Attention of the Vetting Standards & Overseas Corruption Unit
Serious Fraud Office
Elm House
10-16 Elm Street
LondonWC1X 0BJ
April 20, 2007
Sirs,
In the matter of the City of London Magistrates Court
and private criminal prosecution of Christopher Andrew Jones.
I write following a brief hearing at the City of London Magistrates Court on March 15th 2007 at which the Chairman of the Bench clearly indicated considerable concern that the matters I seek to raise have been neither reported to, nor dealt with by, the Police before I sought to commence private criminal proceedings.
On February 7th 2007, I laid four informations at the City of London Magistrates Court as “specimen” charges against Christopher Andrew Jones (“JONES”). Copies are enclosed, together with the “bundle” that I placed before the Magistrates in open court on March 15th, and a copy of Mr. Jones responses by his barrister.
JONES has at all times been aware of my intended prosecution, and I have always afforded him the opportunity to address the Magistrates concerning the exercise of their discretion to not issue Summons in relation to those Informations. JONES has accordingly retained solicitors and a barrister to defend him, and his barrister was present in Court on March 15th. Regrettably the court became severely backlogged, and so the matter was adjourned until 10.00 Wednesday May 23rd 2007 with an allocation of 3 hours of Court time.
Having been away for a couple of weeks and considered the matter fully, it seems to me to be an appropriate and proper time to write and ask if you would let both myself and the Clerk to the Magistrates know – before May 23rd - whether you wish to consider investigating the matter (and/or related serious offences by JONES and others – including Fraud, Theft, False Accounting, Knowingly Issuing a False Prospectus etc) and any action you would request of the Magistrates.
It is my honestly held belief that the matters that have been hidden for so many years are so serious and of such public concern, that prosecution of all offences should be by “The State” in the public interest.
You will note from the papers that the offences include obtaining securities by uttering a forged document by Shukri GHALAYINI, now believed to be living in Lebanon, and this was referred to NCIS as soon as he admitted to it in front of his then London solicitor. The solicitors who failed to spot the most basic forgery that any trainee should have identified instantly seen are being pursued for multi-million civil damages.
However given the considerable time that has elapsed and the fact that Jones has failed to get either the Financial Services Authority or the Police to act on his endless complaints about earlier fraud, it seems to me that the best way to get this matter dealt with was to commence the proceedings myself, and be prepared to litigate as a private prosecutor all the way through should the CPS decide not to take over the case when it is automatically referred to them when/if summons are issued against JONES.
JONES has already reported many matters to the Thames Valley Police and the Financial Services Authority but all have declined to initiate formal investigations; I hasten to add that JONES deliberately withheld from those to whom he was complaining the matter of his own clear-cut offences that are at the very epicentre of, and pivotal to, so many of the matters about which he complains. The Police (and many others including the FSA and me) have told JONES that most of the matters fall to be investigated by the liquidator of Just Group (“JUST”), and that in relation to the pre-Administration matters of Insider Trading and creating a false market in the Listed Shares at the time that JUST was run by Wilf SHORROCKS as Chief Executive, there will be no investigation. JONES did not seek Judicial review of that decision so the matters appear to now be statute barred.
In addition one of JONES cohorts, Ali ONDER – a convicted drugster in Scotland but now living in Turkey – has, since being aware of the intended criminal prosecution of JONES, carried on a campaign of outrageous Criminal Libel (by far the worst case ever seen) by way of internet abuse which has been reported to the Devon Constabulary, and which is now the subject of an application by me to the Attorney General for permission to commence Criminal Libel against the publishers – ADVFN plc. - and ONDER.
You should be aware that JUST is one of the largest companies in the UK when ranked by the number of shareholders. Capita have told me that outside the privatisations and demutualisations, JUST ranks in the top 20 of UK companies.
Considered in isolation, the Informations that I have laid against JONES would not, in and of themselves, meet the £5,000,000 size criteria for your investigations, but they are merely a “starter” in the matter of a continuous pattern of fraud, deception and worse, at the heart of which is a knowingly false, inadequate and deceptive shareholder circular that improperly raised more than £5,000,000, which “prospectus” - to use the Companies Act definition - was devised and implemented by JONES and two senior Insolvency Practitioners partners of KPMG – one of whom is Mick McLOUGHLIN, the Global Head of Restructuring for the entire KPMG worldwide operation – so you will understand the seriousness of the allegations; which have now extended to accusations that McLOUGHLIN and his partner Allan GRAHAM are perverting the cause of justice in an extant matter before the High Court.
Frankly McLOUGHLIN and GRAHAM have shown in the JUST case that they have acted so negligently and fraudulently that they constitute a menace to the Insolvency Profession and should be barred from office. Formal complaints will shortly be lodged with the Institute of Chartered Accountants seeking appropriate disciplinary action, but this is of course in addition to criminal liability for the knowingly false, inadequate and misleading “prospectus” they caused to be issued.
You will note that yet another high profile individual, Luke JOHNSON – currently Chairman of Channel 4 Television - is at the heart of the most egregious false accounting that was intended to, and did, deceive the more than 50,000 shareholders of JUST. JOHNSON and his fellow MediaKey plc directors are already on notice from me of the intention to prosecute for civil recovery of damages, but their conduct was so clearly criminal in both intent and outcome, that I believe it should fall to be investigated by the Police, prosecuted by the CPS and JOHNSON and his fellow directors appropriately punished.
A lot of the background to this squalid and sordid affair is set out in my bundle before the City of London Magistrates, particularly my May 8th 2006 letter to JONES at Tab 3.
It was clear at the time, and even more clear now, that JUST was driven into Insolvency as a result of major fraud and misfeasance by the Directors of the company, and by the Directors of another AIM listed company – MediaKey plc (“MEDIAKEY”) - that was acquired by JUST in early 2001 based on knowingly false and misleading balance sheets, cash flow and working capital projections made by the directors of MEDIAKEY, including JOHNSON.
In late 2001 it rapidly became clear to the Group of 7 persons, of which JONES was the prime mover, that many hundreds of shareholders were furious at the loss of their investment and wanted to seek recompense. Accordingly that Group evolved into an unincorporated association (“Just Action Group (“JAG”)) of many thousands of investors, many of whom were persuaded by Jones and others of the merits of putting up money for a fund to obtain legal advice to see if recompense could be obtained against the Directors who had caused the collapse of their company.
At the same time it became apparent that an opportunity had arisen to bid for one company, JUST Publishing (“JP”), that was being sold off by the Administrators as a matter of urgency.
Accordingly it became necessary to open bank accounts into which to deposit the scores of cheques that were arriving daily.
And that is where it all went started going wrong.
I am told that the joint signatories to the accounts were intended to be the Chairman and Treasurer of JAG, Rene MOREL and Bryan Downs (“BDJ”) respectively. MOREL, a computer expert based in the City of London but now living overseas, was never available to sign the Bank Mandates and so BDJ's father, Brian Downs (“BDS”) – the senior partner and prime mover in a firm of Accountants in Bromley for which his son worked - agreed to become Chairman of JAG and joint signatory on the Mandate. I believe that BDS was not a shareholders in JUST, but am informed that he was seeking appointment of his affiliated firm as auditor to JUST.
The drafting of the Rules of JAG shows they were amended in order to accommodate an “office” of Honorary Treasurer to permit two cheque signatories, a side effect of which was to remove the position of Vice Chairman from being an office holder, which rather complicates JONES' present position.
Three accounts were opened at HSBC.
All funds were either remitted directly to HSBC, or were sent c/o BDS accountancy firm, and depending upon the purpose for which they had been sent, were represented as being held on trust for the purposes of JAG, or in a separate account to be returned in full if the acquisition of JP did not occur.
When they were unsuccessful in the acquisition of JP, those who had sent money were asked to let it be retained whilst other ideas were explored, but were assured it was all safe in a separate account when JONES, BDJ and BDS knew that was not the case.
JONES and others then set off on what was destined to become the “rescue” of JUST by an unprecedented Creditors Voluntary Arrangement. With hindsight a most foolhardy venture, not least for people without any real experience in the “media” business who chose to rely on a former Director of Just Group, Graham CALDERBANK – a Chartered Accountant – who had been at the very centre of, and knew all about, the MEDIAKEY fraud, and was removed from office for his part in the gross negligence displayed at that time – and knew all about the solicitors report stating that there was a minimal chance of recovering anything from ANDERSENS whose due diligence had been negligent and who were duped by JOHNSON and his fellow MEDIAKEY directors.
Bank statements show that within a matter of days funds were being transferred with reckless abandon and little or no explanation or accounting from the JP account to the JAG account with blatant disregard for the Trust upon which they were held. Such offences clearly are in breach of every rule of the body that “registers” the Accountants, as well as being clear and unequivocal offences under the Theft Act. It is clear that at some stage, JONES, BDS and BDJ knew that there was not enough money in the JAG funds but still they kept on incurring expense without the means to pay for them without further plundering of the JP Trust monies. It is clear that others, including ONDER, knew there were money problems and that expenses could not be paid from the JAG account. The problem is exacerbated because for some bizarre and unexplained reason, McLOUGHLIN didn't even pay the deposit of the services of the proposed Supervisors to his proposed CVA and the monies had to be plundered from the JP Trust monies.
Whilst many professionals owed a clear duty of care to the shareholders of JUST, which the evidence shows they clearly failed to properly carry out, as is so often in life, it is the cover-up that exposes the truth and causes the eventual investigation and bringing to justice.
I look forward to hearing from you once you have had the chance to read and review the matters. I will of course be happy to attend your offices to provide further explanations etc.
Yours faithfully
Mark G. Hardy
cc (without enclosures):
Clerk to the City of London Magistrates
Christopher Andrew Jones
Mick McLoughlin: KPMG
Graham Calderbank
Brian Downs
Luke Johnson
Wilf Shorrocks
John Twizell, Liquidator Just Group PLC (renamed Newscreen Media Group)
