Westway
Development Trust: (5/6) "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
<<<go
to the start<<<
(I)
WHEN CHALLENGED BY COUNCIL OFFICERS, THE
TRUST DISSEMBLED
A
great volume of correspondence has passed
between the council and the trust
following licensing staff being alerted
to the unwarranted claims in 1998. Given
a final chance to make representations,
the trust's director wrote to the
council's head of projects and
partnerships on 6 March 2000 [S27]
continuing to justify rate relief,
claiming, among other things:
"The
charge we make to the Mean Fiddler
contributes very materially to our
ability to assist local RBKC charities
and residents in financial need with
grant aid through our grant aid schemes,
which include core and small grants to
local organisations and education and
sports training grants to young people.
Last financial year, we made over 70
grants to RBKC charities, including 14
for subsidised Sunday use of Subterania
and we made over 40 grants to young RBKC
residents for education and sports
training.
"The
arrangement we have with the Mean Fiddler
reflects the Trust's ability to make the
facility available and affordable to
local charities and on that account we do
sacrifice some income while at the same
time generating sufficient money to
assist with our grant giving. If the
business rate is to be applied our
concern is that we may lose the ability
to make Subterania available and
affordable to local charities because,
inevitably, the current situation gives
us a lot of leverage over the Mean
Fiddler and, I am sure, underpins the
very real and flexible co-operation they
have shown over many years."
The
"very real and flexible
co-operation" appears to be that the
trust pays Mr Power money and Mr Power
lets them use his club. Roger Matland's
last point in this letter hints at the
charity's final fallback position, which
is essentially that Mr Power is acting
vicariously for the charity in providing
socially-needed entertainment for the
local community in furtherance of the
trust's objectives, notwithstanding that
he has made a lot of money doing so. Even
if this were true - which it isn't - it
would, of course, not entitle anybody to
the exemptions falsely claimed. This will
be dealt with later. Roger Matland says:
"The
historical reality is that these premises
have always been used as a licensed music
and dancing venue since 1975 but the
Trust itself did not have the expertise
to run them save on a loss making basis
and that is why the alliance with the
Mean Fiddler was created some twelve
years ago. The purpose and use of the
premises have not changed over that
period."
Prior
to this exchange, council officers asked
the trust for a copy of the
"arrangement" between it and
Mean Fiddler, but this quite proper
request was refused. On 7 October 1998,
environmental services wrote [S30]:
"I
note that there is what you describe as a
management arrangement between the Trust
and the Mean Fiddler Organisation. Please
could you let me have a copy."
Matland
replied for the trust on 16th October [S31]:
"The
Trust regards formal documents between
itself and third parties as
confidential."
There
is, of course, nothing confidential in
the lease, other than, perhaps, the
scheme to dodge payments to the council.
(J)
THE MOTIVE FOR THIS CONDUCT IS, AT
PRESENT, UNCONFIRMED
Given
that the relationship between the trust
and Mr Power is governed in this matter,
at least on paper, by contracts, one
would have to ask why a charitable
development trust should go to such
extraordinary - quite extraordinary -
lengths to deprive the local community of
the benefit of fair rates and licensing
income from Mean Fiddler, now a
significant entertainment group with very
far-reaching commercial interests.
After
a taped interview between Brian Deer and
Judge Gordon on 18th October 2000 and a
similarly taped interview the following
day with Roger Matland and his deputy,
the trust has since refused to speak to
Deer. Roger Matland has written insisting
any questions be put and answered in
writing. Gordon and Owen hung up the
telephone, as did Martin Sinclair Taylor.
Two previous chairs of the trust refused
comment. Other trustees do not return
calls. The Conservative leader of the
council and its chief executive have
declined requests to meet and discuss
these issues.
One
might have expected the trust's chair and
trustees to be grateful to be alerted to
any shortcomings in the charity's
conduct. However, from the very outset,
before even any misconduct of any
description was alleged, all trust
personnel, including Judge Gordon and
Roger Matland, have acted in a hostile,
defensive and less than open-handed
manner. Serious and unwarranted
complaints have been made to The Sunday
Times about Brian Deer's conduct in an
apparent attempt to remove him from his
inquiries. A flurry of complaints have
attempted to discourage publication of a
report on the trust. At least a dozen
letters have been received by The Sunday
Times.
On
28th February 2001, Brian Deer wrote to
Sinclair Taylor & Martin, which by
then was handling all dealings between
The Sunday Times and the trust, stating
among other things:
"Please
advise your clients that I have put vital
allegations to them. In any instance
where I may have failed to cover points
adequately, this has been due to their
conduct in refusing to discuss them. I am
still prepared, in the next week or so,
to go beyond my professional duty to hear
anything further they may wish to ask or
say. And I will do my utmost to ensure
that any report is fair. If there is
anything I have done that I should not
have done, or anything I should have done
but have failed to do, please tell me
what it is and why."
Although
the trust was formed in 1971, the
trustees of the North Kensington Amenity
Trust were incorporated on 24th June 1998
by certificate from the Charity
Commission, having previously acted as
ordinary trustees. A body corporate is
liable for, and may be charged as a body
for, offences committed by a salaried
director or other principal officer.
Section
2 of the 1978 Theft Act [S28],
Evasion of liability by deception,
stipulates:
"Where
a person by any deception -
(a)
dishonestly secures the remission of the
whole or part of any existing liability
to make a payment, whether his own or
another's...
(c)
dishonestly obtains any exemption from or
abatement of liability to make a
payment;he shall be guilty of an
offence."
The
Charity Commission pamphlet Hallmarks of
a Well-Run Charity [S29] states
that the commission expects a charity to
be "open in the conduct of its
affairs, except where there is a need to
respect confidentiality". The
commission tells trustees:
"Except
where there is a genuine need to respect
confidentiality, a charity should be
ready to explain and justify the policies
and practices it has chosen to adopt.
Charities are favoured by the state and
public because their aims are for the
benefit of the public."
|