Ex-court appointed guard says Mike Lynch ‘became more like a family’

Rolo Igno also described “the memory of a beautiful soul” in Mr Lynch’s daughter Hannah, 18, after they died in the sinking of the luxury superyacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily early on Monday. Mr Lynch founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, and was cleared in June of carrying out a massive fraud relating to its 11 billion dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard, after a trial at a federal court in San Francisco, California.

Mr Igno said he had the “privilege” of spending “almost every waking moment” with Mr Lynch while he was in custody in San Francisco, describing the detail as unlike any other he had ever worked and one that was “life changing”. “As an executive protection agent, the number one rule is simple, don’t ever get close to the principal,” he said. “They aren’t your friends, they’re a client and the relationship is strictly professional.

But with Mike, that didn’t fly with him and for me that rule quickly dissolved.” He told a story about the first time he escorted Mr Lynch and his daughters, Hannah and Esme, to lunch. “I opened the door for them and told Mike, ‘If you need anything at all sir, I’ll be right at this table by the entrance’,” Mr Igno said.

“He chuckled and in his confident way, Mike replied, ‘No, no, no, you’ll be sitting with us’. “When I hesitated, not wanting to disrupt their family time, he insisted, saying, ‘Rolo, do you want me to tell my beautiful daughters tha.