought for £20,000 each – for £3million.

In 1972 the brothers bought Ann Summers and their four stores, turning it into a huge business now run by David’s daughter Vanessa. In December 2007 David bought out Ralph.

Gold shakes hands with Russell Brand, one of the club’s best known fans 

The co-chairman signing programmes for fans at the Mark Noble Testimonial Match in 2015

Gold’s great passion in life had been football – and he had been close to becoming a professional despite suffering badly from TB as a child

David Gold died in January surrounded by his family following a short illness at the age of 86

The ‘bad day at the office’ that drove David Gold to become a millionaire 

In the 1970s David Gold was seemingly going from strength to strength, despite he best efforts of the authorities to prosecute him for his porn publications.

But things changed when the businessman found his wife of 20 years, Beryl, cheating on him with his best friend in his swimming pool.

The very same day, he found out his father was ‘stealing my shares’ from his company.

Rather than letting the ‘bad day at the office’ get him down, Gold vowed to get revenge on them by becoming an even bigger success.

And he went on to do that, growing his fortune to £500million and dipping his toes into multiple industries including publishing, air travel and football

The Gold brothers were a formidable partnership, with Ralph, a former British Army boxing champion, the chief negotiator and David in charge of strategy and organisation. 

Both, they later admitted, were desperate never to be poor again.

Before long, they had seven outlets and with demand for ‘glamour titles’ growing in the newly permissive age, the brothers decided to cut out the middle man and set up Gold Star Publications to publish their own magazines.

Such was the demand, GSP were soon supplying most stores in the UK and attracting the attention of Parliament and the police.

The Golds were prosecuted three times in 1972 for publishing obscene material. They claim they were defenders of liberty and employed the best barristers of the day to fight for the freedom to publish whatever they wanted.

In the event, they emerged victorious, but they could not escape the label of porn barons and the suspicion they were irredeemably sleazy.

After their brush with the law the brothers joined forces with their rival, David Sullivan. 

‘We were competing so ferociously that we were stifling each other’s profitability,’  Gold said, and Sullivan would become his co-owner of West Ham.

‘We’ve never had a cross word. We’re both compromisers, and we both believe in the value of our relationship, therefore we don’t want to damage it’, he added..’

Gold’s Aunt Joan and mother Rosie (right) in their garden

Stepney-born Gold played for West Ham’s boys team between the ages of 13 and 16

He beat TB aged eight (pictured) and went on to have a long and successful life

David and Ralph Gold bought Ann Summers and its stores in 1972 (Marble Arch pictured)

Around that time Gold caught his wife of approaching 20 years, Beryl, cheating on him with his best friend in his swimming pool. It was the same day he caught his own father stealing his shares.

He would tell that story often, calling it the day that changed his life, because it drove him to make his fortune. 

He would make £500million from property, retail, newspaper publishing, football and air travel – and would also find love with his fiancée Lesley.

The Gold soft porn stable, which was sold in 2006 in a management buy-out, included such titles as Raider, Teenage Hardcore, Hardcore Housewives and Derriere.

Mr Gold was unabashed. He claimed it is men who are degraded by pornography, not women, and added: ‘I’ve never published a product I am ashamed of – never, ever, ever.’  

David Gold walking to court after being sued for obscenity in 1972

‘A complete gentleman’: Long-term colleague Karren Brady leads football’s tributes to West Ham co-chairman David Gold as Hammers vice-chair labels him ‘a great man and a great friend’ 

In an interview at the time of the sale, he proclaimed: ‘I have never published or sold anything I think is wrong. I couldn’t live with myself if I was running a company selling cigarettes, I couldn’t live with myself if I was involved with drugs. I can’t bear the thought of causing pain and anguish to other people.’

The fact is that the adult magazine market collapsed thanks to the advent of internet porn.

The Golds, like many others, including their business partner David Sullivan, decided to sell their titles and move on to the more lucrative opportunities. 

The Gold brothers lurked just outside the top 100 of the Sunday Times Rich List  for a year – at one time having been one place above the Queen – and were worth a staggering £525million.

David lived in a £10million-plus mansion in 55 acres of Surrey countryside. 

He designed his own 18-hole golf course and has tennis courts and a swimming pool he rarely uses. 

The grounds also have a helipad for his Gazelle helicopter and a runway for his private 4-seater Cessna 182, both of which he pilots himself.

His Bentley bears the personalised number plate D GOLD and his cufflinks spell DG in diamonds.

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