Westway Development Trust: (6/6) "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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(K) THE CHARITY'S BEST ANSWER TO DATE

As a result of Brian Deer's inquiries, on 9 November 2000, Roger Matland wrote to the council's new chief executive, Derek Myers [S32]. Roger Matland says this letter "endeavours to provide my response" to any inquiry the council might hold.

Roger Matland indicates that the charity is fully aware of the nature of the allegations:

"In short, I was accused of claiming charitable relief on behalf of a wholly commercial organisation."

The essence of his defence is in two parts. Firstly, he implies that the council's most senior officers and councillors knew what the charity was doing - and therefore, by implication, authorised it:

"You may not be aware but from 1971 until 22nd April 1998 the Chief Executive and Town Clerk and the Director of Finance of the Royal Borough were respectively the Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer of the Trust and papers were sent to the Town Hall and minutes of our meetings were taken and processed by the Committee Section. To my certain knowledge, whichever officer actually took minutes would report outcomes to the Chief Executive and Town Clerk within a day or so of the meetings. This not only seemed reasonable and proper, but for example in Mr Webber's day it often led to helpful suggestions and advice from him to me sometimes before and sometimes after the Management Committee meetings. Quite apart from the Royal Borough having seven nominees on the Committee it is clear that officers also knew the full detail of Trust affairs until 22nd April 1998."

A similar tack is taken by Sinclair Taylor & Martin in a letter dated 2nd February 2001 to Alastair Brett, legal manager of Times Newspapers Ltd:

"You should be aware that seven of the Trustees of the Trust are representatives of the local authority and therefore fully aware of the circumstances of the mixed use and that until relatively recently all the minutes and papers of the Trust were sent to the chief officers of the Council."

In short, the charity seeks to promote the belief that councillors and the council's most senior officers in some sense gave cover to the scheme which lifted liabilities of more than £100,000 due to the council from a night-club owner. If this is true, the situation could appear to amount to a conspiracy extending into the highest reaches of the council and its political leadership to give the innocent Mr Power a free ride. But:

(a) It is barely conceivable that the chief executive and the director of finance approved of, or turned a blind eye to, an arrangement that might appear to them to be a fraud on their own authority.

(b) When committees were formally notified by officers of the material being wrung out of the charity by the licensing section in 1998, the charitable exemptions were stopped. Were councillors on those committees already "fully aware of the circumstances of the mixed use" as Sinclair Taylor & Martin submits? Brian Deer doubts it.

(c) The council has no power to vary the law and, for the major part of business rates, is a collection agency for central government.

(d) Despite a vast volume of tortuous paperwork generated by Roger Matland, and exhaustive inquiries by councillors, no document other than the lease has been produced in which either the rates deal with Mr Power is set out, or the actual useage of the club recorded by the trust. It seems unlikely that any "minutes or papers" could have included such information, as Roger Matland and Sinclair Taylor suggest.

(e) In his interview with Brian Deer, Judge Gordon stated that Subterania's rates had never been discussed at any time since 1993 by the charity's management committee. Therefore, there could be no minutes of such information during this period.

In his letter to the chief executive, Roger Matland's second argument is, in essence, that Subterania continues to fulfil one of the charity's objectives and that, despite some possible procedural muddle, Roger Matland's heart was, in some sense, in the right place:

"I reiterate that I saw the activities and use of Subterania as fitting in with our charitable objective of recreation/leisure purposes coupled with the access by local groups to what are quite sophisticated facilities. Taken in isolation I can now see that the forms on their own could give cause for concern because I applied for charitable relief on what the world, at first glance, would see as a commercial concern, but I genuinely believe, and indeed argued, that not withstanding the commercial aspects there was an historic and current use of the premises which had remained the same throughout the existence of the premises - namely a venue for music and dancing. Subterania is also accessible to local groups and I still don't know of any other commercial venue that does or would allow such access. I am perfectly prepared to be told that my opinion was wrong, but not that it was fraudulent."

Presumably, he has told this to the judge. But Matland's intent to deceive is quite clear in the forms he signed. Why did he deceive, if Subterania was furthering the charity's objectives? And he deceived rather methodically. For instance, after officers were denied a copy of the "confidential" lease, on 1st October 1996, Graham Taylor, the council's chief community liaison officer, acting on instructions from the council's corporate management committee, squarely asked the charity [S33]:

"If the Council decided to withdraw or reduce the relief on 12 Acklam Road, eg would NKAT or the Management Company end up paying the bill?"

Faced with this straight question, the £60,000-a-year, graduate-educated charity director, replied in the terms to which we are now accustomed [S33]:

"On the question of who pays, the Music and Dancing and Alcohol licenses have always been in the Trust's name and liability lies with the Trust as well on the basis that this is only a management agreement and in the event of termination we want it to be clearly in our control for obvious reasons. I am also Co-licensee with the owner of the management company so again we retain control."

The simple answer to the council's question, of course, was that Mr Power would pay the bill - according to the terms of the lease described above. But Mr Matland, for reasons best known to himself, did not wish to disclose this.

Not only were the charity's deceptions far from honest mistakes, Roger Matland also misled the chief executive when he suggested that it is the charity's position that Subterania is somehow part of NKAT's mission - it's "general community activities and charitable objectives" as he described it on the 1997 form. As stated above, in NKAT's annual reports and accounts for 1994 [S7] the income from Bay 63 was itemised as rent. There were also details of the loan repayments on the property. Since then, however, even these oblique references to the premises have disappeared - until now there is no reference to anything whatsoever that could be identified as the night-club. In the 1997 to 2000 reports [ S34 and S35 as specimens], Subterania, Bay 63, 12 Acklam Road or whatever, has simply gone. Were Subterania part of the charity's activities, or operating in furtherance of its objectives, the trust would be legally obliged (Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 1995 laid under the 1993 Charities Act) to declare this in its annual submission to the Charity Commission and to the public. It would, presumably, be proud to do so.

The truth is, the charity had no lawful function to claim charitable reliefs on behalf of Mr Power - and knew it.

(L) THIS DOCUMENT

This report was prepared for the legal department of Times Newspapers Ltd, in the context of a statement made by the Conservative leader of Kensington & Chelsea council, Merrick Cockell, in a letter dated 31st October 2000 to Judge Gordon [S36], who had alerted him to the allegations made at the interview with Brian Deer. Mr Cockell wrote:

"I will be in contact again either following publication of any newspaper article or if Mr Deer provides us with his detailed accusations in advance."

This communication between two of the most senior Conservatives in Kensington & Chelsea implies that if Brian Deer did nothing, they would do nothing either. Despite the council's Conservative group now having access to all the details of this matter, and having refused to speak with Deer, in the following seven months it has indeed appeared that they did nothing.

Brian Deer. June 2001 [revised to take account of the organisation's name change to Westway Development Trust, July 2002]

Among many letters of complaint received from the Westway Development Trust, or North Kensington Amenity Trust in 2000, three are reproduced here - including one from Judge Gerald Gordon and anther from Roger Matland commenting on the Subterania issue. The Westway Development Trust has a website at westway.org