Tech tycoon Mike Lynch showed huge resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, says one of his close friends in Suffolk.

The death of the entrepreneur after the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily was "just tragic" and "a great loss to the country", said businessman and ex-banker Henry Strutt - who like Dr Lynch is a deputy lieutenant of Suffolk.

Mr Strutt was so upset after hearing of the disaster he spent two or three days feeling almost physically sick, he said. "It's just horrific and the idea that for Angela (his wife) that she has lost a husband and a daughter."

Mr Strutt - who has a farm at Stutton on the Shotley peninsula - said he first met Dr Lynch about 20 years ago at a charity auction in Suffolk and they struck up a friendship.

Dr Lynch successfully bid for one of the lots at the charity auction - a few days in a house in Provence which belonged to Mr Strutt. He went and stayed there and the two men and their wives became very close after that, he explained.

"I was a good friend," he said. "He was probably the cleverest man I ever met but he wore his intellect very lightly. He had this amazing knack of being able to explain very complicated things in ways that people could understand."

Both were deputy lieutenants of Suffolk at the same time. Dr Lynch - who had a farm near Wickham Market - was appointed in 2012 and he retained the position until his death this week.

"He was very good company, very self-effacing - not at all aggressive but very good fun, very generous as a host, very thoughtful about other people, very thoughtful about everything really - current affairs, politics."

He was a "great family man" and "certainly did a lot in Suffolk", he said. "Although he spent a lot of time in other places Suffolk he felt that was his home."

Like other friends of Dr Lynch in the county, Mr Strutt believed strongly that the fraud case brought against him following the sale of Autonomy - the Cambridge software company he founded - was baseless from the start.

Dr Lynch was extradited to the US and faced 13 months under house arrest before the jury trial which cleared him of all charges in June this year.

"The fact he was extradited was a huge failure of the British justice system. He should never have been extradited. He committed no offence," he said.  "He had 12 years of this stuff hanging over him."

During his house arrest in San Francisco while awaiting trial in the criminal case brought against him, they kept in contact via video link, he said. "What staggered me was the resilience, the lack of bitterness," said Mr Strutt. "I just have huge admiration for him."

His friend was focused on clearing himself at trial but still continued to create and support new businesses, he said. "I would be like a rabbit in the headlights," he said. "He was staggering."

"He's been a marvellous force. He has created wonderful businesses and he's just the entrepreneur that Britain needs. It's a great indictment of the system."

Dr Lynch - one of a cohort at the cutting edge of what became known as artificial intelligence - would be sorely missed, he added. 

"He was just a great guy and did a lot of good for a lot of people and also he was extremely brave during that trial."

He spoke of his admiration for him in choosing to take the stand when on trial in San Francisco and not accepting a plea bargain - the safer option. Testifying on his own behalf was the clincher which convinced the jury of his innocence, he believed.

"Actually that was the turning point of the trial, and he managed to convince the jury and also the judge that he was innocent," he said.

"Not for a moment" did he think the charges against him were true, he added. "I just knew from knowing the man he could not have done what he was accused of."

Mr Strutt has spent time on the Bayesian - but Dr Lynch wasn't there at the time because he wasn't allowed to travel due to the court case which came to dominate the last years of his life. The boat as Mr Strutt remembered it was "completely stable and safe".

"I have been on that boat and I have been in that area exactly where they have been," he said. "I have no idea how it happened but pretty clearly it should not have happened."

Mike Lynch (Image: Andy Abbott) Henry Strutt (Image: Henry Strutt)