Westway Development Trust: (4/6) "London property developer in nightclub swindle"

This research document will make little sense if you haven't read Brian Deer's Notting Hell from The Sunday Times of June 17 2001. In July 2002 the trust renamed itself Westway Development Trust. A Westway Development Trust index of materials is also available

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(G) THE TRUST KNEW WHAT IT WAS DOING

The trust has extensive expertise, both among its professional staff and among its trustees. The staff is headed by a director, Roger Matland, salaried at more than £60,000 a year, a deputy director, an associate director, property, and a substantial finance function. The volume of material surrounding this issue alone demonstrates that we are not talking about amateurs struggling in a complex environment.

The trust's chair since 1993 is Gerald Gordon, a circuit judge sitting at the Central Criminal Court. His entry in Who's Who [S19] indicates him to have been a Conservative member of the Kensington & Chelsea Council during 19 years, between 1971 and 1990. He was deputy leader of the council between 1982 and 1988. In 1988 he was chair of town planning. He was Mayor in 1989-90. In addition to his seven years as the trust's chair, he was previously a trustee and finance committee chairman between 1980 and 1983.

The chair of the trust's property and planning committee for the past 16 years is Martin Owen, apparently an insurance broker, residing in Chelsea. He is a former Conservative councillor and has been a trustee since 1982 - apparently the longest serving member of the management committee. Companies House documents [20] indicate that Mr Owen was, among other things, a co-director of Blackwall Green Ltd (now absorbed into a plc) and Levergate Ltd (a £100-capitalized company, now dissolved, with 3 directors) with, among others, a Mr John Martin Southern. Blackwall Green helped establish or finance Saladin Security, a controversial organisation which supplies ex-SAS soldiers overseas, described in the press as "mercenaries". Mr Southern was a director of Saladin. In a telephone conversation with Brian Deer, terminated when Mr Owen hung up, he said that he had nothing to do with Saladin. Mr Owen is party to the Subterania lease and was a member of the 3-man group (with Judge Gordon and Mr Matland) which led to the Ion Bar also being leased to Vince Power. Nevertheless, despite assigning the two leases to Mr Power, he told Deer that he had never met him. The charity's solicitors have protested to The Sunday Times about Deer raising Mr Owen's private business interests, which it says are not relevant.

Seven of the trust's 15-member management committee are appointed by the borough's Conservative group, which controls the council from South Kensington, Chelsea and Knightsbridge. Members of the management committee have included mayors, committee chairs, a parliamentary candidate and other prominent Conservatives. The chair is effectively appointed in a similar manner. Over the years, most of the seven have been Conservative councillors, amply able to bring their knowledge to bear on these matters, if called upon. Other members of the committee are largely drawn from what might be called "client charities" - groups which are either subsidised tenants of the trust, or who receive small, but doubtless eagerly-received, grants from the trust.

Business rates are an important issue to the trust, not something easily overlooked. In its Tenant Directory [S21], alongside the local police station and London Electricity, it gives, on the last page, only two telephone numbers for the local authority:

General 020 7937 5464

Business rates 020 7603 7751

The lease on Subterania was drawn up by solicitors who hold themselves out to be specialists in charity law and who have been retained as the trust's advisors ever since [S22]. The senior partner, Mr James Sinclair Taylor, recently featured on Radio 4 as an authority on charity issues. His firm told Brian Deer that three of its solicitors work on trust business. There can be no question that, over the 11 years, the trust had full access to professional advice, as a substantial volume of correspondence between Sinclair Taylor and The Sunday Times confirms.

Demeanour after the fact is not conclusive, but twelve years after the lease was drawn up, Judge Gordon - who denied detailed knowledge of the rates issue as having been put in place before he took the chair in 1993, and said that Subterania's rates had never been raised at the management committee since then - was keen in the interview with Brian Deer to maintain that this lease was in fact nothing of the sort, but a "management agreement". Shown an old annual report designating income from Bay 63 as "rent" Gordon strenuously denied that the relationship was landlord and tenant, which it plainly is and always has been. Although he undertook to have this document produced for Deer (and Matland indeed handed it over), he maintained his position at the interview even in the face of the suggestion that surely a management agreement implies hiring a third party to do something for payment, rather than the situation in this case where the third party paid rent.

In a letter to Brian Deer, dated 30th October 2000 [S23], Judge Gordon indicated that he understood the nature of the complaints over Subterania. He wrote:

"I have now had an opportunity (conspicuously absent before and during your interrogation) to consider your allegations that the Trust made unjust and dishonest claims for rate and Music and Dancing license rebates and that I, as Chair, should have stopped it."

His third itemised observation is:

"I do not accept your assertion that as Chair, I have to scrutinise everything that staff do personally."

As it happens, this assertion was not made in these terms. However, the confidential internal memo referred to above [S8] from Matland, with regard to the cocktail bar, concludes with a director's recommendation that:

"the chair, chair of planning and property and himself are authorised to proceed with the project."

This suggests that Judge Gordon (with Roger Matland and Owen) was intimately involved in leasing the Ion Bar to Mr Power and presumably had an adequate opportunity, and indeed a duty, to familiarise himself with the trust's dealings with Mr Power and the nature of any existing agreements between them. Judge Gordon says that he has never met Mr Power other than to shake his hand once.

Continuing to foster the illusion that Subterania were trust premises managed on its behalf by Mr Power, in a letter to the local authority dated 25th September 1998 [S24], when council officers were challenging the unlawful exemptions from fees, Matland wrote:

"It has been and is a well-known fact that the Mean Fiddler Organisation have a management arrangement with the Trust to provide music and entertainment in the premises."

Despite the premises being leased to Mr Power, Roger Matland has until the recent controversy acted as holder of the entertainment license and remains a joint liquor licensee. To the uninitiated, this may add to the confusion about the true relationship. It is sufficient to note that it was Mr Power's solicitors, Hodders, who appeared for the licensee at West London Magistrates last year, not the trust's, Sinclair Taylor & Martin. Roger Matland maintains that the license, among other things, gives the charity some influence over Subterania. In fact, it does not. A license confers nothing but itself. The relationship between the charity and Mr Power is governed by contract. More likely, the charity's name was deployed to obtain and defend late night music and dancing permissions that a purely commercial applicant would be unlikely to secure in the quiet residential streets around Acklam Road.

(H) THE TRUST TOOK POSITIVE STEPS TO DECEIVE

Presumably due to disproportionate cost, the local authority does not indefinitely keep forms completed by applicants for charitable relief of rates and license fees. Historically, the forms have sometimes not asked questions rigorously. However, sufficient are available to show that the trust submitted incomplete, evasive and in some cases plainly dishonest applications. These forms would be received, unknown to councillors, by junior administrative staff in two different council premises.

In June 1999, the trust submitted five standardised application forms for renewal of discretionary rate relief on grounds of charitable status [S25]. The forms are distributed by council staff to the few dozen charitable organisations in the borough making such claims and are printed with the bold heading:

"Information to be supplied by charitable organisations for renewal of discretionary relief from the National Non-Domestic Rate under the local government finance act 1988 SS 47 and 48."

The forms ask:

"Please answer the questions below as fully as possible using separate sheets of paper where necessary."

All five are completed and signed in the hand of Mr Chris Ogden-Newton, the trust's associate director, property. Apart from one form for the trust's office premises, for which there can be no doubt, four are for premises of specialist activity: a sports centre run by the trust; a fitness club run by the trust; a skate park run by a private company and Subterania run by Mr Power. In the case of the two trust-run premises, they are unambiguously described:

"North Kensington Amenity Trust (Westway Sports Centre)"

And:

"North Kensington Amenity Trust (Portobello Green Fitness Club)"

However, the commercially-run premises are incompletely described by Mr Ogden-Newton, simply as:

"North Kensington Amenity Trust"

In a box seeking an "address and description of property" Mr Ogden-Newton describes the night-club simply as:

"12 Acklam Road London W10."

Despite being asked on the forms to supply clear information, Mr Ogden-Newton is selectively silent on the description of the commercial premises in a way that he isn't for the sports and fitness facilities. Nowhere is a night-club mentioned, or the word Subterania used.

Interviewed by Brian Deer, Judge Gordon said that he did not personally know what was at the premises designated as "12 Acklam Road". He tried, but failed, to guess. He said he did not know that this was Subterania's address. Presumably, if he did not know, being chairman of the management committee since 1993, interviewed a few hundred yards from the premises, it seems likely that the clerks in the non-domestic rates office of the council more than a mile away did not connect "12 Acklam Road" with the 600-capacity night-club either.

In the completion of forms for entertainment licenses, submitted to a different office of the council, about half a mile from the rates office, the trust goes beyond selective silence [S26]. The Sunday Times is in possession of four such forms for Subterania, for the years 1995 to 1998. The forms changed slightly in the first two years, but all four include a statement as follows:

"I/We certify that the use of the premises under the Council's Music or Music and Dancing Licence will be solely for entertainment which is of an educational or other like character or is given for a charitable or other like purpose."

The forms for all four years are certified "R E Matland", the latest being dated 9th October 1998.

Perhaps because the licensing department had become alerted to a problem of bogus claims, the forms for 1997 and 1998 ask more probing questions than in earlier years. In the face of new obstacles, Roger Matland climbs a ladder, starting with obfuscation, moving through evasiveness and culminating in deception.

Question 5 on both forms is:

"Purpose for which entertainment is to be provided, eg Charitable, fund-raising, educational, community etc. Please give reasons why the entertainment is regarded as such."

In 1997, Roger Matland answers on behalf of the charity in the kind of slippery half-truth which characterises much of his correspondence over these issues:

"As part of the general community activities and charitable objectives of the North Kensington Amenity Trust."

Roger Matland responds to the same inquiry with more elaborate evasiveness in 1998. He seems to take great care not to quite answer the question, but generates an impression that does not exactly capture a 600-capacity, wholly for-profit night-club, taking £1m a year for Mr Power:

"One of NKAT's aims is to assist other local charities. Through us local community groups can use Subterania for: fund-raising, profile raising, dissemination of information, community parties and meetings (eg AGMs), community arts events."

Question 6 on the two forms sets a higher benchmark for those who would deceive:

"State the type of functions to be held: eg social function, dance, discotheque, concert etc"

Roger Matland's 1997 answer is:

"Socials and dances, general music concerts, community group meetings."

The 1998 answer to the same question is:

"Dances, socials, concerts, meetings, Christmas parties."

Question 7 on the two forms is yet more problematic for Mr Matland:

"Who will receive the proceeds of these functions?"

Roger Matland's 1997 answer to this straight question is a straight lie:

"North Kensington Amenity Trust".

Roger Matland's 1998 answer to the same straight question is a straight different answer:

"The charity organising the event".

And on he goes. Question 8 on the two forms:

"Are the premises ever rented out to a third party for any public or private events? If Yes, does the third party receive the profits from the event?"

An inquiry to flush out the situation if ever there was one. But Roger Matland answers in 1997:

"Yes - local charities. Yes - local charities."

In 1998 he thinks up a cleverer one:

"Only in the circumstances described above."