Crooked Knight: How It All Went Wrong For IEQ

“Beware of the fury
of the patient man.”

—John Dryden
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Copyright © 2004-2008 by David Alexander

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www.crookedknight.com
This is a true story. The facts are as seen and experienced by the
author. The identities of three of the characters were changed to
protect the innocent. Some details where amended to make the
saga more palatable.
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“Facts do not cease to exist
simply because they are ignored”
—Unknown
“It takes two to speak truth...
One to speak, and another to hear”
—Henry David Thoreau
Crooked Knight:
How It All Went Wrong For IEQ
David Alexander
Origin of Books ™
Published by Greg Smith
Charlton, London England
“Bankers who hire money-hungry geniuses
should not always express surprise and
amazement when some of them turn around
with brilliant, creative, and illegal means of
making money.” —Linda Davies
(former US and UK investment banker)
To those shareholders who understand
that there’s more than one way to trap a
rat. Often, the resolution you seek is
staring you right in the face.
David Alexander
1 January 2004
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Rt. Hon Sir Richard Francis Needham

Jonathan Wordsworth Wright
Anthony Lindsay Caplin
John Sebastian Mackay
Keith Reginald Harris
Christopher Kenneth Foster
Richard Clive Desmond
David Alexander
Adrian Murtagh
Henry Jackson
Clive Bradley
Peter Maurice Crystal
Viscount Robert Francis John Newry
Nigel William Wray
Jim Brown
John Richard Shaw
Jane Angela Jales
Each person listed above contributed in their

own special way to the writing of this book.
Knowing each of these people as I do, they
will attempt to assign some relevance to the
order of their names…
1
“They may forget what you said, but they
will never forget how you made them feel”
—CARL W. BUECHNER
T
he girl in the shimmering red basque
was entwined with the dancing pole,
her black stockinged legs clasped
around it as she leaned back and
slowly gyrated to the beat of the music. It
was early in the private club in London’s
Clerkenwell. The City hadn’t finished its
business: trading still continued with Wall
Street.
She saw him tucked away in the corner of the

booth, but pretended she hadn’t. It had to be
him. Tommy, the seedy gaffer who ran the
club had told her the big boss across the river
wanted her to give the man in booth five the
works. She’d only ever seen the big boss
once,
13
DAVID ALEXANDER
when he came to show someone around who

had one of those names you get from the
Queen.
She slowly unwrapped herself from the pole,

giving it a final caress with her leg and
proceeded to dance provocatively around the
stage. She then looked directly at him and
her movements as she came towards him
were slow and sensuous, dancing for him,
drawing it out. As she slowly circled, her
arms leading her long legs across the stage,
the disco lights threw a myriad of pulsating
colours across her long blond hair. She knew
she was the club’s best dancer.
She stood in front of the man who graciously
lifted his glass to acknowledge her. Tommy
said he had millions, was dead rich and could
fix anything, so she’d better be good. She
moved closer and saw his eyes glinting with
excitement as he took in her body.
She spun round, bent over and thrust her

buttocks out at him, then pivoted back
round, throwing her basque away to reveal a
red bikini thong.
14
CROOKED KNIGHT:
HOW IT ALL WENT WRONG FOR IEQ
Legs apart, she thrust her firm breasts out

and looked down at him,
slowly circling her mouth with her tongue.
He was repulsive.
T he BMW’s air conditioning was

unhappy. The car had been sitting
gridlocked for over an hour on the UK’s
notorious M25 motorway.
John Mackay knew all his immediate

neighbours by now: the screaming child in
the car behind; the blasting music from the
wreck alongside. He reckoned the music
system cost more than the car. The travel
news only gave out brief details confirming
what he already knew. There had been a fatal
accident near junction nine. He began to
curse the mechanic who hadn’t fixed the air
conditioning properly. He decided to turn
the engine off and roast in the South’s
ninety-degree heat wave. He also cursed the
driver in the accident. “Bloody
inconsiderate,” he muttered.
15
DAVID ALEXANDER
The mobile rang; the number showed Keith

Harris, long-time friend although never
confidante. In the City you didn’t confide.
“Yes, still jammed,” he said. “Wish I’d gone

down to Guildford and along the A25 to your
place.”
Harris said something at the other end, the

car alongside turned the volume up and its
driver with the baseball cap decided to have a
singles party, punching his arms out and
shouting along with the music. John Mackay
was near exploding. He blasted his horn. The
youth laughed and went on singing.
Mackay then got out of the car and walked

the few feet over to the battered Ford Escort
with no tax disc, thrust his face through the
open window and hissed “If you don’t shut
that racket…” The youth shrieked with
laughter, “you’ll do what mate? Call the
cops? We ain’t going nowhere, man. Just
chill out and listen to the best music.”
16
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Mackay got back in the car and turned over

the engine to let what was working with the
air conditioning flow over him. He couldn’t
call Harris back, so he opened his briefcase
on the passenger seat and pulled out some
working papers.
H e knew little about why he’d been

summoned to Keith Harris’s Sussex
home, but he had been told the
Belgian-based investor Nigel Wray and
solicitor Peter Crystal had also been invited.
He had been asked to bring information
about a company called Talisman House plc.
He noticed brake lights ahead and with relief

saw the traffic was moving again. He threw
the papers back in the case. It was barely ten
minutes before he turned off at junction
seven and sped along the M23 towards
Keith’s home.
After several miles driving through country

lanes the BMW turned through a set of
wrought iron gates with cameras guarding
them that protected the long driveway to
17
DAVID ALEXANDER
Keith Harris’s luxury home, set near Gatwick

Airport’s flight path. The other guests had
arrived, but even with three parked cars, the
gravel parking area set in front of the
imposing two-story eighteenth century home
with magnificent chimneys had room for
another three.
Mackay caught a glimpse of two women

playing tennis, one looking much younger
than the other. He admired their legs.
Behind was a swimming pool with half a
dozen tables and some half-finished drinks
sitting on one. He rang the doorbell. Keith
Harris opened it, greeting him like a long lost
friend.
“We wondered if you’d ever make it,” he said,

banging Mackay’s back playfully. “A fatal,
you know. Motorcyclist. But then how many
times do you see them wandering all over the
road? One overtook me once when I was
doing a ton up the M6 in my Merc sports.
Ridiculous.”
He steered Mackay through the oak-panelled

house to the large kitchen.
18
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Waiting were Nigel Wray and Peter Crystal, a

pile of papers strewn over the large wooden
table. They shook hands. Mackay didn’t
know the other two very well. He was offered
a beer.
K eith Harris looked hard at them and

said: “How much do you know about
Talisman House plc?” Their
expressions told him they knew very little.
He went on: “I met Stephen Barclay, the

company chairman, after a meeting last
week. He’s not very wealthy anymore and
wants out of the broker game. His return
from a small investment died on him.
However, I think we could assist him and
help ourselves even more.”
A spark ignited in Peter Crystal and he raised

his eyebrows as he watched Harris’s face
intently. He smelt the chase and his
adrenalin began to kick in. He was beginning
to enjoy his afternoon. Mackay glanced at the
two tennis players now walking past the
window and wondered if the younger one
was a virgin.
19
DAVID ALEXANDER
Stephen Barclay put the phone down, a smile

releasing the wrinkles brought about by his
many failures in trying to make his
investments work. His brokerage company,
Talisman House plc, had become a millstone
with successive critical market mistakes
plunging it down to a zero return. He was
tired of facing the investors’ endless
questions. Why wouldn’t they just shut up
and go away? For a brief period he and his
directors had enjoyed a life of luxury. It
wasn’t easy telling the wife she’d have to cut
back. She didn’t understand, but then
women never did. He blamed the US market,
the government, and the Far East for his
demise. Recession, he mused, had caught
him out. None of it was his fault.
He reflected on the telephone call,

subconsciously doodling on the desk pad.
Keith Harris had offered him and his
directors a large sum of money to let him
take control of his board. Did he have any
sentiment for the company? None. It really
was a good deal he was being offered.
20
2
“All that is gold does not glitter; not all
those that wander are lost”
—J.R.R. TOLKEIN
J
ohn Shaw was on an important errand.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the early
autumn air as he walked across a sunlit
Russell Square towards the
Southampton Row offices of Memery Crystal,
solicitors. His old friend Keith Harris had
asked him to set up the September
appointment, although he grimaced slightly
when he remembered how it had sounded
like an old favour being called in. Like
Harris, he had worked his way up in the
financial world although he didn’t compare
against the wheeler dealer skills of his friend.
Harris had given him bridging loans when he
needed them in the old HSBC days. He had
also shared
21
DAVID ALEXANDER
his hospitality, but hints about one or two

murky deals always made him toe Harris’s
line.
John Shaw had spent a long day the previous

week at Harris’s home near Crawley. Nigel
Wray, a houseguest he’d never met before,
seemed clued-up on everything, and John
Mackay’s name was also mentioned.
His host, Keith Harris, had been CEO of

HSBC Investment Bank plc from 1994 to
1999. He was currently a director of Oxygen,
a company offering company development
over the Internet; he chaired Sports Internet;
Radio First plc; CLS Holdings plc; and many
other companies. He planned to turn
Talisman House plc into another media and
Internet-focused boutique. It would be ideal
for his many investments. He would chair it,
and Stephen Barclay would be moved to
chair Clifton Financial Associates plc, one of
Talisman’s subsidiaries along with a small
stockbroker called Ellis and Partners.
22
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Shaw was on his way to ask Jonathan Wright

of Memery Crystal to incorporate a new
investment company. Suggested names were
bandied about but it was eventually Shaw’s
suggestion that prevailed. A couple faxes had
been sent from Shaw’s company, Clifton
Financial Associates, to the solicitor and it
was agreed the company would be called
Intermediate Equity plc, intermediate being
the operative word as it didn’t have any
intended shelf life.
Shaw felt a surge of satisfaction run through

him. The world looked better. He could smell
good dividends for himself. Iran, the UK, US
and Europe were talking to each other now,
which meant the markets would have
confidence and he could even foresee the
expensive house move his wife wanted.
John Shaw entered Memery Crystal’s offices

and shook hands with Jonathan Wright, who
guided him through to the small windowless
office. Shaw patted down all of his pockets
and looking up, gave the lawyer a knowing
smile acknowledging that he didn’t have any
money on him.
23
DAVID ALEXANDER
Instead, he pulled out his pen. Intermediate

Equity plc would be incorporated with just
£2, which he’d have to owe for now.
North Korea sent a missile whistling over

Japan’s head. The City became jittery.
I t had been snowing hard around the M25,

circle of the Home Counties, but the
December meeting in 1999 at London’s
Park Lane Hilton Hotel was important, so all
the potential board members were struggling
in; and in the case of Keith Harris, behind a
snow plough. The option of taking a train
didn’t exist. The points were frozen.
They met in a private room on the Hilton’s

top floor overlooking Hyde Park and signed
the necessary papers to form a new
company, The Keith Harris Partnership
Limited, with Harris, John Mackay, Nigel
Wray and two other puppets on the board.
Talisman had by now taken over Ellis and
Partners and Clifton Financial Associates,
John Shaw’s company. Stephen Barclay,
Talisman’s founding chairman, prepared to
stand down.
24
CROOKED KNIGHT:
O n a bleak January morning in 2000,

Talisman House plc acquired The Keith
Harris Partnership Limited which,
according to published company records,
was dormant, newly incorporated and
claimed to have £1.7 million in cash.
Furniture and other company assets were
stated at £20,000 and goodwill was set at
£36.5 million, an unusually high figure for a
dormant company. It didn’t matter, the
auditor had already given the nod and their
fees were now assured. Talisman paid in
shares, issued equally to the Partners. A
complicated Call and Put deal was structured
thus ensuring the Partners would remain in
control.
Whilst Cherie Blair, the prime minister’s

wife, had a £10 fine slapped on her for
boarding a train without a ticket as she
rushed to her debut as Luton Crown Court’s
new Recorder, two of the Talisman directors
humped away on two different girls in two
different locations as they let the stress burst
out of their systems.
25
DAVID ALEXANDER
In what might have been thought a rash

moment, but was quite the opposite, Keith
Harris, as Talisman’s new chairman,
changed the company’s name to Seymour
Pierce Group plc and authorised a special
dividend payment to shareholders that
included his Partners. By coincidence, the
amount payable to them was almost exactly
the same amount of cash The Keith Harris
Partnership Limited claimed to have at the
time of the original deal. Much speculation
followed, raising questions as to whether the
company ever had the cash or if it was
merely been paid back to them.
Harris disliked shareholder meetings as a

rule, but this one, held at what had become
Seymour Pierce Group’s head office, was
positively relaxing. With his friends as the
largest shareholders he never felt more
confident. A good lunch at his club had set
him up for his main speech. He was toying
with buying a motor yacht and keeping it at
Chichester, but the price wasn’t right yet. He
would need to see if he could run it through
the company as entertainment.
26
CROOKED KNIGHT:
What he had in mind was something else. All

things offshore reap dividends.
The meeting wasn’t well attended, although

some business press reporters were there. To
date Harris had refused to issue any
statement about the Talisman name change
and the acquisition of The Keith Harris
Partnership. He felt he could now control the
press. He was all-powerful, untouchable.
S eymour Pierce Group’s chairman’s

statement for the annual report almost
had a touch of Disney about it. Harris
mentioned many of his latest acquisitions
but skimmed over the most important one.
Top billing was given to the special dividend
payment, really a bribe, made in order to
ensure no one complained about the
considerable dilution that resulted from his
Partners gaining control of the company. The
entire report was dressed up in woolly
camouflage by setting out the company’s aim
to become an investment adviser to Internet
companies.
27
DAVID ALEXANDER
Harris had a lot of Internet interests that

almost made it appear he preferred to
remain behind the scenes. It seemed to have
slipped his mind that neither the Seymour
Pierce nor Talisman shareholders had ever
received a dividend in either company’s
previous lives. It therefore came as a surprise
to everyone that a dividend was being paid,
and a handsome one to boot. It was also
overlooked that Harris had never been voted
in as chairman by the shareholders, but let in
the back door by Stephen Barclay and
Richard Feigen. Shareholders where too
busy counting their loot to notice that they
had just given their company away.
Barclay and his directors left to enjoy their

cash spoils after selling their inflated shares,
which had risen from 5p to 80p when they
sold them to an unnamed institutional
investor. Stephen Barclay left on a high,
nearly £5 million richer. Richard Feigen, a
former Talisman director, received a £1
million payoff with his shares and two other
directors grabbed a half a million by selling
their shares to the same mysterious investor.
28
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Their reward ensured Harris was appointed

chairman.
The meeting finished early and Harris pulled

his other directors around the table, setting
out their roles. He remained by the window
looking at the early evening commuters
scurrying towards Blackfriars Station. He
had another meeting to go to not far away in
the West End involving a meal at the RAC
Club in Pall Mall with an Italian woman. He
was looking forward to it. He had heard she
was a firebrand as well as owning fashion
houses in Milan. He fancied some sparring.
He eyed each one of his directors, seeing

acquiescence in their faces. He couldn’t resist
applying pressure, bullying them to accept
his demands. Basically, he despised people.
None of them could be trusted and he played
with them as if they were footballs.
He glared at them and said: “If I ever catch

one of you talking to anyone about our
private company business there will be a
price to pay; and if that person is a member
29
DAVID ALEXANDER
of the press, you’ll never work again.

Anywhere. Do you understand?”
Hesitantly, the row of suits nodded.

He went on: “We’ve done well so far; your
pockets are full and there’s more deals in the
pipeline. Don’t rock it.”
Nigel Wray looked at him with a secret smile.

They both had a long history, not least in the
Leeds United takeover negotiations in 1996.
Wray had the looks and the charm, but deep
down he had the need to go for the jugular.
He’d never call Harris his bosom buddy, but
he was useful. A male cunt.
T he small man came out of the steam

room then stood in shock as the cold
water shower rained down, snapping
closed all his open pores. It was difficult to
tell if he was in a rage or whether it was the
effects of the steam room. He strode red-
faced along the poolside until he reached the
massage room and barked orders at the
trembling masseuse. He didn’t like men
touching him. It always had to be a woman.
30
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The health club knew they had to get it right

or four-lettered expletives would rip through
reception as the man left. The club’s mobile
phone ban had also fallen on deaf ears. He
told them to “go fuck themselves.” None of
the club’s management dared challenge him.
Perhaps he got wound up because his fellow
members cold-shouldered him. He knew he
was as good as, if not better than them. The
masseuse worked her fingers firmly over his
shoulders, easing the blood flow through
knotted muscles. She ran her hands down his
back, working her fingers down his spine
towards his hips. She gently grabbed a lump
of hip flesh and began to massage it. It was
like massaging a beached whale, she thought;
it was as well he couldn’t see her face.
Richard Desmond was the King of Porn. He

tried to play it down, but the title stuck. He’d
made a dubious fortune, selling 17 worthless
magazines to United News & Media after he
duped them into a distribution agreement
they couldn’t afford. Afterwards, he used
some of the money to build up the highly
respectable OK magazine to take on its
31
DAVID ALEXANDER
competitor Hello head on. However, there

was an entire portfolio of porn magazines
such as Asian Babes, Big Ones and Crusader
that he couldn’t disguise. His company’s
porn movies such as Gina’s First Ever video
and Incredibly Naughty Asian Ravers and X-
rated TV station the Fantasy Channel
reinforced the fact of how Desmond had
made his money and that it enabled him to
come into contact with powerful names.
His company, Northern & Shell, was

renowned for heavy-handed tactics,
including bullying employees. Rumour
abounded that Desmond had forced a female
PR executive to spend a meeting in a closed
cupboard because she arrived late. He was
ambitious. The press fascinated him. It felt
powerful. The thought of achieving editorial
control by being a newspaper magnate was
almost orgasmic. He had to make it happen,
and sitting waiting for a buyer was the UK’s
ailing Express Group Newspapers. Ridiculed
as the “daily gets much worse” in the satirical
weekly Private Eye, the group’s advertising
and newspaper sales had plummeted. It was
losing credibility.
32
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Desmond wanted it badly, but the price was

just out of his reach. He dialled Keith
Harris’s number.
The two men met in Desmond’s Millwall

Dock Northern & Shell headquarters in
London’s docklands. He came straight to the
point.
“I need to borrow a further £10 million to

buy the Express,” he told Harris, who
appeared relaxed about the request. He and
Desmond knew each other well enough to
know they wouldn’t nor couldn’t shaft the
other.
“No problem,” Harris replied, although he

knew the Seymour Pierce Group that he now
chaired didn’t have enough assets to cover it.
Desmond was delighted with the
commitment. They shook hands firmly.
Harris went on. “I’ll need a back guarantee.”

Desmond offered Seymour Pierce a cross
guarantee, making it technically legal for
Harris to offer the guarantee the bankers
33
DAVID ALEXANDER
wanted before they would loan Desmond the

money. Had the lender known Seymour
Pierce did not have sufficient assets to back
up that guarantee, or that the person from
whom they needed the guarantee was
actually providing the guarantee to Seymour
Pierce so that they could offer the original
guarantee, they would have thought
differently.
Desmond broke open the champagne at

Millwall House on hearing about his
successful Express Newspapers bid and
promptly called Harris, who was at his golf
club. Desmond promised to repay his
goodwill as arranged. A few days later, £7
million was transferred to Seymour Pierce’s
account in gratitude for all the time and
trouble taken over the Express deal. He
followed this up with selling Express
Newspapers Financial Services Limited, now
Seymour Pierce Financial Services Limited to
Seymour Pierce Group plc, for a snip of a
price of £500,000 in cash.
34
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The company's more than 9,000 customers

had investments worth more than £300
million. Desmond had boasted the Express
would make Harris a billionaire and he was
setting out to do just that.
35
3
“The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but
the mouth of the wise man is in his heart”
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
T
he investor stood on London’s
Blackfriar’s Bridge alongside the spot
God’s banker, Roberto Calvi,
chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano,
had been found hanging from an orange
noose under the bridge in 1982. Seven bricks
were stuffed in his pockets and his feet were
dangling in the swirling waters of the
Thames. Substantial sums were missing from
his bank’s many subsidiaries, including the
Vatican accounts. A first Coroner’s inquiry
jury was succeeded by a second, which
disagreed with the previous verdict of
suicide. They gave a verdict of murder or
suicide. It was an unsatisfactory affair.
36
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The investor gazed at the tidal rip in the

whirlpools below and mused that the
suspicions over Calvi having been killed by
the mafia were probably correct; but there
was more than one mafia, as he was just
beginning to realise. He walked over the
bridge. Ahead of him was the Express
Newspapers base at Ludgate House.
Richard Desmond had an axe to grind and

again sought advice from his friend Harris at
Seymour Pierce.
He had sold several domain names to

Seymour Pierce, including the online
business of ‘express.co.uk’ for £1, but to this
day the domains remain registered in the
name of Express Newspapers plc. The slick
move enabled him to get rid of a number of
employees who had openly expressed their
opinion of him. The problem was that the
paper still had a number of good journalists
who then decided to jump ship. This didn’t
faze Desmond, as he thought he could always
buy and bully people anyway.
37
DAVID ALEXANDER
In a wild outburst, he threw a chair at his

editorial director Paul Ashford. However,
despite the incident, Ashford defended
Desmond, saying the man’s problem was
thinking he was invincible and unstoppable,
and he needed a restraining hand that he,
Ashford, had offered.
The meeting between Keith Harris and John

Mackay in the boardroom at the Seymour
Pierce Group office was tense. The whisky
decanter remained open as they pondered
the company’s acquisition. They had to move
quickly and further their plans whilst they
had total board control.
They pored over their business plan to set up

an investment company that would raise
public funds and invest in Seymour Pierce
clients with the resulting increase in their
brokerage fees. Seymour Pierce acted as
stockbroker and nominated adviser to
Alternative Investment Market (AIM)
companies. Harris and Mackay were
nervous.
38
CROOKED KNIGHT:
“We’ve got to be doubly careful,” Mackay

said, rising from the chair and stretching his
legs. He pulled a concerned face.
Harris answered his thoughts. “That upset
with the Financial Services Authority was
embarrassing. How they ever thought there
was a conflict of interest with Seymour
Pierce Ellis Limited is beyond me. Even
Memery Crystal was amazed we were fined.”
T he FSA had fined Seymour £70,000 for

conflict of interest and breaches of code
in respect of its subsidiary, where
Richard Feigen, who founded Ellis and
Partners in 1990, was a director in charge of
its operations. Harris had contested the
charge bitterly, but for the first time he
couldn’t squeeze away from the might of the
FSA. The company’s being defended by
Memery Crystal solicitors was in itself a
conflict of interest.
The two men looked hard at each other

before Harris broke the silence.
39
DAVID ALEXANDER
“I’ll set up an appointment with Jonathan

Wright at Memery Crystal. He’ll set things up
tight for us.”
Mackay gazed out the window and wondered

if he should phone his regular girl. He
needed relief.
On 1st June 1999, an army of campaigners

protesting against genetically modified crops
forced major seed company CPB Twyford,
based at Thriplow, Cambridgeshire to stop
producing the crops after fields were
sabotaged.
O n the same day, Memery Crystal’s

solicitor Jonathan Wright signed a false
declaration to Companies House stating
that Intermediate Equity plc, which had been
lying dormant since September 1998 with an
initial capital of £2, had not less than
£50,000 in capital, of which 25 per cent was
paid, thus meeting the minimum
requirements for incorporation of a UK
public limited company.
40
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Not only did this constitute an appalling

intention to deceive, but the signed
declaration was witnessed by an adjacent
firm of solicitors. The 1st June date is critical
because it was upon that intent to defraud
that IEQ’s future was cast.
There was no £50,000, nor was there any

cash sum of £12,500, the minimum amount
required to obtain a Certificate to Trade &
Borrow, a document required by all UK
public limited companies before they can
trade or offer their shares to the public. All
that existed was £2 and there are doubts
even if that amount existed, as the figure
never showed up in either of the company’s
bank accounts. The truth was more obscure.
An agreement was made between the
company Intermediate Equity plc and errand
boy John Shaw ensuring that if the company
was not able to raise the minimum capital
from the public, he would pay the £50,000
needed, less the £2, which he presumably
paid upon the company’s incorporation in
1998. This move was illegal.
41
DAVID ALEXANDER
Unconditional was not the operative word

for Intermediate Equity’s share allotment.
UK Companies Act, the set of laws governing
the incorporation and operation of all UK
companies, clearly states that an allotment of
shares is made when a person obtains the
unconditional right either to shares or to be
added to the ‘list of members’. It is clear
therefore that shares cannot be issued
conditionally. The agreement between
Intermediate Equity and Shaw was a
conditional agreement where he agreed to
pay for the shares that were issued to him on
1st June 1999 only if the company could not
raise funds from the public. Solicitor
Jonathan Wright declared on a Form 117 that
the company had allotted 5,000,000 1p
shares to John Shaw and that they were at
least 25 per cent paid, meaning the company
had received a minimum of £12,500.
A second form, Form 88(2), showing Shaw,

in care of Seymour Pierce’s office, as the
registered holder of 4,999,800 ordinary
shares at 1p, also signed by Wright on 1st
June 1999, was delivered to Companies
House.
42
CROOKED KNIGHT:
These two forms made it possible for

Intermediate Equity plc to acquire the
coveted Certificate to Trade & Borrow, which
was needed for the company to have its
capital and shares listed or traded on the
AIM ‘market’ of the London Stock Exchange.
R ichard Needham looked in the

bathroom mirror and carefully combed
the few strands of hair over his balding
pate. He stared at his hawk-like features and
decided he needed a photographic makeover.
His comb set the final tinted hairs in place.
People had recently seemed surprised
meeting him for the first time, blustering out
little phrases like “you look nothing like your
photograph” or “you are keeping well”.
Photographers are clever these days; after
all, they work wonders for all those silly pop
singers who have their acne touched over.
But he must speak to the London Speaker
Bureau. The web photograph supporting his
speaker profile couldn’t stand up to his real
image much longer. Born in 1942, Needham
was the 6th Earl of Kilmorey, although he
didn’t use the title.
43
DAVID ALEXANDER
He was educated at Eton and had the

distinction of having been overheard talking
on a mobile phone about the then Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher saying, “I wish
that cow would resign,” to which Margaret
Thatcher responded by saying if that was the
worst her colleagues said about her, she was
lucky. In the many profiles of Richard
Needham, no references appear regarding
his directorship of Intermediate Equity plc.
A former Conservative Minister for Trade,

Sir Richard Francis Needham was on his way
to an important meeting. He loved moving to
new ground. He had a low boredom
threshold. He had spent some time
rebuilding Northern Ireland and was excited
at being able to control the actual
reconstruction. His vision had not included
the traditional Irish style of building. He
insisted on using glass and steel along with
other state of the art materials, and was
heavily criticised as having taken a risk. His
calculation that there would be no more
bombings in Belfast that would have sent the
glass from ‘his buildings’ flying into people’s
bodies like razors showed remarkable
44
CROOKED KNIGHT:
foresight. He was fortunate no bombs were

set off and the city now has one of the best
waterfronts in the UK. That risk earned him
a highly privileged invitation to become a
Privy Counsellor in 1994 and a knighthood in
the election year of 1997, just before the
Conservatives lost power.
Today he was on his way to Memery Crystal’s

offices in London to sign a deal to become an
Intermediate Equity plc (IEQ) director and
shareholder. He straightened his tie and left
his detached house surrounded by orchards
for the railway station.
F urther along the M25 corridor on what

promised to be a blistering hot morning,
Anthony Caplin and Clive Bradley were
also preparing to leave their homes. Caplin
held numerous directorships, some of which
required some delving to ascertain what they
were and what they did. He held positions as
MD of Manchester News Ltd, President of
Pacific Telesis, European Division Chief
Executive of First City GB and Chief
Executive of Hunterprint plc.
45
DAVID ALEXANDER
Clive Bradley was relatively undistinguished;

his claim to promotion was earned more by
keeping his head down and moving along the
career path rather than seeming like
management material.
All three men met at 11a.m. in Memery

Crystal’s offices and were appointed
directors of Intermediate Equity plc by the
existing directors’ solicitor Jonathan
Wordsworth Wright and EMCEE Nominees
Limited. Consider the spelling of EMCEE.
MC for Memery Crystal? These two directors,
one being a UK private limited company,
stepped down and the three new directors
were in control of IEQ on 3rd June 1999.
There not being any company business to
bother with, they walked down to Covent
Garden to bag a table for an Italian lunch
before the Drury Lane theatre crowds set in.
They agreed to meet in Memery Crystal’s
offices the next day.
On the following day, 4th June, the new IEQ

threesome board met again at Memery
Crystal’s offices and this time the solicitors’
46
CROOKED KNIGHT:
senior partner Peter Crystal was in

attendance. Needham was in a jovial mood.
He had a number of directorships and just
couldn’t resist accepting another. At a time
when the government was asking politicians
to cut back their board positions, Needham
could have filled a theatre with his posts.
Caplin sparred with the solicitor and
Needham, but Bradley on the other hand
seemed quiet and sat watching what was
really quite good theatre.
Crystal indicated where all three directors,

Needham, Caplin and Bradley should sign on
the thick legal documents that included
copies. At that moment of signing, all four
individuals had authorised and signed a
Prospectus document for a Placing of shares
on AIM. The Placing was for 27,999,800
ordinary shares of 1p each. Now reflect back.
John Shaw had allegedly purchased the
initial £2 capital, being 200 1p shares on
incorporation. That meant 28,000,000
ordinary shares would be in issue after the
Placing.
47
DAVID ALEXANDER
But according to Companies House, he

owned 5,000,000 ordinary shares of 1p,
which were at least 25 per cent paid.
After shaking hands, Richard Needham

turned to Peter Crystal and asked how they
should tackle the content in the Prospectus
with regard to the conditional allotment.
Surprisingly, this did worry him, having

already gone down the road to deceive, but
he probably just didn’t want to be implicated.
His public image was paramount. He blew
his nose noisily.
P eter Crystal waved his hands confidently,

hunched over his desk, took in each of
the directors and said: “Look, we’ve
inserted a paragraph skimming over the
conditional allotment. We know that AIM
doesn’t vet prospectuses, or at least hasn’t to
date.” Clive Bradley moved uneasily in his
chair.
48
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Crystal went on: “Each one of us here knows

that AIM relies upon the company’s
nominated advisor to verify the correctness
of their AIM admission documents. We
officially act for Seymour Pierce; the market
has known all of us for a long time and we
have impeccable standing. No one’s going to
challenge the Prospectus when we’ve dressed
it up because they would never challenge any
one of us in this room. A former Cabinet
Minister? No way. Leave it to me.”
The Southampton Row office collectively

breathed a sigh of relief. Caplin stood up first
and shook Crystal’s hand, then Needham and
finally Bradley, who offered a damp palm.
A Placing means that on admission to AIM,

the shares must be sold. IEQ’s Prospectus
claimed that a Certificate to Trade & Borrow
had been granted by Companies House. In
fact, IEQ’s was not issued until 9th June
1999. This leads to no other conclusion than
that the Prospectus document signed and
dated 4th June 1999 was a false document.
49
DAVID ALEXANDER
This document was the one filed with

Companies House and the London Stock
Exchange. No other one exists. On 9th June
1999 the Certificate to Trade & Borrow was
finally granted, in error.
The threesome had time on their hands and

decided to walk together down to their
private club in the Strand. Bradley walked
slightly behind the other two, missing out on
most of the deep conversation. Needham and
Caplin had already moved on to other
business topics. They never dwelt on a
success. They needed the next adrenalin
surge. They also assumed they would never
be found out.
Later in June 1999, the Turner prize jury

short-listed foul-mouthed British artist
Tracey Emin, saying her work asks the very
basic questions about the making of art and
life. Previously, Tracey had had an exhibition
of her ‘Naked Photos – Life Goes Mad’
selection, a series of naked photographs of
her working in the studio. At a Channel Four
interview she ran out, saying she wanted to
be with her mum.
50
4
“Many attempts to communicate are
nullified by saying too much”
—ROBERT GREENLEAF
I
n early June 1999, due to concern over
the strength of the British Pound, the
Bank of England cut the cost of
borrowing to its lowest level since the
’70s. The depressed manufacturing sector
felt a lift at the 5 per cent base rate and said
it would help fill their order books.
Across London, barely three miles away from

where the base rate statement was being
made, the sound of a whip slashing against
bare skin could be heard through the door of
number five in a block of flats off London’s
Marylebone Road.
51
DAVID ALEXANDER
Miss Chantelle, her black nipples peeking out

of a cropped white PVC top decorated with
linked gold chains to match her crotch level
skirt, had chained the man to the wall and
was giving him ten of her best. He
whimpered and pleaded with her. She took a
studded dog collar and put it around his neck
and clipped on a leather lead. She breathed
into his ear as he sagged against the bonds.
He had to do her bidding or he knew what
was coming. The man nodded and
shuddered, his balding head glistening with
sweat. Chantelle suddenly cracked the whip
against his back and he cried out he’d had
enough. She lowered the whip and went up
to him rubbing her black thigh against his
shoulder, reassuring him he had been a good
boy. He ejaculated and at the same time
blubbered he wanted his mummy.
The millionaire left the flat on a light cloud.

He mused there were advantages in leading a
sexless life with the wife because she would
never see the whip marks.
52
CROOKED KNIGHT:
A secretary stuffing the contents of a

chocolate roll into her mouth at Memery
Crystal’s offices sent a fax to the London
Stock Exchange on 11th June 1999.
Nominated as IEQ’s advisor, Seymour Pierce

Limited claimed that all 27,999,800 ordinary
shares at 1p had been Placed - meaning sold -
and requested that IEQ’s capital be
permitted trading admission to AIM.
Clive Bradley felt a bit off colour. His nerves

were getting to him over the new IEQ set-up.
He thought only pregnant women suffered
morning sickness, but he was waking up with
the IEQ share issue glaring at him from the
bedroom ceiling and his stomach turned
over. He decided to take a day off.
On the same day, Caplin, Needham and

Jonathan Wright held a telephone
conference that ignored Bradley. They drew
up a list of purported shareholders that was
collated by Wright of Memery Crystal and
signed by Anthony Caplin. The list covered
13 shareholders, most of whom never
appeared on the official ‘list of members’
53
DAVID ALEXANDER
held by the company’s registrar. A similar

practice used to take place in the 1980s in
Fleet Street, where the printers signed in
with fictitious names such as Mickey Mouse.
Clive Bradley, Richard Needham and

Anthony Lindsey Caplin were shown as
having purchased 300,000 ordinary shares
of 1p at the listing price, but in fact Caplin’s
shares had always been held by a nominee.
Now, assuming these directors were
numerate, it didn’t take a Member of
Parliament to compare the actual register of
members with this list provided to the
London Stock Exchange and Companies
House on a Form 88(2), which is an
allotment of shares form, and to conclude
that the numbers didn’t add up.
P eter Crystal made sure that the

company’s registrar had been informed
by Seymour Pierce Limited that all
27,999,800 shares were owned and held in
Seymour Pierce’s nominee account PSL982,
with Pershing Keen Nominees Limited.
54
CROOKED KNIGHT:
According to this new list, John Shaw owned

just 200. An inspection of the shareholder
list proved that the names mentioned on the
Form 88(2) dated 11th June 1999 were false.
They were used only to justify the Placing, to
prove to the London Stock Exchange that the
shares had been Placed, when in fact they
had not been.
When contacted later, the company’s

registrar stated that those shares held in
Seymour Pierce’s nominee account were not
actually sold and were not in the names of
the true owners for at least three more
months. The obvious conclusion to be drawn
is that Seymour Pierce provided false
information to the London Stock Exchange,
which was confirmed, despite being false, by
IEQ’s directors Needham, Caplin and
Bradley, the latter by virtue of his
directorship, although there is no evidence
that he was part of the telephone meeting or
that he had ever agreed to sending the false
form 88(2) to Companies House and the
London Stock Exchange.
55
DAVID ALEXANDER
Clive Bradley’s health began to get the better

of him. His increasingly tight chest forced
him to see a doctor. Much later, he
confirmed to the author in a telephone
conversation that he had not agreed with
Needham and Caplin’s actions. He eventually
resigned his directorship and tried to put
matters behind him, or so he thought.
However despite all the crookedness, nobody

twigged or admitted anything was wrong,
and IEQ’s shares were granted admission to
AIM on 14 June 1999, just 5 days after the
company’s Certificate to Trade & Borrow had
been granted.
Seymour Pierce wasted no time in pushing

the ‘traded’ shares on to their clients and
numerous investment funds. The business
press gave the launch good coverage and that
persuaded hundreds of members of the
public to purchase a stake in IEQ. Before the
end there would be more than 1,650
shareholders with an average investment of
£250, with one having invested more than
£600,000.
56
CROOKED KNIGHT:
N eedham and Caplin became even closer

business partners. Needham was
deputy chairman of Dyson Appliances
Limited and was virtually allowed to run the
entire operation as James Dyson’s right-
hand man. He was also chairman of the
London Heart Hospital and once took a
strong stand against the PPP health
insurance company, saying it had been trying
to prevent ‘his hospital’ competing against its
own clients. PPP, he claimed, was refusing to
list the hospital as an approved clinic. He
claimed there was “clear unfair competition
and market rigging,” and that PPP was guilty
of “a blatant abuse of market power. After
all, the hospital had carried out the UK’s first
heart transplant.”
PPP responded, saying it had not included

the Heart Hospital in its list because it
offered restricted facilities.
This “holier than thou” attitude on

Needham’s part was extraordinary
considering the deceit in which he was
involved with the setting up of IEQ.
57
DAVID ALEXANDER
T he London City workers poured out of

their early morning Canon Street and
Liverpool Street trains. A bystander
along the Kent commuter train routes could
guess pretty accurately which train was
taking who where. Male City travellers had a
habit of discarding their jackets on the
trains. Everyone also tended to bag the same
seat for each journey, but no one spoke to
one another. It was basically a cattle train
plodding the same route, day-in day-out.
The markets never missed a beat, that was

for sure, and they were clever people who
worked in the Square Mile, a professional
elite.
So it is difficult to imagine that Needham

and Caplin, two of the most experienced UK
businessmen, would ever have taken on their
directorship roles without having first
checked the company records thoroughly,
making themselves fully satisfied that
everything was as it should be.
58
CROOKED KNIGHT:
So why did they ignore the fact the company

had not received the Certificate to Trade &
Borrow until 6 days after their appointments
and 5 days after they had committed to paper
the untrue statement that IEQ was
authorised to sell its shares? The obvious
conclusion is that they knew IEQ did not
possess this critical document when they
signed the Prospectus on 4th June 1999.
They would or should also have been advised

by Memery Crystal, which acted for both
Seymour Pierce and Intermediate Equity plc
of this fact. As the company’s solicitors,
Memery Crystal would have known IEQ
hadn’t received the certificate when the
directors signed the Prospectus prepared by
the very same firm of solicitors.
Bradley’s conscience was troubling him, so

he called Jonathan Wright who purred out
some bluff, saying the deal was perfectly safe
and that there was “no problem”. Everything
had been done properly. However, Bradley
was right to be concerned.
59
DAVID ALEXANDER
The result of not having the critical

document was extremely serious, as it made
the entire transaction unlawful, even despite
the fact they later obtained the certificate -
albeit only a couple of days before the
company’s capital was actually admitted to
AIM. The fact remained that if the shares
were sold as they had claimed, then IEQ was
not permitted to do so at that time.
It is now known that IEQ did not have the

certificate and that the directors and their
solicitors Memery Crystal knew the company
did not have the minimum capital
requirements. No other conclusion could be
drawn other than to say they were all guilty
of fraud and breach of their fiduciary duty
owed to the company and indirectly to the
public from whom they had sought funds. It
is sheer arrogance that makes such people so
confident when they believe they are
untouchable. It is only greed that drives
them.
The Crooked Knight smiled at his profile in

the Bond Street shop window.
60
CROOKED KNIGHT:
So deep in thought was he that Sir Richard

Needham jumped when what he thought was
a clothes dummy sprang to life. He hadn’t
even noticed the window dresser. He had
been thinking about his friend Keith Harris
who had actually invited him to join what he
considered one of the best directorships he’d
seen for a long time at Intermediate Equity
plc. It was the team effort of his friends that
impressed him. Everyone had kept their
mouths shut, even Bradley, who had worried
him, as he didn’t seem to be quite onboard.
Needham’s vanity meant he could never see
beneath the surface, and it didn’t dawn on
him that wide-boy Harris had brought him
into the arena only to give the operation
credibility. Needham’s name would also
convince the public it was safe to invest in
IEQ.
P eter Crystal was enjoying an excellent

dinner of guinea fowl with John Shaw in
a small selective restaurant off
Kensington High Street. Seymour Pierce’s
confidence in him had paid off, as no one had
scrutinised them.
61
DAVID ALEXANDER
They had been able to raise just under £1

million in the first round of public money.
He had asked Shaw to dinner to give him the
good news that it would not be necessary for
him to pay the £49,998 he had agreed to pay
if they had failed to raise the public money.
They raised their wine glasses. They all
thought they had gotten away with it.
T he 110ft yacht bobbed quietly at anchor

off the Caribbean Island. The crew were
waiting for the owner to return with a
guest and his family. The vessel gleamed in
the brilliant sunshine. The crew had
scrubbed the deck down and cleaned the
bedrooms after the previous night’s party.
No one on board had awoken with an
original partner. Some didn’t even know
their partner’s names.
The boss was worried about the stabbing of

two Leeds fans in Turkey and the effect it
would have on the world football scene. He
had invited a close friend with a titled name
to spend a few days with his family cruising
around the many islands.
62
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The crew had been told to be on their best

behaviour and nothing of the previous
night’s activities was to be mentioned.
A distant hi-speed launch sliced across the

bay towards them. When it came alongside,
the crew helped the rather unfit guest
onboard. He teetered briefly on the deck,
looking uncomfortable on the water,
although the rest of his family were bright
enough.
That day American-based Wal-Mart bought

the UK supermarket chain ASDA for £6.7
billion with a warning they had now landed
in Britain. Shares in competitor Safeway
leapt on the news and the group onboard the
yacht felt comfortable, as the market was
ticking along nicely whilst they enjoyed
themselves.
63
5
“The problem is not that there are problems.
The problem is expecting otherwise and
thinking that having problems is a problem”
—THEODORE RUBIN
T
he little girl in the blue and gold dress
stood on the top of the windy hillside
digging her heels into the ground to
stop herself being blown away by the
kite she was holding. Her laughter rippled
over to her somewhat ageing father who had
been showing her how to make the kite
weave in loops and whirls. In the next field
there were dozens of Belgians taking part in
the Ostend annual kite festival. The seaside
town also sported an Olympic-sized
swimming pool where the little girl swam
each day with her parents for the five days of
their visit. Her mother had taken the 20-
minute train ride to Bruges that afternoon
for some shopping.
64
CROOKED KNIGHT:
She knew daddy had to see an important

man on business in that place they called
Brussels, ‘like the sprouts’, she thought. She
had seen the man once and didn’t like him.
She didn’t think he liked children much.
Daddy worked in the City, in London, but
why it was called the City she couldn’t
understand, because that would make it two
cities. Maybe her teacher had got it wrong?
Her father came over and cuddled his

daughter. She loved it when he did that. He
looked at her innocent eyes and felt very
protective towards her. She asked him why
he was making his face go all crinkly. He
tousled her fair hair. His daughter was right.
He was a worried man. Papers had come
across his desk about a company being set up
that he was invited to join. His gut had
tightened. He loved his daughter so much
and the prospect of being involved in
anything ‘not quite right’ made him shudder.
He arranged the meeting with the Belgian to
talk to him about what was going on,
although deep down he felt certain it would
be a waste of time.
65
DAVID ALEXANDER
Anthony Caplin had just flown in from a

Canadian skiing holiday. It was a late arrival
home, but he wasn’t prepared to leave
opening the post until the next day, even
though it was 2 a.m. He walked through to
the cool wooden beamed lounge that
normally contained a hearty log fire. He
flicked through the usual service bills, then
his heart missed a beat when he saw the
Seymour Pierce stationery. The new
company had seemed to be taking a long
time to get its funds. Of course, as Caplin
knew, Seymour was fronting for the shares
having been Placed, so the money had not
yet arrived. He gave a whoop reading the
letter telling him that Intermediate Equity
plc had now received over £800,000 after
‘reasonable fees’ had been paid to both
Memery Crystal and Seymour Pierce, of
course.
A hurried board meeting was set up between

the directors, excluding Bradley, whom the
others had written off. They met at Seymour
Pierce’s office to discuss a proposed
investment with the funds they now had on
hand.
66
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Richard Needham was very keen on the idea

of investing in Redstone Telecom, a national
telecoms network. He argued the case well
and the board agreed to make the company’s
first investment since its admission to AIM
in June. They staked £250,000 in
convertible loan notes to Redstone Telecom
plc (Redstone Telecom) as part of Redstone’s
offer of £5,600,000 in convertible loan
notes. The three-year old company brought
IEQ a good return when it doubled the
investment. In hindsight, it was the only
legitimate investment they made. This meant
that in a short time the company had around
£1.5 million to invest. Needham was being
applauded for his good judgement and that’s
when other opportunities began to unfold in
front of him, but he had to be crafty.
T he Crooked Knight had a son, Robert

Francis John Needham - Viscount
Newry - who wasn’t as bright as the
father, but thought he was. He worked in
Hong Kong, his name and title giving him a
limited status there within the ex pat
community. A career man he was not, but an
opportunist, yes.
67
DAVID ALEXANDER
Byron Constable was an old school chum of

Viscount Newry’s. His business partner and
pal Micah Truman was pacing in their Hong
Kong office. Truman stopped pacing, looked
at his partner, and said: “there’s nowhere
else to turn.” Constable lifted the phone and
called Newry. After the preliminary
exchanges he came to the point. He was in
serious financial trouble. His company,
MadeForChina (MFC), registered in the
Cayman Islands and allegedly based in
Beijing, of which he was a co-founder with
Truman, had a serious cash flow problem.
The company offered a marketing service
under the unwieldy title of a permission
email marketing system. They transmitted
advertising messages to millions of
consumers. Some might call it SPAM, or junk
mail. It was of no consequence to Newry that
Constable was supposed to be something of a
commodity forecast analyst expert yet hadn’t
seen the writing on the wall in his own
company until the last minute.
Newry then said to his friend: “Look, leave it

with me.
68
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Dad’s got fingers in a lot of pies and mum’s

just told me how well his latest company’s
doing. A large pile’s just gone into it. I’ll ask
him to give you a loan,” adding without any
comprehension of IEQ’s role, “That’s what
the company does anyway. Gives firms in
trouble loans.”
Constable relaxed, but urged his friend: “It’s

on the brink and I need the money fast
Robert. Can I leave you to work out the
details with Micah?” What little Newry knew
of his friend’s partner made him feel sick.
Truman was young, brash and American, but
the bond forged at public school was strong.
Newry turned away from the phone and sent

an email marked high priority to his father.
In it he described - more like embellished -
the attributes of MadeForChina . He was
disappointed by the initial response. Newry
then sent a couple more emails with ever
increasing urgency, as Micah was calling him
almost hourly. Newry tried to sell Micah’s
background by saying what a fluent Chinese
speaker he was and how that would be very
advantageous to the company’s future
69
DAVID ALEXANDER
development. It didn’t matter that skill

hadn’t done much to date. The next email
from the son in Hong Kong to his father said
MFC was prepared to pay 8 per cent
repayment interest. He also called his
mother, Lady Needham, a rather old-
fashioned county sort who liked to be called
‘Sissy,’ and began to work on her.
Needham met his other director Caplin for

lunch at the RAC Club in Pall Mall and put
his son’s ideas to him. Clive Bradley, the
other IEQ director, hadn’t been invited.
Caplin showed restraint and not much
interest. He didn’t have time for spoilt sons
of rich fathers whingeing for money, and had
little respect for Needham’s son anyway.
Caplin was more a smoothed out ‘muck and
brass’ man. He shook his head. Needham felt
disappointed, but more because he was
beginning to get it in the ear from his wife at
home. Needham emailed his son to say
Caplin wasn’t happy about his idea.
Then Newry turned to more desperate

measures dressed up in a series of lies. He
kept phoning his mother, who had
70
CROOKED KNIGHT:
experienced a lifetime of his harping on until

he got what he wanted. Newry really knew
how to play hot and cold with his family and
as a young man had resorted to screaming
with tantrums. It was often the line of least
resistance that made his parents give in but
he knew they would eventually. The
telephone line between Micah Truman and
Newry was also red hot. It was an interesting
friendship, but few knew the full reason why
Constable was able to apply such pressure on
his friend. After all, most people, no matter
how well they knew them at school, do not
phone up and ask for three quarters of a
million dollars. There must have been more
to it.
He emailed his father, adding more pressure

by saying that MFC had been approached by
a serious Caribbean based investor, but he,
Newry, wanted to give Dad the first right of
refusal on what he said was a fantastic ‘entry
into Asia’. He went on to extol the
advantages in the new Chinese markets now
opening up.
71
DAVID ALEXANDER
Needham knew how his son operated, but

did concede the Chinese markets were
looking good. Deep down though, he was
already wishing the entire saga would
disappear. He couldn’t be bothered with all
the time being wasted and the endless
pathetic calls. It was fast developing into a
case of “give him the money for peace and
quiet” at home.
Needham put this to Caplin, who was also

becoming fed up with hearing about the
whole saga. He was a man with a short fuse
and slammed a fist onto his desk at
Needham shouting, “It’s time someone asked
the little bastard if he knew what he was
doing.” For the first time, Needham tetchily
suggested that Caplin contact his son
directly.
“What guarantee do we have that we will get

our money back?” Caplin wrote in his email
to Newry.
The straight answer, by return from Newry

was “none”. He also replied that “neither
MFC nor its directors had funds or sufficient
72
CROOKED KNIGHT:
security for such a loan.” This was sheer

effrontery.
A stunned Caplin went straight to Richard

Needham showing him his son’s response.
Needham was quite startled and edgy,
probably because he was being battered from
all quarters, home and Hong Kong. He caved
in and emailed his son saying okay, but they
would charge 20 per cent interest for 12
months and that as it was a short-term loan,
they should have the right to convert to
equity if they wanted. It was really quite
amazing that given the lack of MFC company
information that no one investigated if the
company might have been trading whilst
insolvent.
Newry was delighted, because he had yet

again persuaded his father, as he always
thought he would. In many ways, the lad was
a chip off the old block. Throughout the
exchange of emails, Bradley had not been
informed of the loan request nor the terms
set by Needham.
73
DAVID ALEXANDER
In fact, no meeting of directors, no minutes,

no document of any kind approving the
considerable advance was recorded. Within
seven days Needham sealed the deal with
Caplin’s connivance. His wife Sissy called her
son.
“Darling, daddy’s arranging for you to have

your 750,000 US dollars, but your friend has
got one or two little things to do. Now where
are we?” She went on rummaging for the
notes her husband had left her. “Ah yes. Here
we are. God, where’s my glasses.” More
background sounds of papers falling on the
floor. “That’s better. Now this is what we
have to do. Daddy’s left me a note to wire
your dollars, darling, from ‘his new company’
IEQ. Funny name isn’t it? Now could your
friend send us a little note when he’s got a
moment that he’s received the money I
sent?”
Sissy Needham was not an IEQ director, but

her husband had set up a bank mandate for
her signatory on IEQ’s current account with
Barclays Bank for just such occasions.
74
CROOKED KNIGHT:
So she instructed the company’s bankers to

move the funds.
Micah Truman certainly did respond when

he received the funds. It was an
extraordinary email. He introduced himself
and his company MFC to Richard Needham,
chairman of the company that had just lent
him US$750,000, for the first time.
Wild celebrations followed Newry and his

chum Micah Truman’s hoodwinking of
Richard Needham. It had been a brilliant
coup for them. Life at their level was
expensive. In some circles it is referred to as
selling your family down the river. It has to
be said though, that Sir Richard Needham
did not employ any caution in the affair and
that in his eyes the cash had to be expedited
as quickly as possible. It was as good as
giving his son a cheque from his own bank
account, he thought, only it wasn’t his to
give. It was the company’s; and he had acted
without shareholders’ and all of the directors’
knowledge.
75
DAVID ALEXANDER
Caplin and Needham were beginning to

behave as if Bradley and IEQ’s shareholders
were of no consequence. IEQ was their baby
to do with as they pleased. But even they
had a boss.
D uring the same period, Wall Street was

being forced down as the US consumer
index showed that energy and transport
costs had risen sharply. The report gave the
Federal Open Market Committee the
opportunity to raise interest rates by half a
per cent.
One London dealer said: ‘the market was

becoming nervous about market levels’.
Many were predicting that the tough trading
would last for the whole of the second
quarter. Prophetically, selling had becoming
increasingly indiscriminate, driven by
emotion rather than common sense. The
technology and communications markets
were taking a hammering and that should
have rung some bells for the IEQ duo,
Needham and Caplin.
76
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Meanwhile, in a part of Spain where UK

crooks enjoy the good life, M25 murderer
Kenneth Noye, otherwise known as Mr Gold
because of the excessive gold jewellery
draped about his tattooed person, was about
to have his freedom brought to an abrupt
end.
Kent police officers nabbed him in Tarifa

whilst he was sipping some Rioja before
being served some local seafood delicacies.
Noye had committed the ultimate act of road
rage by stabbing an innocent motorist, whom
he had cut up on the M25 slip road near the
A2. He had been on the run for some time.
Noye didn’t waste his time robbing people.
He was a highly successful fence. He’d
previously lived near Wrotham, Kent, beside
a lot of his former business acquaintances
and not too far from Keith Harris.
77
6
“The measure of success is not whether you
have a tough problem to deal with, but
whether it's the same problem you had last
year.”—JOHN FOSTER DULLES
A
t the same time MadeForChina was
trying to turn itself into a real
company with IEQ’s unauthorised
loan, property entrepreneur Nigel
Wray, bosom buddy to Keith Harris, was
riding rough waters. Amongst his many
appointments was that as deputy chairman
and part owner of the ill-fated Columbus
Group. When his problems began to surface,
the group was in the throes of taking over
Highbury House Communications, a
smallish publisher with a number of leisure
activity magazines.
78
CROOKED KNIGHT:
During 1999, the Department of Trade and

Industry (DTI) raided the firm three times
and spent the next five months carrying out
their investigations. Wray, who is one of the
City’s most inexhaustible directors, had the
Midas touch for buying and selling at the
right time. At the time of the DTI
investigation, Wray made an instructing
phone call to his broker and sold five million
Columbus shares at 56p each, netting
himself £2.6 million. It also emerged that
just three short weeks after the share sale in
September, Columbus Group’s finance
director issued a profits warning. Despite his
directorship and role as deputy chairman,
Wray consistently denied any knowledge of
the DTI investigations.
As Wray was sitting in Keith Harris’s

kitchen, with John Mackay, plotting the
takeover of Talisman House plc with the help
of Stephen Barclay, the DTI was camped out
in the Columbus Group office in North
London, collecting documents relating to one
of its businesses, Chart Search.
79
DAVID ALEXANDER
The following month, whilst Keith Harris

was dreaming of buying a motor cruiser, the
DTI again invited themselves to Columbus’s
offices and removed documents relating to
another of their ventures, UK Prize Club.
That visit was followed by an investigation
into a mail order company Columbus
fronted, which sold a rather bizarre product
called ‘Our Lady of Lourdes Water.’
Finally, and rather begrudgingly, the group’s

MD, Jeremy Issac conceded in a press
statement that there had been an
investigation.
Nigel Wray, who only liked good press about

himself, eventually agreed to make a
personal statement, saying: “I sold my shares
having obtained the board’s permission.
Then in early September they came to see me
and told me something was wrong.”
It was interesting to note that Columbus

Group’s former finance director Iain
Gilchrist resigned after a series of rows with
Wray and company secretary Bruce Law.
80
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Gilchrist had actually issued the profits

warning in June, but it seems little heed was
paid.
Wray’s lack of personality is renowned. He is

credited with one of the most uninspiring
sports quotes, uttered with reference to his
Saracens rugby club dealings: “We need to
act and not sit like rabbits trapped in
headlights.”
Another enterprise that gave Wray a few

headaches around the same time was his
directorship of the restaurant group Hartford
that owned an upmarket US-style diner
called Pharmacy that sported Prozac in the
window and suppositories in the toilet. The
restaurant had become stock market listed
with a £13 million valuation when it was
reversed into the AIM-listed Hartford Group.
It seemed the group was in need of some
vitamin injections.
T he atmosphere in the dimly-lit Hong

Kong nightclub was muggy, as the air
conditioning hadn’t been fixed properly.
81
DAVID ALEXANDER
It was around 9.30 p.m. and the evening

hadn’t quite got into the swing of things. A
few scantily dressed dancers shimmied
around the small stage. Young girls were
almost competing with each other trying to
encourage the few guests to buy a bottle of
whisky to share with them at an inflated
price. The girls were under orders to slide
into the chair next to the guest and strike up
a conversation. They had to stay with that
man until the end of the evening. It was
optional whether they left with him for the
night.
In a corner booth Viscount Newry and Byron

Constable were deep in conversation.
“It’s all gone wrong,” Constable said. “

Micah’s reporting problems.”
Even in the darkened room it was clear

Newry’s face had gone chalk white. He
almost rasped, “What?”
The former forecast analyst went on: “I had a

call from him this afternoon and he was in a
state.
82
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Said creditors are pushing him.”
“But it’s only two months since mother sent

the money. I thought Micah was supposed to
be a fucking expert on the Chinese Internet,”
Newry responded in a trembling voice.
“I don’t know the ins and outs. Micah’s a law

unto himself,” Constable went on. “Maybe I
wasn’t told the full story about how bad the
finances were when I first contacted you. I’m
a busy guy, you know. I can’t keep tabs on
everything. There’s more to my life than
MadeForChina, and I left all the day-to-day
with Micah. You’ve got to trust people to get
it right haven’t you, mate?” The last word
was added for effect and it worked.
“Christ, what am I going to tell dad?”

Newry’s face had sunk towards his chest.
“He’s going to go ballistic, and his partner
Caplin, he’s a tight arse. Probably has the
first quid he ever wrestled out of his mother’s
purse. You know I was actually joking when I
told him your company was unlikely to pay
the money back.
83
DAVID ALEXANDER
I’m a dead man, Byron. I suppose you’re

wanting me to do the dirty work and tell
them, aren’t you?” he added angrily.
“Well, I could ask Micah to send an email to

your dad, I suppose,” he said, pausing as if
he hadn’t given it any thought, which was
quite the opposite. “I mean, best we do it
now because there’s no way they’re going to
get them their money back within the twelve-
month repayment period. Not a hope in
Hell.”
“But that’s company money, Byron, not dad’s

personal dosh.”
“Surely they’ve got tons of it? That’s what

you told me.”
“Yeah, the company did, but dad would

never give a penny to anyone out of his own
pocket. Talk about tight. That’s why Caplin
and he get on so famously. This is a big
problem and I wish I’d never become
involved. I’ve been shafted. How has it come
to this anyway?”
84
CROOKED KNIGHT:
“Seems slow paying clients created a cash

flow problem, and you know Micah’s
lifestyle. Nothing but the best in our office.
He enjoys the best of everything.” The
cryptic comment was meant for a knowing
friend.
Newry began to wonder if IEQ’s money

hadn’t gone to support Micah’s fast lane
lifestyle anyway, and perhaps that of his
friend to boot. He recalled that his pal had
some unsavoury habits, although they did
indulge in them together sometimes.
A girl came over to ask if they wanted more

drinks, at the same time brushing her hip
against Constable’s shoulder. Any other time
that would have provoked an immediate
response. This time he slid his hand around
her bottom and patted it longingly.
“Not just now, sweetie,” he smiled. “We talk

business. Okay?”
The girl smiled and withdrew, casting a

lingering glance over her shoulder.
85
DAVID ALEXANDER
Newry had become agitated. He could just

see the scene back in the UK. Caplin raging
with dad, and mother sobbing at the thought
of all the shame her son’s friend had brought
upon their good name. It would be difficult
at the parties. They might be shunned.
Christ, the prospect didn’t bear thinking
about.
Constable broke his thoughts.

“Remember your dad gave us an option that
if we fucked up, then ‘his firm’, this
Intermediate Equity plc, would have the
option to convert to equity? Then we just do
that, mate. No one will lose out. Problem
sorted.”
Deep down though, Newry knew someone

had to tell his father and it had begun to look
like his unlucky day.
“I’ll phone him,” he told Constable.
“That’s a good idea, since you know him

better.” A rather crass remark, Newry
thought.
86
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The whole MadeForChina saga seemed to

have been a bit of a piss-take since day one.
It had become an obvious case of bail us out
with a bob or two. He suspected they never
intended to repay the loan in the first place.
N ewry made the call to the family home

at Cirencester. His mother had
answered and initially thought it was a
Sunday morning surprise call home. She
became more fixed to the wooden hall floor
as she listened to what her son told her. It
was ghastly, she had thought. What had
those nasty people in China done to her boy?
He seemed ever so upset. She wished she
could give him a cuddle.
As Newry kept repeating it wasn’t his fault,

his mother snapped back, saying, “I’ll put
you over to your father.”
The wailing from his wife on the phone had

brought Needham in from the garden.
He had taken the phone and remained

riveted as the story was delivered.
87
DAVID ALEXANDER
“I’ll call you back,” he hissed, as he closed his

eyes in despair. His wife fussed around him,
but he shrugged her off and dialled Caplin’s
mobile number. He then called Peter Crystal,
who had mentioned he was just back from
his health spa, and set up a meeting for the
next day.
I t was a sombre meeting on a brilliantly

sunny day outside Memery Crystal’s
Southampton Row offices. Wimbledon
was in full flow and Needham’s wife Sissy
was talking about nothing else. She and her
friends had secured debenture holder tickets
for the afternoon women’s singles games and
the air in their Gloucestershire house had
been heavy with perfume and chattering
women, something Needham couldn’t abide.
It all seemed so trivial to him set against the
problem he was going to have to sort out that
morning.
He remembered his right to convert to

equity, a suggestion he had made to his son’s
friend, but thought it would never come to
that stage. It was not going to be an easy one
to resolve.
88
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Crystal broke the silence and looked at

Caplin and Needham. He really wanted to be
elsewhere, as there was a new investment
company his firm might get sight of if the
lunchtime meeting went well, so he was
somewhat distracted and his mind wasn’t
really on the current job of sorting out the
MadeForChina mess.
He sat with his hands clasped in front of him

and reiterated the facts as he had heard them
from Needham in a controlled voice: “So this
MadeForChina outfit can’t repay IEQ’s loan?
Money loaned to your son’s school chum.
Supposed to be a quick fix and a good return
for IEQ’s shareholders. Cayman Island
company, based in Beijing, with little or no
assets and the officers haven’t anything.
Right?”
Then, as he glared at both men, Crystal’s

voice raised as he nearly shouted: “Why did
you wire $750,000 to your son’s friend as a
bailout in the first place? It was barely three
months ago. How well did you know these
men in China?”
89
DAVID ALEXANDER
Needham shook his head as Caplin’s face

became redder. Crystal stared straight at
Needham, his flabby jaw moving up and
down like a hound’s. “Why didn’t you come
and see me?” he said more quietly. “You
know I could have sorted it in the first place.
Haven’t I always managed to?”
“It wasn’t that easy, Peter,” Needham

protested. “Robert’s friend was desperate.
What could I do? And I did talk to Anthony
here.” He looked at Caplin who suddenly
erupted, slamming his fist on the oak table.
“That son of yours, Richard, is a spoilt brat

who has never wanted for anything, who
doesn’t know what a full day’s work is and
seems to think money grows on trees. All
through his boring little life, Daddy always
paid, didn’t he?” The word “daddy,” spat
from his mouth, resonated in the closed
office.
Needham went quiet. He knew his son wasn’t

a shining example of business acumen.
90
CROOKED KNIGHT:
He also knew he himself had made one of the

biggest mistakes of his life in giving them the
money. It was all going horribly wrong. It
was then that Needham added, “I didn’t wire
the money, Peter.”
“Go on,” Crystal managed.
“Sissy sent the money to MadeForChina. I

added her to IEQ’s mandate at Barclays
months ago to relieve some of the strain
from my daily schedule. And to keep her
busy,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
With the last bombshell, Crystal intervened,

letting a steaming Caplin calm down, and
said quietly, a wry smile emerging, “I don’t
think there’s much we can do Richard, with
this one. You must have known you
shouldn’t have made the loan. Having made
it, you should have made provision against
the loan in full. It’s standard practice. Looks
as if your boy’s friend’s business is about to
hit an iceberg and I’m not sure if there’s a
lifeboat handy for you.”
91
DAVID ALEXANDER
“So how do we get out of this?” Caplin had

quietened slightly despite the fact the veins
in his head were still pulsing.
Crystal sat back and looked at the top of the

window over the shoulders of the two
directors. He stared absently, shrugging his
shoulders, then looked at both of them and
said: “I’m sorry Tony, this one is for Richard
to sort out. I can’t help you. No one can.”
Caplin exploded again, sending glasses flying

along the table. He stood up, almost foaming
at the mouth. His enraged face glared at
Needham. “You’ll pay for this, Richard. Your
stupid boy’s dropped us in it.” Then he
stormed out of the office. The other two sat
looking at each other for a few minutes until
Crystal remembered his lunch appointment
and stood up to see Needham out.
They shook hands, but both knew that the

meeting had started a change and things
with them would never be the same again.
92
CROOKED KNIGHT:
T he Crooked Knight went back to his

office and called his secretary in. She
sat primly, taking his instructions to
convert MadeForChina’s loan into equity.
There would be no directors’ meeting and
she was not to copy anyone in. She quietly
closed the door behind her.
The markets were in a downslide. Reuters,

Sage, Baltimore, Blue Circle, Fortis and a
host of other blue chips didn’t rally well that
June day in 2000.
The Royal Bank of Scotland called in its £20

million overdraft to Huntingdon Life
Sciences after its own staff had been
threatened by animal rights protestors. The
bank had acquired the account when it took
over the NatWest bank. The Labour Party
also pulled its investment in the company
after pensioner David Braybrook, who was
one of the 1,700 investors, opened his front
door to find protesters on his doorstep.
93
7
“Sometimes, the hardest decision made
is the right thing to do…”
—YANNY NATASHAM
I
n November 2000, the UK took a
hammering when the world turned its
back on any British blood products
donated by people with residency in the
UK of longer than six months. The excuse
was to stem the spread of the human form of
BSE. The EU Commission waffled as usual,
saying it didn’t like interfering with member
states’ health policies and reckoned they had
brought in enough BSE and CJD controls.
The Department of Health in London was
unsure whether outright bans would make
blood safer. A spokesperson said: “The risk
remained theoretical and it was for each
country to balance out the risks.” The reality
was that some of the carcass disposal plants
were less than hygienic.
94
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The markets started fluttering. They

continued in that vein in New York, where
fears of an advertising slowdown brought
shares in major media groups such as Disney
and News Corporation down with a wallop.
The market downturn was generously
assisted by Merrill Lynch’s highly influential
media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen, who
considered it prudent to downgrade both
groups’ prospects; an unusual move on her
part, as she normally supported Rupert
Murdoch’s News Corporation empire.
A n Intermediate Equity plc board meeting

had been called for that same day in
November. Needham, Caplin, John
Mackay, John Shaw, Christopher Foster and
Jonathan Wright all met at Memery Crystal’s
Southampton Row offices. A strange
delusion prevailed that somehow meeting
there would be more impartial. Their mutual
hallucination couldn’t have been further
from the truth.
It was a sombre meeting and they all looked
absorbed in their own thoughts.
95
DAVID ALEXANDER
News of the MadeForChina affair had leaked

out and all those in attendance had an idea
as to where it had sprung from. Viscount
Newry and his loose mouth was rated at odds
of six to four on. They were all wrong. It was
Sissy and her bleating about how awful and
stupid the Chinese were that rang all the
alarm bells. She just couldn’t keep quiet to
her friends, who were, of course, wives of
other City investment traders. Neither could
she see that her son lacked business sense
preferring to believe that he had been
‘played’ by his fair-weather friend. She
received polite, sympathetic noises, but as
ever with people who move in certain circles,
when someone’s tainted they become
unwanted goods, the result being that fewer
social invitations were received in
Gloucestershire for a while.
Caplin, as usual, broke the silence

impatiently. He had given himself the
minimum of time for this meeting, a
predictable sign of his total lack of interest.
He and Needham didn’t even exchange
glances as they seated themselves around the
large conference table.
96
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Caplin didn’t forget nor could he forgive,

believing that Needham had breached all the
boundaries by moving the MadeForChina
loan into equity. He felt that he should have
been consulted at the very least. The other
directors and advisers didn’t matter.
“Right, let’s get on with it,” he snapped at the

assembled group. “I’ll let you tell them
what’s happening, Richard.” He barely
glanced at his long-time friend.
Sir Richard Needham looked around the

room and took a deep breath. Weighing his
words very carefully, he said quietly: “Tony
and I are resigning; effective immediately.”
Both Shaw and Foster looked surprised.
John Mackay didn’t. He had visited

Needham at his house in Cirencester for the
weekend and heard all about the
MadeForChina fiasco, first from Sissy over
drinks in the conservatory whilst Needham
was changing upstairs, then from “The Old
Man,” as Mackay liked to call him when he
97
DAVID ALEXANDER
wasn’t within earshot. She had beaten her

husband to offering any sensible
explanation, but then there wasn’t really one
to give. Mackay was aghast and wondered
how the man could be so stupid. Do these
people live on the same planet as the rest of
us? For someone who had held a Cabinet
post, had been a Member of Parliament and
held umpteen directorships, this loan was a
blundering mistake. Incredible. And what in
Hell was Sissy doing writing out cheques
without an official position within the
company?
The two weekend evenings that rolled well

into the early hours were spent planning just
how to get Needham out of this mess with
minimal - preferably nil - press exposure.
The prospect of bad press gave the Crooked
Knight the shivers. The conclusion they both
kept returning to was that he and Caplin
would have to resign, and in many ways that
suited Needham. He didn’t like to face
hassles, preferring to dodge problems. If that
dropped others into the quicklime, then so
be it.
98
CROOKED KNIGHT:
However, in the case of IEQ there were such

lucrative gains he didn’t want to lose out on
entirely. He wanted to retain some sort of
stake. So the two men plotted to ensure he
could bite all sides of the cake. As they
schemed, they inevitably realised they would
gradually be turning IEQ into a front,
basically using it to launder millions of
pounds for the benefit of Seymour Pierce and
those inside the circle of trust.
A smiling Needham and Mackay parted

company on a sharp, frosty Monday
morning, having solved their problem.
C hristopher Foster was another old friend

of the original IEQ board members who
had been introduced by Keith Harris,
although he wasn’t told everything that went
on. He was expected to follow the boss’s
dictates.
He asked the room, though his question was

directed at Caplin and Needham, “So with
you gone, where does this leave the board,
because none of us are currently directors.”
99
DAVID ALEXANDER
Caplin snapped: “Well you are now.”
“What, all three of us?”
Foster meekly returned the blank stares of

both Needham and Caplin. Sometimes he
appeared as if he didn’t deserve to better
himself, constantly displaying an obvious
self-esteem problem.
“Yes, got it in one,” Caplin retorted

sarcastically. He couldn’t stand brown
nosers.
“So where do we go from here and what

about your MadeForChina screw up?” John
Shaw asked. “Are we supposed to face the
press and IEQ’s shareholders on your
behalf?”
Needham came in quickly. “Yes, you will, but

with the two of us gone, it should simmer
down quickly, if it gets a notice at all.”
Shaw didn’t feel reassured by that remark.

He wasn’t happy facing the shit on behalf of
someone else, but knew he had little option.
100
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Refuse this and future directorships might

not be offered. That was one of the rules of
their game.
Needham and Caplin then went on to explain

that although officially resigned from the
board, they would be feeding suitable
companies with investment potential to IEQ.
When asked by Shaw where they might come
from, Needham replied that he would find
them.
Redstone had been his only major

investment hit to date, but being a good one,
this seemed to satisfy the new board
members. Mackay smiled quietly to himself
because he knew just how big the pot of gold
was likely to become.
Caplin then added: “And we’ll get £25,000

each as severance, for our trouble.”
Despite the fact that the amount was more

than three times their agreed annual salary,
and despite the fact that they were resigning,
he felt entitled; after all, without his and
101
DAVID ALEXANDER
Needham’s ‘good names’, IEQ would surely

have remained Harris’s and Mackay’s pipe
dream.
The new IEQ directors, plus Needham,

Caplin, Harris, Wray and their adviser, Peter
Crystal, were almost an unofficial holding
company in their own right, united in their
collective skulduggery. Either one or a group
of them were always working behind the
scenes on any number of investments.
It is really quite amazing, as well as being

illegal, that there had never been, with only
one or two exceptions, any minutes taken at
any IEQ board meeting. It was almost as if
these men felt IEQ wasn’t a proper public
limited company, but merely a tool to suit
their plans elsewhere. It was fortunate for
them, but unfortunate for so many IEQ
shareholders - members of the public who
had invested what was for them a lot of
money on false promises - that these men
were protected by a system that prevents
most people from pursuing such crimes, and
they knew it.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
A nthony Caplin was particularly

interested in dreaming up company
names to fit the empty shells he had
created, then offering them to IEQ to raise
capital.
One such company was called 2020Me

Limited. There is a rather interesting letter
dated 13th March 2000, together with a share
subscription application attached, relating to
that company with many pencilled
alterations throughout.
The document reads “You have agreed to

subscribe for 500 ordinary shares of £1
(nominal value) each in Pro Arbiter
Associates 2020Me Limited at a subscription
price of £500 per share.” The problem is that
the “Pro Arbiter Associates” title is
consistently scored out throughout the letter
with the name “2020Me Limited” written in
next to it. The letter then asks the punter to
send a cheque for £250,000 made out to Pro
Arbiter Associates 2020Me Limited. The
letter is signed by Tony Caplin on behalf of
Pro Arbiter Associates 2020Me Limited.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Underneath the signature are some notes

saying, “because the shares are not currently
listed on the stock exchange it may be
difficult for the investor to realise his
investment in Pro Arbiter Associates
2020Me Limited.”
That mess of a letter was sent to Richard

Needham. There follows an application for
shares form dated 20th March 2000, signed
and posted by Sir Richard Needham from his
home - or was it? - because the address read
“care of” an address in the West Country.
Needham purchased 500 shares on behalf of

Intermediate Equity plc for £250,000.
Scribbled on the original letter are the words
“cheque sent to Tony 22 March” and then
another scribble, “sent to Tony’s home.” All
very cosy and personal, but not what one
would consider correct business procedure
for a public limited company, traded on AIM.
On behalf of the board, since Clive Bradley

had long since resigned in spirit if not
officially, Needham and Caplin failed to
disclose within IEQ’s accounts or to the
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
London Stock Exchange, that Caplin was a

director and a major shareholder of 2020Me
Limited. It wouldn’t take long, however, to
discover that the company was merely
another scam through which more than £9.5
million disappeared with neither assets nor
product to show for it. The MD, Colin Frost,
sped off to Australia. IEQ shareholders never
saw their money again.
In time, Caplin resigned from 2020Me

Limited, refusing to comment on the
company’s management, bleating as he so
often does that he was just a non-executive
director. That excuse is consistent for all of
these crooks.
Solicitor Paul Taylor of City firm Faegre

Benson Hobson Audley fronted for the
remaining “real” directors, denying that
anything was wrong and promising that the
affairs of the company would be disclosed to
shareholders. But after nearly three years
without a word, it’s safe to say they won’t be
filing any more accounts.
105
DAVID ALEXANDER
In the UK, there is no legal distinction at

Companies House for a non-executive
director. You are either a director or you’re
not, and if you are then you face the same
responsibilities as any other director.
Luckily, all directors are equal under the law.
Other companies, IEQ investments made by

the Crooked Knight and his associates, which
rose and fell like the tide, included Wise &
Lovey Information Services Limited
(perhaps someone with a theatrical interest
dreamt that one up).
Bibliotech Holdings plc was another one, a

public limited company which never gained
or even dared seek admission to AIM, and
one in which Caplin was also a director.
Again, he failed to declare his interest to IEQ
shareholders and again another £250,000
was advanced from IEQ’s coffers. Those
shares were eventually sold for 1 per cent of
what IEQ had paid. No return on investment
there.
Object Group plc underwent a couple of

name changes, but was eventually put
106
CROOKED KNIGHT:
forward as a good buy by Jonathan Wright,

who had left Memery Crystal as a practicing
solicitor by then and jumped right into the
thieves’ den with a directorship at Seymour
Pierce. He advised IEQ to buy the shares for
£250,000 after the company’s planned IPO
through respected City broker Williams de
Broë was aborted at the eleventh hour. The
reason for their pullout remains uncertain,
although the person dealing with Object
Group moved to a job with Seymour Pierce.
The question of whether he jumped or was
pushed springs to mind.
Using Seymour Pierce’s stationery, Wright

sent a memo to Irene Redman, who also
worked at Seymour Pierce at the time.
Wright claimed Object Group plc was
“profitable,” that it had a “pre-money
valuation of £4.5 million” and that it (the
company, but he really meant John Linney)
would “give up” 10 per cent of its equity for
£500,000.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Wright went on to describe what a great

investment Object Group would be for IEQ
and, as expected, a cheque arrived the same
day from IEQ’s account for yet another
£250,000. Object Group was never admitted
to AIM.
As soon as IEQ’s cheque was banked, Object

Group plc - then Object Group Limited -
changed its name to Object Support, and
another UK company, previously called
Object Support, began trading as Object
Group Limited.
Then, Object Support, formerly Object

Group, the company in which IEQ had
invested on the advice of Jonathan Wright
and with the approval of John Mackay, was
placed into voluntary liquidation a short time
later. Confused? You shouldn’t be - there can
be only one explanation for the name
swapping.
The bluffing continued until Object Group’s

MD John Linney said that Object Group
(formerly Object Support) had never been a
108
CROOKED KNIGHT:
wholly-owned subsidiary of Object Support

(formerly Object Group), despite the
reference within the Prospectus document,
previously prepared by Williams de Broë,
which Jonathan Wright had used to support
the investment proposal to IEQ. Incidentally,
John Mackay arranged for Seymour Pierce to
receive twice as many shares as IEQ in
exchange for merely advising on the IEQ
investment - or maybe its just that his
mathematics were better than both Wright’s
and Linney’s.
BuyIndiaOnline.com, based in Delaware

USA, can only be described as a ‘mystery
investment’. No documents relating to the
investment and no trace of the company, its
directors or its assets – if ever they existed -
have been located. This time, however, just
£125,000 was paid over by the former IEQ
directors. That company vanished as soon as
IEQ’s cheque was banked.
The Isle of Wight Cable and Telephone

Company Limited, a name with a John
Wayne western feel about it, was
109
DAVID ALEXANDER
experiencing a serious cash flow problem.

Seymour Pierce agreed to organise a £7
million syndicated loan. Of that total,
£277,000 was contributed by IEQ on John
Mackay’s say-so. A further £373,000 had
been invested by IEQ through the purchase
of shares, so that in the end, £650,000 was
invested - and at risk - by IEQ.
The loan and equity was authorised by

Mackay at the same time Seymour Pierce
was adviser and merchant banker to the
company. No mention was made that
Seymour Pierce also had been granted a
floating charge over the assets of the
company. Neither was it revealed that unless
Seymour Pierce was successful in arranging
the entire £7 million in loan, it would have to
find the money itself, since Harris and
Mackay had agreed to underwrite the
syndicated loan facility in the first place. An
added incentive was the £500,000 fee being
paid to Seymour Pierce for arranging the
loan. A motivating amount.
110
CROOKED KNIGHT:
True to form, barely 60 days after the money

was paid over, the company defaulted, and
all of it was lost. IEQ was able to sell its loan
note for £100,000 to someone who then
passed it on to Seymour Pierce. In the end,
the baddies won and they acquired the lot,
which was reborn as a Phoenix company now
called Wright Cable Limited. In total, more
than £5 million was lost by creditors, except
Seymour Pierce.
Shareholders lost everything, except CLS

Holdings plc, one of the original major
shareholders, who got that holding back
recently for a nominal sum after Seymour
Pierce began systematically disposing of its
assets. Interestingly, Keith Harris is a
director of CLS Holdings plc.
Radio First plc was one of Keith Harris’s

babies. Football mad, he dreamed of creating
a network of radio stations targeting
supporters throughout the UK. As ever, he
was the chairman and major shareholder -
personally as well as through Seymour
Pierce.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Again not bothering to inform IEQ’s

shareholders of the obvious conflict of
interest, John Mackay and his fellow
directors authorised a £200,000 investment.
Much later, after the baddies were gone, IEQ
began selling those shares as soon as the
connection was made, but recovered just
£25,000 before it went down the pan.
Eventually, the company was struck off AIM
and liquidation followed a short time later.
Video Networks Limited was a private
limited company that did well to raise more
than £200 million from UK investors,
including many big names like Sir David
Frost and Lord Owen, the former British
Foreign Secretary. After running up massive
debts trying to outmanoeuvre British
Telecom (BT), the company was seized by its
largest creditor, Chris Larson of Microsoft
fame, and the investors’ money went down
the drain.
John Mackay had a hand in the Video

Networks’ investment because of his role as
corporate representative for PSL Nominees
Limited, the company that held shares for
Jersey-based Baron Bentinck.
112
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Mackay was an IEQ director at the time he

authorised the £450,000 payment for the
benefit of Bentinck and that was the last IEQ
ever saw of the money. For his trouble,
Mackay was gifted a directorship to Video
Networks, but even that didn’t last long after
Larson seized control.
Seymour Pierce was churning these

companies through its machine for IEQ to
invest in and it was taking huge fees to boot.
The number of new acquisitions associated
with Memery Crystal and Seymour Pierce,
when added to the number of AIM flotations,
became the talk of the City.
In short order, more than £3 million of IEQ

shareholder funds where lost through the
investments made by and through Seymour
Pierce. However, other companies also
associated with one or more of the former
directors reported losses far exceeding those
of IEQ. There is no telling how much
Seymour Pierce and Memery Crystal earned
in fees for their services or how much the
directors earned through their private buying
113
DAVID ALEXANDER
and selling of shares piggybacked onto the

IEQ deals. What is known is that there
seemed very little that could stop these men,
or so they thought.
T he King of Porn, Richard Desmond, now

Daily Express Newspaper Group owner,
was purring in tune with his new
Daimler. A smallish man, he had to peer
above the steering wheel, his tubby figure
straining to see where he was going. He was
wallowing in the success of having bought
the Express for £125 million with the help of
his old mate, Keith Harris. He was now
quickly working through his plan to shed
staff. He had at least 130 journalists to kick
up the arse and out of the building by early
next year.
Teach them a lesson about writing shitty

things about him, the scumbags, he mused.
After all, he was a publisher of leisure
magazines, not porn. It wasn’t quite true, he
thought, that he called his butler into
editorial conferences with a banana served
up on a plate. It was a “fuckin’ silver platter!”
he muttered to no one.
114
CROOKED KNIGHT:
He had recently taken David and Posh Becks

up to his penthouse office suite overlooking
London. As they entered the impressive
room, an assistant left standing near the
door, he turned down the lights so they could
see the city better and said: “Fuckin’ Hell, I
own the Express. And David, you're the best
footballer in England. Fucking brilliant.
Victoria, you're the most famous pop star in
England. Fucking brilliant.”
The coarse newspaper magnate in the luxury

motor car was on his way to the Prime
Minister’s country retreat, Chequers. The
house, dating back to the 16th century, is set
in rolling Buckinghamshire countryside - a
jewel of the Home Counties. It had been
donated to the nation in 1917.
Desmond pulled up at the front gate and

spoke rudely to the guard. The massive gate
swung open after what seemed like several
minutes and he drove slowly up Victory
Drive, along which Sir Winston Churchill
had planted Beech trees in the 1960s.
Desmond wanted to savour each moment.
115
DAVID ALEXANDER
“Fucking brilliant,” he said to himself.
The invitation to the small intimate dinner

had included a partner, and he thought for a
moment that the blonde with the big tits
would have liked to come, but he had had
second thoughts, feeling she wouldn’t fit in.
He was moving up a class or two and it had
only cost him a few hundred grand in the
Labour Party donation box to get him there.
The money had caused some friction in the

Party ranks because of his porn connections,
but he knew they would accept the money.
They always did. Member of Parliament
Claire Short had once whipped his
publications off the top shelf. The invitation
he now held in his hand seemed to be putting
the magazines back on to the lower shelves.
Life was good. He thought again about the
blonde, felt a hardness coming on and
blotted her out of his mind as he reached the
front door.
116
8
"You can buy a person's hands but you can't
buy his heart. His heart is where his
enthusiasm, his loyalty is.”
—STEPHEN COVE
I
arrived in London by EuroStar from
Paris on Thursday 24th May 2001. It had
been an experience speeding through the
Channel Tunnel, a journey taking only
20 minutes to complete from Calais to
Folkestone in Kent.
I hadn’t tried the train before, but was

persuaded by friends on the French side to
give it a go, and apart from the final slower
leg from Ashford in Kent, the trip was
smooth and pleasant. Having time on my
hands, I decided to go for a drink in one of
Waterloo Station’s numerous watering holes.
I took out the early evening edition of the
117
DAVID ALEXANDER
London Evening Standard I had just bought

and buried myself in that day’s news.
I lived in Paris with my French wife Marie.
Her family had a number of business
interests spread throughout France; from
hotels to car rental agencies, but mostly
tourism related. We lived in a small flat, they
had given us as a wedding gift, not far from
the city centre, which meant its value had
more than tripled since we got it. They say
London is the centre of the universe, but I
reckon Paris comes a very close second. I
love the buzz of both cities, but culturally
they’re poles apart. London always seems to
have more foreigners than anywhere else bar
New York City, possibly.
I scanned the business pages. The main

headline was about Rupert Murdoch’s
complicated bid to take over satellite
television station DirecTV, a move being
scuppered by a counter bid from its
American rival, EchoStar.
Murdoch’s problem was lack of cash for

DirecTV’s parent company’s shareholders at
General Motors.
118
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Turning back to the general news, the lead

story was that Britain appeared to be dying
of boredom caused by a lacklustre general
election. It looked to an outsider like me that
the Conservative and Liberal parties didn’t
have enough leadership inspiration and the
electors were seeing the entire event as a
foregone conclusion. Blair would get in
again.
Glancing over to the empty table adjacent, I

saw a spare Daily Express. I pulled it over. I
had read about Richard Desmond taking
over the paper because all the French papers
were vying with each other to expose his
porn connections and were speculating on
his intentions with the Express. No one took
him seriously.
Finishing my drink, I carted my suitcase out

to the front of the station. I considered
catching a bus as the traffic looked heavy and
a taxi was expensive, but opted for a cab
anyway and arrived at the Meridian Hotel in
Piccadilly, just along from the Circus and
almost opposite the Ritz.
119
DAVID ALEXANDER
I was in London to meet up with a firm of

brokers to buy shares in a company that had
caught my interest as I did my daily cruise of
the world’s financial markets. The meeting
was next Tuesday the 29th, a special day in
my calendar it being my wedding
anniversary, and I thought I would surprise
my wife with some shares. The way this
company called Intermediate Equity plc had
sized up from its recent set of accounts,
made it a money-spinner, as it appeared to
be undervalued. The figures showed £1.2
million in the bank and more than £3.5
million in investments at book value.
I lay down on the large double bed that

counted as a single room. I thought I’d have
a snooze, a shower, and then try the
restaurant for dinner. Then I suddenly felt
alone and picked up the phone and called my
wife in Paris. Her voice always sent a glow
through me. Yes, everything was fine, she
told me. She was just waiting for her
girlfriend to come round for a girls’ evening
in. She was preparing the salad when I
called. I forgot Paris was an hour ahead.
Marie and I were best friends as well as
120
CROOKED KNIGHT:
husband and wife. She would listen to my

moans and then cut right through them with
a sensible alternative. Despite our closeness,
we both needed our own space and were
never heavy on one another.
I had a meeting the next day with my

London solicitor about a commercial
property deal I was considering investing
in, then the weekend would be free for me to
become a typical tourist, something I’d never
had time to do. I thought that as the weather
was good I’d try one of those open top red
buses that go around all the top tourist sites.
I’ve always found that weekends in London

are the friendly times, unlike weekdays. I was
swept up in the cold, impersonal rush hour
the next day as I made my way to my
solicitor’s office in Moorgate. I caught the
tube by a hair at Green Park near my hotel
and travelled to Victoria then changed on to
the eastbound Circle Line, travelling through
ten stops to my destination. I stared back at
the impassive faces of my fellow passengers.
121
DAVID ALEXANDER
I loved trying to guess what people did with

their lives and why they might be travelling
and to where. As the tube rolled along, I kept
thinking about Tuesday and how I might be
about to make a quick killing with the shares
I intended buying. I felt happy.
Jim Brown, my personal solicitor, gave me a

big bear hug when we met. Being American,
he isn’t as reserved as we Brits. We had
some history between us with our love of
rugby, and we’d shared the same soggy, cold
Saturday afternoons on various terraces
cheering our team, the Saracens. We
exchanged rapid news snips, and then I
asked him if it was true the Belgian guy Nigel
Wray was buying into our team? “Yes,” Jim
replied, “and in a big way. He wants to be Mr
Big with it and run it from the front.” I went
on to say I’d heard many tales about Mr
Wray. That made Jim laugh, saying I’d
probably not heard the best ones yet.
He showed me the searches he’d made on the

property I was interested in, which was on
the edge of the City near Blackfriars. “Not far
from Seymour Pierce,” he said.
122
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I raised my eyebrows. “Why mention them?”

I asked. He looked hard at me and told me
they were practically joined at the hip with
the directors of this company I’d mentioned I
might be investing in, or so he had heard. A
ripple of uneasiness travelled through me.
There was a lot of speculation about the
people behind Seymour Pierce at that
moment. Jim saw my expression and patted
the back of my hand. “No worries old friend,”
he laughed, “it was just a throwaway remark.
It’s just that everyone’s been talking about
IEQ recently and the successes Seymour
Pierce has been having with its investments.
Personally,” he went on, “I think you’re
doing the right thing.”
We spent all morning talking about the

property, then adjourned for lunch in a
small, very old, traditional English pub that
served the best bitter and fish and chips.
I returned to his office on Monday and

concluded the deal then decided to walk back
to Piccadilly. I totally misjudged the
distance, succumbing at Holborn and finally
123
DAVID ALEXANDER
jumping on a bus travelling back along pretty

well the same route I followed on Tuesday to
see my new broker, my laptop strap weighing
my shoulder down. I didn’t want to miss any
opportunity to view a website that might be
offered at this meeting. This one would be
more formal. We weren’t best buddies.
I waited with the secretary, an officious

sort. After a few minutes, I was shown in
to see Mr “it was” Myers.
“Delighted to meet you at last, Mr

Alexander,” he said, his six-foot plus frame
looking down on me with a smile like Ali
Baba’s.
He sat me down opposite his desk with the

light shining on my face through the window
– an old trick. He was watching my every
expression, but it didn’t unnerve me.
“Yes, I’ve been looking at this company’s

accounts and for the short period they’ve
been in business, they appear to have done
very well, but it looks to be undervalued.”
124
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Myers mouth smiled, but his eyes did not.

Sounding like the Dickens character Uriah
Heep, he replied, “I could not wish for a
better investment.” I said I expected to turn a
sharp profit on the shares very quickly and
he agreed with me, albeit a bit hastily, on
reflection.
The papers for signing were at the side of his

desk and he slid them slowly over to me with
his well-manicured hands, maintaining eye
contact the whole time.
He looked disappointed when I leaned back

and started reading them. I couldn’t see
anything wrong, so I reached for my pen and
signed them on behalf of my company, of
which my wife and I were directors. He
called in Miss Frigid, his secretary, from next
door to witness the document. I actually
detected a feeling of warmth between those
two, but couldn’t believe it might be anything
other than years of working together.
We shook hands and I decided to throw

caution to the winds and take a cab back,
125
DAVID ALEXANDER
despite the long, slow journey.
I needed to unwind. Near Shaftesbury

Avenue I asked the cabbie to drop me off,
and I walked into The Palace theatre and
booked the best possible single seat for that’s
evening’s performance of Les Miserables.
Might as well brighten myself up. Uriah

Heep had gotten under my skin.
I arrived wearily back at the Meridian and

slung my unused laptop on the dressing
table. Hanging my jacket across the chair
and looking wistfully at the bed, I pulled
myself together and thought I’d better plug
into the Internet and see what my emails
were saying. First I called my wife Marie,
wishing her a happy anniversary and telling
her I would more than make up for it when I
came home. I then told her I had signed the
share documents and she was going to be a
rich lady. She was over the moon, but
reminded me in her native language, that she
already was a millionaire several times over.
I could almost visualise her arms waving
around. I really missed her.
126
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I opened the laptop, logged in and began

pulling down my emails. It was the usual
scroll and delete, short replies to some, save
to my briefcase to others. There were a lot. I
then reached an unknown name and
stopped. It had an attachment. You always
get the wind up when you see a new name in
that format. Virus? I convinced myself that
McAfee would have done its work and
clicked on the name. It was from one of
Intermediate Equity’s directors, suggesting I
might be interested in shares in various
companies elsewhere. They weren’t on AIM
yet as they were still at the incubation stage,
but they would give me a good turnaround
profit. I gazed at the screen, then either
through instinct or anger I banged the delete
button and wiped it. I could only imagine
Uriah Heep had tipped this guy off at IEQ,
thinking I was made of money, as I’d
indicated I might be up for more shares.
I sat back against the hard-backed chair and

thought about the IEQ shares. I decided to
adhere to my plan. If anything, I was even
considering buying more.
127
DAVID ALEXANDER
I pulled the telephone wire out of the laptop

and let the screensaver fall over the inbox
list. I had an hour and a half before the
theatre performance, so I lay down on the
bed. My back felt like it had been on the rack.
Tie loosened, top button undone, I eased into
a light sleep.
In another hotel less than a mile away, the

rent boy had just finished giving the client a
bloody good rogering in his fourth floor
suite. He liked foreigners because they
tipped well and even better when they
offered those little extras. He was a clean
boy. His clients were top bracket quality and
he had his reputation. The hotel porter
would get his cut for pushing this business
his way. He was choosy whom he shagged.
He preferred shunt and grunt, not the other
way around. He recognised this client from
the papers. Drop dead gorgeous, he thought;
and he always felt lucky when the other guy
had looks as well being a good shag. Most of
his clients had dreadful bodies. Viagra was
one of the best pills ever made for guys like
him. The client was taking a long shower, but
didn’t invite him to share.
128
CROOKED KNIGHT:
That was his signal. He slipped out of the

suite and made his way to his next client one
floor down, slipping into the gents for a tidy
en route.
I returned to Paris the next day on EuroStar

convinced it was a good way to travel. I
couldn’t shake the contents of the deleted
email out of my mind; or, more likely, I
couldn’t shake off the name of the sender,
John Mackay.
129
9
"It's not stress that kills us, it is our reaction
to it." —HANS SELYE
I
n what seemed a short time, I was on a
roll buying up more shares in
Intermediate Equity plc. I eventually
ploughed in £600,000, meaning I had
acquired 29.9 per cent of the company. All
the time I was being encouraged to invest by
good business press reports and by my
broker. My intention was to start selling the
shares within a couple months, for a return
on our investment of as much as £1.5 million
within another 60 days. They were exciting
days for Marie and myself, as we were right
in the thick of it.
In May, the UK was under siege from a major

foot and mouth outbreak that began with a
Northumbrian farmer illegally feeding his
beasts tainted offal from a nearby Chinese
restaurant.
130
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The offender was unrepentant throughout

the entire slaughter of millions of sheep and
cattle.
Accusations were being made that farmers

were deliberately infecting their animals for
compensation, and in some cases it was
proven that the movement orders were being
breached. The markets were jittery.
T he property I had bought in April had

now been renovated, and my first
tenants - a small firm of accountants -
were moving in. Jim, my solicitor, had
extracted a good deal out of that one. I
continued to stay in Paris and monitor my
investments. The Internet had moved the
business world into real time and news had
become instant. You could live anywhere.
At this time the wires were humming with

whispers that newly fledged newspaper
owner Richard Desmond had made a secret
deal with Manchester-based media agency
MediaVest, in which the agency would
receive a percentage of advertising deals it
131
DAVID ALEXANDER
steered toward the newspaper group. In a

letter dated February 2001 and sent to
MediaVest’s managing partner, Andy Jeal,
Express Group’s MD stated he wanted to
make Jeal a rich man and that only he, the
financial director and Desmond would know
about the arrangement. The agency at that
time managed clients such as Abbey
National’s Internet Bank, Cahoot, Marks and
Spencer’s Financial Services and the
Northern Rock Building Society.
Things were going well with my IEQ

investment until I sent some of my
accountancy papers to our old friend and
accountant Henry Jackson, of Jackson &
Son, based in Kent. It was time for him to
prepare our holding company for its annual
audit. Henry was meticulous, and aside from
being a great guy, he was an incredible skier,
although I once had to help him off the piste
in northern Italy when he was too ambitious
and broke an ankle.
He called me in Paris whilst Marie and I

were preparing to take the train south to the
Côte d'Azur for a week’s visit with Marie’s
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
ageing parents. I knew it was serious when

he suggested I postpone the trip and return
to the UK.
My wife’s face had that women’s intuitive

look when I tried to tell her everything would
be okay. Why do men try to deceive women?
It was obvious that if our trip had to be
cancelled, it wasn’t because a minor debit
figure had gone into a credit on our balance
sheet.
I stuck with my newfound love - EuroStar -

and caught the one just before noon from
La Gare du Nord, arriving in London at
1:30 p.m. A quick tube transfer to Victoria
and I was on a train to Kent that had seen
better days.
One of Henry’s clerks met me in a rather

battered Ford Escort and we made our way
through Westerham, near Churchill’s former
residence, Chartwell House, with its apple
orchards; through Oxted, past strawberry
fields ripening for Wimbledon, until we came
to a small village near the Sussex border.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
In England, even the small town

supermarkets have to keep a façade in
harmony with the area. No brash neon
display signs are permitted and even the
local takeaway has to have a ‘Ye Olde Worlde’
appearance.
We swung in behind Henry’s office, set in a

cul de sac of 18th century houses. He had
moved into a former florist’s business,
deciding to leave the shop front window open
plan, with a short set of vertical blinds. His
female assistants used to joke they felt they
were sitting in an Amsterdam knocking shop,
or words to that effect.
My accountant was delighted to see me

again, and after asking after each other’s
families, we got down to business as he
pulled out a pile of papers and newspaper
cuttings.
“I’m worried about this IEQ investment

you’ve made, David. It’s considerable.”
I looked surprised. After all, he was used to

me buying and selling advantageously in
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
deals involving large amounts of cash.
“Why?” I asked.
“The companies these guys are investing in

are not bearing fruit, David. In fact, they
resemble egg shells.”
I began to go cold despite my heart

quickening. I was feeling bad vibes.
“What have you found, Henry?” my voice

faltered.
“Well, they seem to be feeding cash into

Seymour Pierce, for a start, and then they go
bust.”
“Is it fraud?” I asked looking at him.
Henry was a typical accountant who never

liked to give opinions. He gave facts.
“We haven’t got proof of anything, David, but

it looks as if money is vanishing into thin air.
Their valuation of these IEQ investments
doesn’t add up.”
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DAVID ALEXANDER
“How thin?”
“Anorexic.” He hunched over the desk

towards me.
“Shit,” I replied, stunned. I didn’t believe it

could be happening to me. Marie and I had
£600,000 in that investment, and anger
flashed through me.
I looked at Henry, who was looking at me

sympathetically. “So what do we do?” I
asked helplessly.
“Jim’s your lawyer over here in the UK, isn’t

he?” I nodded. “Let me have a talk with him.”
I nodded again, like one of those toy dogs
with the head that bobs up and down. “You
staying locally?” I nodded again.
“Near Maidstone,” I replied, thinking

stupidly as you do upon hearing bad news
that I wouldn’t be in the mood to use my
hotel’s health club facilities.
“Henry,” I said, “how bad is it?”
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
He shook his head. “Come and see me

tomorrow at 11 a.m. I’ll have spoken to Jim.
Mike will give you a lift to your hotel.”
Seeing the likelihood of lots of back and forth

appointments, I thanked him, saying I
intended hiring a car at my hotel.
In the end, I did go down to the Marriott

leisure pool and sat in the Jacuzzi until my
skin resembled a prune. The brain goes into
a limbo with bad news and tries to shut
down. I had to clear it. My fellow Jacuzzi-
soakers realised I was in my own world and
gave up trying to make conversation.
N ext day I met Henry after he had briefed

Jim. He agreed something needed to be
done and that no more investments
were to take place for the time being. Could I
go up to Jim’s Moorgate office that day to
discuss what I should do? I agreed and drove
the few miles to Maidstone East station, not
noticing what a beautifully sunny day it was.
I took the tube from Victoria to Bank station
and decided a walk would do me good.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I looked up at the numerous offices,

wondering if they contained any of the
bastards who were playing with my family’s
money. I was becoming a very angry man
and knew I wouldn’t get off their case until
the bitter end.
I had chosen not to tell Marie until I

returned to Paris. It’s always better to
discuss something like this face to face.
J im shook my hand and patted my

shoulder. He came to the point quickly.
“Henry’s filled me in, David. I’m very
sorry about the way it’s turning out.
However, we have tried to put together a
plan of action and we’d value your view.”
I trusted both my solicitor and accountant

implicitly. Jim went on to say the best way to
recover any losses that might exist and were
as yet unproven was to take action before the
next AGM scheduled for 23rd July 2001. Jim
went on to say there were three IEQ
directors: John MacKay, Christopher Foster
and John Shaw, and they had to be ousted.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Our company was the largest shareholder

with 29.9 per cent and the support of some
of the other 1,650 shareholders, I should be
able to assume control of IEQ easily.
Jim said: “We’re going to remind those

directors that they needed to be appointed by
the shareholders, not gifted their positions
by friends.” To date those friends had done
what they pleased. But not any more. Jim
reminded me that if I was to go down this
road, it would take up a lot of my valuable
time and he knew I had other business
matters needing constant attention. It would
become yet another full-time career, he
warned.
I realised the truth of what he was saying,

but couldn’t see any other way of dealing
with it. Reading between the lines, I knew
Jim and Henry were of the same view as me,
that the existing directors together with the
former directors including Needham and
Caplin, were guilty of breach of fiduciary
duty and quite possibly fraud.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
There was a great deal we needed to do

before IEQ’s AGM if these thieves were to be
removed from their posts. I felt dejected and
in many ways helpless, knowing this was
likely to take a long time to resolve. I
returned to Paris.
A few days later, we received our notice of

the AGM. Just the normal stuff:
appointments to ratify and re-appointments
as usual. One or two odd requests regarding
share allocations and voting rights, but it was
all just wishful thinking for these directors.
As Jim had counselled, in the days leading

up to the meeting, we needed to remain quiet
about our plans. There was no capital in
showing our hand until the “judgment day.” I
felt a surge of anticipation run through me.
Marie, on the other hand, had taken the
whole thing very well, and, with typical
female logic, shrugged her shoulders and
said we would “just have to stand firm and
get rid of these crooks.” I was ready to lynch
them and tear their eyes out, but as usual she
acted as my stabiliser, and I eventually
calmed down.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
T his time Marie came with me to London

to see the showdown at Seymour Piece’s
offices at 29/30 Cornhill, a stone’s throw
from the Bank of England. Only a handful of
the smaller shareholders had turned up. It
was all going to be down to me, as usual.
The board was already in place when we

arrived and although they looked innocent
on the surface, there was constant shuffling
of papers and nervous faces that told me
these men were guilty as sin and afraid of
being found out. I was a new face and that
made them even more nervous. I was in my
element. This is how I like to make people
feel. It keeps them honest, usually.
A confident Peter Crystal was present,

though he sat in the back of the small
meeting room. John Mackay was in the
chair, seated between John Shaw and
Christopher Foster.
Mackay coughed nervously and opened the

meeting. A statement of the company’s
trading affairs was read out and it went on
and on.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I began to wonder how many lies could be

squeezed into the small piece of paper in
Mackay’s hand. I noticed his hand quivered
slightly. I looked around at the small band of
shareholders. They looked like retired
people, those with a modest pension having
an interest in the stock market to fill their
days. It was much more fun than shoving a
£1 into the pub’s fruit machine, and with
much better winning odds, or should be.
Mackay finished reading, then came to the

first resolution relating to the board
appointments. John Shaw took over the
chairman’s role briefly, because the first
appointment related to his long-time mate.
A vote was held on Mackay’s re-appointment
on a show of hands. The room was against
me and so I stood up demanding a poll of the
shareholders present. I’m not sure if I was
shouting, but Marie was lightly tugging my
trouser leg trying to calm me down. All my
anger was spilling out and the great British
reserve of the men at the board table was
stifling their urge to respond. Boy was I
angry.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
I remember shouting that the only bastard

on that board who had shares was John
Shaw, and it was trifling at 200 for 1p,
compared to our own company, which
owned 17,984,850. I briefly apologised to the
other shareholders around me, remembering
they had invested small amounts and I
needed them on my side.
John Mackay was looking like a candidate for

St Barts Hospital, near Smithfield, as his face
grew cherry red. He was seething, and he
wasn’t going to be moved off that board. His
eyes were brimming with sheer hatred.
Mackay spoke again: “I am reassuming the
chair,” he said. “It appears that we will need
to circulate ballot papers on the request of
Mr Alexander here. We will therefore briefly
adjourn this meeting whilst those papers are
distributed.”
Peter Crystal, who also looked likely to

explode all over the room, spoke for the first
time, only through his teeth. As I stood to
stretch my legs, Crystal quickly moved
towards me, and as he positioned himself,
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DAVID ALEXANDER
close enough to exchange saliva, he muttered

that he’d had “more hostile takeovers than
I’d had hot lunches.”
The crooks were totally on the defensive

now. The meeting resumed and Mackay
spoke again. “The board having reviewed the
ballots intends to adjourn the meeting for a
brief period.” Mackay then asked me to come
outside with him. Was this a punch up, I
wondered, because he was outmatched if
that was the case. I clenched my fist. I
glanced over at Marie, who looked as if she’d
turned to salt like Lot’s wife.
We met in the hall outside the room where

my wife and the other shareholders were
looking at each other, not knowing what in
the world was going on. All three directors
and Crystal assembled in a small semi-circle
and I stood before them with my hands by
my sides, readied if needed.
I faced Mackay, our eyes meeting for the first

time, and noted from this close proximity
that his breath stank of alcohol.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Funny things happen at moments like these

when the going gets rough. You think of the
silliest things, and I nearly offered him one
of my breath mints. Close up, his eyes had a
yellow tinge. Liver problems, I thought.
He breathed heavily over me: “You’re not
going ahead with this poll are you?” his
spittle sprayed over me. I drew back
screwing my face up.
“You bet I am,” I said, sounding more

confident than I felt. I had written on my
ballot paper that I intended to vote against
the appointment or rather, re-appointment
of each director. In fact, the only resolution
that I agreed with was that the company’s
accounts should be accepted as read. With
hindsight, I should have refused that one as
well.
Mackay suddenly crumpled and begged me

not to go ahead. He said: “Surely we can
come to some accommodation, can’t we? I
mean…”
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I cut him off as I shook my head in

amazement, thinking, as if that would
change my mind. We’d possibly lost our
£600,000 and this arse had the audacity to
ask me to give that up for an appointment to
his board. What did he think I was? A rent
boy? I shook my head. Mackay took a few
paces back as the reality of what I said hit
him as hard as if I’d smacked him on the jaw,
which was precisely what I would have done
had he and I been alone.
Without a word, he turned and went back

into the meeting room. As he and his two
shadows sat at the card table that doubled as
a board table, MacKay spoke again: “This
meeting is reconvened. A shareholder has
indicated that he intends to vote against each
resolution proposed by your board and the
result would leave your company without
directors. So that we may consider the
impact of this act, we will adjourn this
meeting for thirty days.” As the last word
was uttered, all three men stood and exited
the room, followed by Crystal and two
women who had previously gone unnoticed
by me.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
As it happened, the polling cards had been

collected and viewed by the board, meaning
that Mackay was out, but he wouldn’t stand
down. He was becoming like the worm
whose head was chopped off but just kept
going. By adjourning the meeting, he had
held onto power, but just barely.
Marie and I didn’t say much on the train

back to Paris, but she held my hand the
entire journey.
147
10
"One man with courage makes a majority.”
—ANDREW JACKSON
A
ugust is always a dead month in the
business world. The British were
becoming increasingly like the
French, who more or less shut down
for a four-week annual holiday. My solicitor’s
main problem was trying to get a hold of
anyone to sort out our IEQ predicament
before the scheduled AGM.
The reconvened AGM was held at Seymour

Pierce’s office for the second time. Again the
meeting was opened by John Mackay and
adjourned ten seconds later without any
explanation.
I had taken my solicitor with me this time, as

I intended to punch through the outstanding
business from the previous meeting.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
No chance. Mackay was swift in denying me

any opportunity to recall the remaining
resolutions. My hackles were raised. I stood
up and jabbed my finger towards Mackay,
who was ready to spit back at me. I shouted
angrily, telling him that I had the right to
poll his motion to adjourn as well.
Mackay banged the table with his fist and

said: “the next meeting, the AGM, will take
place at a future date,” and then he stood up
and walked out. I sat there seething.
Jim patted me on the arm and suggested we
go for a drink.
Over two bitters, we thrashed out what

needed to be done. The IEQ directors were
taking liberties now. Jim assured me he was
in regular contact with the company’s
solicitors, Memery Crystal, but he said:
“Peter Crystal is a shady character. He and
Jonathon Wright had been the main movers
and shakers in all the dirty deals at IEQ.”
How could we deal with people with those
values? I felt very depressed at that point.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I went back to my hotel room, ordered room

service and switched the TV on. The news
hadn’t gotten any better, either. In New
York, some paraglider called Terry Do, if you
can believe that name, had crashed into the
torch of the Statue of Liberty and remained
dangling there for nearly 45 minutes over the
300-foot drop until he was rescued and then
put in handcuffs. Financially troubled AOL
said it was laying off more than 1,000
employees from its Internet division and
Andrew Lloyd Webber was pulling his roller-
skating musical Starlight Express after 7,000
performances. I made a mental note to go see
the play on one of my trips. I checked out of
the room the next day and returned to Paris
and updated Marie, who had a lot of
confidence in Jim, our solicitor.
J im spent a lot of time arguing with

Memery Crystal about their clients’ (the
three wise monkeys, as Jim called them)
inappropriate behaviour, finally persuading
them that the most honourable way out of
the current situation was to resign, implying
we had rumbled them.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
They must have realised we meant business

because Jim phoned me a couple days later,
when I was at Paris’s Longchamp racecourse
with a client who had a horse running in the
3.20 race.
“They’ve agreed to stand down.” I faintly

heard the sweet words against the roar of the
race-goers as the horses galloped past the
winning post.
“Jim, you’ve done a great job,” I

congratulated him.
“They knew they were beaten, David, believe

me. I put the pressure on with
thumbscrews,” he said.
I was really enjoying the afternoon now, and

followed up the call with a winning bet on
the next race. Jim had told me that the next
and hopefully final meeting was scheduled
for 14th September 2001. He had arranged it
so that an Extraordinary General Meeting
(EGM) would immediately follow a
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DAVID ALEXANDER
reconvened AGM and our new board would

be voted in after the previous directors had
stepped down. Notices were sent out to every
shareholder. Everything was in place.
T he blonde with the big tits had been told

she was to go and satisfy the
millionaire’s ego. She didn’t quite
understand what that meant, but felt
experienced enough to have a go. Maybe he’d
just want a blow-job instead of the usual full
sex this time. She didn’t mind. He was crap
in bed anyway, but a BJ would be less hard
work. She put on her hold-up stockings
edged with white fur, decided to forego
wearing her thong and hoped she didn’t slip
anywhere and show her shaved pussy. She
liked to go without. She finally cupped her
artificially inflated breasts into a minimal
see-through cup.
She looked out of her council flat, saw that

the Daimler was waiting for her and flounced
out the door. A short run into the city took
her to his penthouse suite. She took the lift
up, and as he opened the door his hand slid
between her legs. Shit, she thought, I should
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
have worn my panties. She was still

wondering where his ego was.
Walking into the room, she saw it. Another

girl sprawled over the white settee wearing
nothing more than crotchless panties,
suspenders and black stockings with a shiny
black bra. The blonde wondered what the
fuck he was up to, although even her dim
brain was working it out.
The millionaire went through to the en suite

bathroom and came out wearing a skimpy
jockstrap under his paunchy belly. The
blonde, who was already fed up, wondered
how long it had been since he’d seen his dick
below that stomach.
He told the girls to stand up. He reached out

and drew them together, feeling each
bottom, and steered them towards the
enormous bedroom with its famous king-
sized bed. The room had been leased out
many times to film producers. He lay on the
bed and invited the girls to play with him.
They briefly glanced at one another,
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DAVID ALEXANDER
exchanging a sad, knowing look. But they got

down to work all the same.
S eptember 14th was a day when the world

was still reeling from the World Trade
Center horror, and none more so than in
the City of London, where firms had
hundreds of colleagues in the towers
presumed lost in the disaster. People were
still clinging to the hope of finding a loved
one, as the holocaust had hit only three days
earlier. I remember watching the disaster
unfold on CNN, as most of the world also
remained glued to the news, and said to
Marie: “When will they learn that they bring
this upon themselves with their ‘we run the
world’ attitude?”
Returning to Seymour Pierce’s office, Marie,

Jim and I were seated alongside John Shaw
and Christopher Foster, who looked as
though he hadn’t slept for a month. Peter
Crystal was seated in the audience, but gave
the impression that he wasn’t paying
attention. His comment about having “had
more hostile takeovers…” seemed to have left
more than a little egg on his face, which
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
appeared grey and drawn. Mackay

demanded a seat at the board table because
he believed that he remained chairman until
the AGM was concluded, even though he had
been voted out at the first AGM in July.
After the meeting was reconvened, IEQ’s

existing directors simply resigned. Meeting
over. The EGM was convened and Marie, two
of our company’s executives and I were
immediately appointed to the board. Peter
Crystal, without a glance in my direction,
stated that his firm would no longer
represent IEQ on legal matters, which merely
saved me the effort of having to sack him.
Everything was going according to plan, or
so I thought.
In addition to an accountant, an auditor and

a solicitor, one of the many requirements
placed upon a company whose shares are
traded on AIM is the need to appoint a
nominated adviser, or NOMAD. Officially,
the nomad is there to oversee the operation
of the company, but the investing punter sees
an implied role of ‘protecting’ the investment
155
DAVID ALEXANDER
in some way or other. It’s supposed to give

you a warm cosy feeling that such an
experienced member of The Establishment is
there watching the directors. In reality, they
do nothing, cost the company £25,000 or
more each year and act as a non-executive
shadow director. The mere suggestion that
one might resign can cause a director to
change his or her position on any subject.
Without a nomad, a company’s shares are
suspended and, if not replaced within 30
days, the company stock is de-listed. They
are the devil, but must be tolerated if one
wishes to belong to The Club.
On 25th January 2001, London-based Grant

Thornton was appointed by John Mackay
after the company’s former nomad raised
serious concerns regarding a number of
investments made by the board, including
MadeForChina.
As I walked out of Seymour Pierce’s office,

my cell phone rang. It was Grant Thornton.
A representative of that firm told me that he
would agree to continue representing IEQ for
156
CROOKED KNIGHT:
the purposes of the AIM requirement, but

that he wanted to inspect the company’s
investment documents and meet with the
new board before giving a formal
commitment. I agreed, but knew that it
would take me some time to obtain the
records, inspect them, and then deliver
copies to Grant Thornton’s office.
Despite that verbal commitment, before the

end of the day, Grant Thornton and the
company’s broker, Seymour Pierce Limited,
had informed the London Stock Exchange of
their joint resignation at 4:30 p.m. It was
now official. The company had just 30 days
to replace its nomad.
This was John Mackay’s and Peter Crystal’s

handiwork. It was obvious to me that I was
being set up.
O n the recommendation of a friend,

Marriott Harrison, a boutique-styled
law firm based in Great James Street
near Russell Square, was appointed as
solicitors to the company.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
We also changed the name to IEQ plc (IEQ

having been the company’s EPIC code on the
London Stock Exchange) and the company’s
registered office moved to Henry’s base in
Kent.
The company’s new solicitor, Jane Jales, a

senior partner with Marriott Harrison, had
been left in no doubt by me that they had to
get to the bottom of what had been
happening to the company’s assets. She
seemed capable enough and she talked a
good talk.
Marie and I decided that a holiday was in

order. Although we had just 30 days to
appoint a new nomad, until the former
directors delivered IEQ’s documents to us,
there would be very little for anyone to do.
Leaving Jane and Henry to arrange

introductions with one or two prospective
nomads and to obtain and then inspect the
company’s documents, Marie and I took a
richly deserved break in the Canaries. The
sun split the heavens and we ran along
people-free beaches, hired bicycles and
158
CROOKED KNIGHT:
pedalled to picnic spots around the island.

The outside world simply ceased to exist.
Switching your mobile off for pleasurable

purposes has a lot of advantages, but when I
returned to the real world there were a pile of
messages waiting for me and they were
worrying. When I finally spoke with Henry,
he said: “Marriott Harrison has found it
difficult to move forward due to obstructive
moves by Seymour Pierce and Barclays
Bank.”
W hen I returned home I made several

calls which may have been considered
threatening depending on what your
perspective was at the time. The result was
that we would need to find new bankers for
IEQ.
Seymour Pierce was simply refusing to hand

over IEQ’s statutory documents. These
included the company’s banking records. On
behalf of their long-time client, Barclays
Bank plc also refused to provide the account
details, balance details, or to allow the new
159
DAVID ALEXANDER
board access to IEQ’s funds. What either of

them thought might have been achieved by
delaying our requests remains
incomprehensible to this day. It merely
created more suspicion and eventually they
must have realized any mischief would have
had to come to light.
On 15th October 2001, with no more time and

despite the added cost of nearly £70,000 in
legal fees, the company’s documents were
still in the possession of Seymour Pierce. I
made the decision that we would have to
request that the London Stock Exchange
terminate IEQ’s listing. I preferred my
deliberate act rather than to have the
exchange eject the company for non-
compliance. To the other shareholders,
however, there seemed little difference.
Shortly after the company’s shares ceased

trading on AIM, Seymour Pierce delivered all
of the documents. On the same day, Barclays
Bank informed our solicitor that they had
approved the mandate that would now allow
the new board access to IEQ’s bank accounts.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Seymour Pierce had gotten their own back

and the City closed ranks to protect itself.
It had taken nearly two months of bullying to

get the records handed over to Marriott
Harrison. It left no time for getting to the
bottom of their skulduggery.
I decided to keep hotel bills and travelling

expenses down to a minimum, so I rented
a small flat near our auditor, Henry, in
Kent. Marie came over from Paris every
other weekend. I was in a small former
market town with dozens of friendly pubs
and I reckon I tried each one whilst living
there. Often our business took place over a
ploughman’s lunch, with huge slabs of
Kentish cheese and local wine from the
Lamberhurst vineyards.
One might be excused for thinking that a

one-man painting and decorating business
might lumber his accountant with a mass of
papers and receipts and hope to receive a set
of audited accounts from them, but a public
limited company?
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Once we saw the IEQ documents and

records, Marriott Harrison, Henry and I
ultimately discovered an abomination of
negligence. The former directors had kept
neither accurate records, nor written
documentation of the various investments,
nor minutes of meetings, nor resolutions
approving millions of pounds in investments,
nor supporting documents that would have
been required of a UK public limited
company. Maybe they wrote details on the
back of cigarette packets? At least that would
have been more entertaining than the mess
we discovered.
The IEQ board and its advisers needed to

have a major “pow-wow” to discuss our
options. Things were far worse than we had
feared.
M y wife and I, along with our other

directors, Henry and Jim, met in
London at Marriott Harrison’s offices.
It felt like a wake. Even the coffee tasted
bitter.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
There was no option now. We had to instruct

Marriott Harrison to prepare a letter of
demand stating that IEQ plc would sue its
former directors; Needham, Caplin and the
others for breach of their fiduciary duty in
respect of the MadeForChina investment. We
added that we would be inspecting each and
every investment ever made with a fine tooth
comb and “expected to amend IEQ’s claim in
the fullness of time,” as Jane had put it.
There was nothing left to do but await the

outcome of the solicitor’s letter. There was an
outside chance that the former directors
would simple cop to the crimes and repay
our shareholder’s money. I recall Jane’s
sympathetic look when I first suggested such
nonsense.
Marie and I walked down Chancery Lane to

visit Simpson’s-in-the-Strand for lunch.
Suddenly she stopped and turned her head
as if to look in a shop window. I looked at her
reflection and saw tears pouring down her
cheeks. I turned her towards me, gripping
both arms firmly and told her everything
would be all right.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
She shook her head in disbelief, the tears

now pouring down. This was so unlike her.
The strain had built up. I held her tight and
asked her to remember when we first
married how I told her I would make sure
she would never be harmed. A muffled nod
of the head confirmed she remembered the
occasion. I went on to say things were no
different and to remember all our eggs
hadn’t gone into the one basket. We would
be okay. She could stay in Paris and just let
me sort this mess out over here. That was my
mistake. The head shot up from my shoulder
and she looked at me, eyes blazing, and said:
“Don’t you dare carry this one alone. I‘ll be
coming over here with you. We see this
through together, okay?” I was nearly in
tears myself by this time.
Only a couple of restaurants along from us in

The Strand, a jovial lunch was taking place in
a Club’s private side room. John Mackay,
Peter Crystal, John Shaw, Keith Harris and
Sir Richard Needham looked as if they were
celebrating. They were. They all thought they
had slithered out of the IEQ mess and were
free at last.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
The claret glasses touched as they toasted

each other. They even joked that helping
Richard Desmond gain control of the
Express had been a good move. He could
dredge some dirt up when needed on the
man from Paris. Little did they know what
Postman Pat was bringing for them the next
day.
Christmas and New Year’s came and went

but we didn’t seem to care. Even the
wonderful Parisian lights barely lifted our
gloom.
O n 10th January 2002, Marriott Harrison

filed a lawsuit on behalf of IEQ against
the following defendants: Sir Richard
Needham, Anthony Caplin, John Mackay,
John Shaw, Christopher Foster and Seymour
Pierce Private Equity Limited, a company
run by Keith Harris, John Mackay and
Jonathan Wright. The original claim was for
nearly £1 million, which was later amended
to include all of IEQ’s investments, totalling
more than £3 million.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
The reply was vicious. The Porn King’s daily

rag the Express published a derogatory and
libellous article written by one of its second
rate hacks accusing David Alexander of
doing a runner with the money from one of
his companies. Had they not noticed he was
regularly in England? This was typical
behaviour by a newspaper owner who didn’t
know the first thing about either the law of
libel or accurate reporting, but then all the
good journalists had left him.
166
11
"Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these are the
attributes that give our lives power and
vividness and joy."
—RICHARD HALLOWAY
I
was in the bathroom shaving when the
morning post arrived. My first glance
outside our Paris flat as I awoke was of a
major February snowfall built up against
the pavements below and our adopted
pigeon tapping on the windowpane for
attention. The snow ploughs and road-
gritters would have been working since the
first flake fell. The city seldom misses a beat.
Marie was in the kitchen pouring coffee, a

croissant stuffed into her mouth in a holding
position. She sorted the mail and handed me
a large envelope sent by registered post.
Setting the coffee pot down, she looked
quizzically at me. I opened it to discover it
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DAVID ALEXANDER
was a letter with attachments from IEQ’s

solicitor, Jane Jales. My heart lifted and I
showed the letter to Marie.
She was ecstatic. “That’s great news, David.

You’ve worried them.”
I replied excitedly, “I never thought

Needham and Caplin would pay the £55,000
into the court so quickly.” I took another sip
of coffee and scanned the letter again,
looking for a downside because I’d become
that type of person. Mixing optimism with
pessimism.
“So they’ve both paid back the £25,000 they

were paid when they resigned from IEQ over
that MadeForChina scam, plus interest of ten
per cent?” Marie raised her eyebrows as she
calculated it out.
“Yes, but here’s the catch. I can’t work out

why they received that payoff in the first
place. They resigned, but weren’t fired as far
as we know. They had no contract of
employment; and their salaries, according to
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
the audited accounts produced at the 31st

December, stated that they were entitled to
just £7,500 each. Why did they take more
than three times their salary? Surely when
one resigns one doesn’t receive severance
pay?” I queried.
“No, but perhaps it had something to do with

UK employment law. I’ve heard of
companies paying out large sums of money
to potentially aggrieved employees in less
questionable circumstances than what we
have here. Although the “dynamic duo”
couldn’t have called this constructive
dismissal, meaning they were pushed out
against their will, it probably was on the face
of it, but without a written contract they
wouldn’t stand a chance at an Industrial
Employment Tribunal. After all, they were
the directors in charge of IEQ. Imagine
Needham and Caplin trying to explain to a
Hearings Officer that they were forced to
resign by IEQ’s shadow director - John
Mackay.”
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Marie really had a way of cutting clean

through to the real issues. Her clarity of
thought sometimes worried me. She didn’t
allow outside interference to affect her line of
thinking. Finally, taking a generous
mouthful of the steamy croissant, she said:
“There are conflicting references within
IEQ’s documents referring to their
resignation and termination, so perhaps…”
“They were fired and that’s why they received

the money?” I posed the question, cutting
her off in mid-sentence, allowing her to
finish what she had started to chew.
All of a sudden Marie’s munching stopped,

her bright eyes stared into my own and she
said: “Quite honestly I think they just helped
themselves. You know they’re both crooks.”
Staring back at her in amazement I didn’t
know whether to laugh or cry at the
simplicity of her statement. Of course she
was right. “I’ll bet it’s as simple as that, ma
cheri. Just as simple as that.”
“Jane is pushing them to put £10,000 in the

kitty for legal costs,” I added.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
“It will cost a lot more than that to sort this

mess out,” Marie responded categorically.
“Think on it, David. Our family’s solicitor
plus Marriott Harrison won’t come cheap.”
I agreed with her. The prospective legal costs

were an obvious concern, but you had to
employ a firm of solicitors for a mess like
IEQ’s. We had more than £600,000
invested, and on the face of it, that
investment was now worthless.
Marie began to rush about getting ready for

the day and pulled on her large snow boots.
She reckoned she’d be the only one in at the
family’s office. Her dedication and sense of
duty was never-wavering.
I lifted the phone and called Jane first who

had “little to add” from her letter and
appeared quite unsettled, given the apparent
victory. Then I called Henry, who always
had his ear to the ground, and he informed
me there was City-gossip to suggest that
Needham, Caplin and John Mackay were
squabbling amongst themselves as to who
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DAVID ALEXANDER
had done what with the so-called ‘IEQ

investments’. I would have expected Peter
Crystal to come in on that tack with them as
well. He was one of those types who would
sell his grandmother as a spy to save his own
neck. But in reality, they were each as bad as
the other and would have stepped over each
other trying to be the first off the sinking
Titanic. It was beginning to look like this was
the first time any of them had been rumbled
at their money games and maybe panic was
setting in.
S pring and summer came and went and

the legal issues were still log-jammed. A
few months later, in late November, I
met Jim with his English wife off EuroStar in
Paris. I’d turned him onto it and now he was
hooked as well. It was going to be a weekend
celebration for their twelfth wedding
anniversary.
Driving away from the station, past Sacre

Coeur, covered in an early snowfall and
through the narrow streets where you
seemed to visit one country after another
with the endless different cultures, Jim
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
brought me up to date with recent IEQ

developments and it wasn’t good. “Marriott
Harrison screwed up,” he said. “But let’s talk
later, ” he added. Because of our uncertainty
over these new solicitors, Marie and I had
asked Jim to keep an eye on their
movements.
We reached our picturesque snow-lined

street. The trees were holding the recent
blizzard on their branches and laughing
children were rushing off to the nearby park,
skates thrown over their shoulders and
carrying small spades to build snowmen.
Marie settled Jim and Sue into their room.

The flat had two bedrooms, but I used one as
an office, which we had converted for their
comfort. I got the drinks ready and we
settled down for a further update.
Jim looked sympathetically at me as he

related the tale. It appeared that Marriott
Harrison’s senior partner, Jane Jales, had
been unaware - or so she said - of the precise
particulars concerning IEQ’s claim against
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Needham and Caplin. I found it difficult to

understand how she didn’t know something.
Her assistant, a junior solicitor called Adrian
Murtagh, had written the particulars of the
claim, but he had been on a skiing holiday
here in France when the £55,000 had arrived
at the court. The law firm had been
subsequently notified by the court, as is
normal procedure. Jane Jales apparently
thought the money was full and final
settlement of the claim against Needham and
Caplin, so she ticked the appropriate, though
incorrect, box on the court form. That foolish
act had the devastating effect of wiping off
more than £377,000 from IEQ’s claim
against Caplin and Needham.
Marie and I just sat stunned. That feeling of

everything having just gone down the pan
came flooding back. After quite a long period
of silence, the questions suddenly rushed
out, bombarding Jim, who put his hands up
as if to say “whoa.”
Why hadn’t Adrian Murtagh delegated his

work to another solicitor with a full briefing
about the case? Why had Jane Jales not
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
thought about asking someone to confirm

whether this was full and final settlement?
Why hadn’t she simply read the particulars
of claim before completing the form? Surely
she should have if she wasn’t sure of her
ground. It stank of incompetence and I was
very angry. Poor Jim was at the receiving
end, but he was a good mate and just let me
get everything off my chest. I called them
every name under the sun. Marie added a
few terms in French that even I had not
heard and then calmly said: “We’ll get to the
bottom of this.”
When I had relaxed somewhat, Jim said he

agreed with me. It wasn’t good enough. He
then gave a deep sigh and said there was
more and that the worst was yet to come. I
screwed my eyes tight, opened them, and
then saw Marie was watching me, concerned.
I must have had that “going to kill look,” as
she referred to it; a reference to my youth
when I might have “gone hunting” if
someone was found to have lied to me. “Go
on,” I said.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Jim paused for a brief moment then he

dropped the bomb. Apparently Marriott
Harrison had known about the mistake
months ago and tried to cover it up. I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Jim
nodded. It appeared that when Murtagh
returned from holiday he immediately
became aware of Jales’s mistake. At first he
wanted to hide, but eventually he knew it was
only a matter of time before he would have to
explain the problem to the client; a client he
found it hard to discuss matters with at the
best of times, and one who had little patience
for fools and even less for the incompetent.
Murtagh had urged Jales to come clean, Jim

explained, but she was against what she
referred to as “drastic measures,” reminding
her colleague that this was her last year in
practice, that she had a long, blemish-free
career to protect and that he worked for her
and not the other way around.
According to Jim’s source, Jales had coached

Murtagh and eventually convinced him that
there was still a chance of recovering the
amount from John Mackay, Christopher
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Foster and John Shaw, since there were

mirroring claims against the three men.
Similar amounts were sought from Needham
and Caplin and so she advised her colleague
to “keep shtum” over her error.
As the months passed, Murtagh repeatedly

played down the lack of contact from the
dirty-duo - Needham and Caplin. They were
not responding to the rest of the particulars,
nor attending court hearings. Clearly they
knew they did not need to deal with any IEQ
matters anymore. Jales and Murtagh had
been playing both ends against the middle,
hoping their client would not discover the
error whilst at the same time hoping that a
settlement would be agreed that might bring
an end to the case and hide the error forever.
In the end, their hopes and dreams had come
to nothing.
Moving closer to both Marie and I, Jim’s

voice became softer, though his words
became slightly clipped, suggesting that he
was attempting to control his anger as he
said: “It’s not time to let Jales and Murtagh
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DAVID ALEXANDER
know that we have discovered their dirty lies.

We need to bide our time on this one; to look
for the right opportunity. I have found that
in such matters, the opportunity usually
finds you.”
As always, Jim was right.
D uring those intervening months, not a

million miles away from the City, near
the Old Street roundabout, Anthony
Caplin had been feathering his own nest
whilst IEQ’s walls of Babylon were tumbling
down. After a very brief period - five months
to be precise - as a new director of Durlacher
Corporation plc, he was appointed chairman
of the group. Between his appointment as
director and becoming chairman of the
London-based investment bank, he had
received notice of IEQ’s lawsuit being filed
against him and his fellow directors for their
involvement in the loss of nearly £3 million
of shareholders’ funds through dubious loans
and questionable investments.
Strangely, or perhaps not, Caplin had wiped

himself clean of any directorship
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
involvement with IEQ, on paper at least.

It was not listed anywhere, but there was no
escaping his stewardship of the AIM-listed
equity management company, since it
aligned itself perfectly with his position at
Durlacher. Whether it was personal shame
he felt or just a hope that no one would
remember his involvement remains to be
seen. In the final analysis, no one will ever
forget that he conspired with Needham,
Mackay and others to raid the coffers of a
public limited company.
I n London, the housing market had gone

sky high during 2002. It was becoming
almost impossible to buy reasonably
priced housing and the result was that people
were moving out into the sticks - the outer
fringe of the City. These areas were a
considerable distance in traffic to commute.
An average flat sale in London was worth
around the £500,000 mark, whilst in Devon
and Cornwall that amount could buy a small
farm. Marie and I decided to jump onto the
investment bandwagon and so we bought a
small cottage near Westerham in Kent. It
had less than an acre of garden, but no one
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DAVID ALEXANDER
overlooked it and it was ideal for just chilling

out each evening. I also found the locals very
friendly and even enjoyed quiz evenings in
the local hostelry, previously something
totally out of character for me.
Henry popped by now and again to talk

about our other business dealings, but the
conversation inevitably found its way back to
IEQ. As a major investor, I felt totally shafted
by the former directors. They were perfectly
happy frittering away the company’s money,
with no consideration for the people who had
entrusted them with their positions of
responsibility in the first place. All Marie and
I could do was await the next legal move and
try to get on with the rest of our lives.
I n another part of Kent there is an artificial

lake where the colour of the water
changes from bright blue to sea green
depending on the sunlight. The surrounding
area is very chalky and not what you might
call the “Garden of England.”
A dog walker taking a spaniel for his

afternoon constitutional in the field
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
surrounding the lake noticed some clothes

floating near the surface of the water. He
edged a bit nearer, fearing he might fall
down the steep shore wall. The lake wasn’t
tidal, but like all deep water, it had
undercurrents breaking the surface with
gentle circular whirlpools. The clothing was
moving in one such spiral pattern. He stared
at the shape for a while. He picked up a stone
and threw it. He missed, but created little
waves that rocked the clothes from side to
side. It was then he saw to his horror it was a
body lying face down.
The emergency services workers pulled the

young woman out of her watery grave, her
blonde matted hair dripping a chalky milk,
her bloated face almost black. She had been
in the stagnant water for some time, but few
people ever visited the place because of the
pollution.
A post mortem revealed she had been

strangled, possibly during or after a sexual
assault, and although her body was badly
decomposed, the pathologist noticed she had
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DAVID ALEXANDER
mutilation marks as if she’d been tortured.

He also marked down in his report that she
had silicone breast implants. The blonde
with the big tits was put into the mortuary
freezer cabinet, where she would remain
until someone claimed her body. No one ever
did.
182
12
"Only in growth, reform, and change,
paradoxically enough, is true security to be
found." —ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
S
eymour Pierce’s chairman Keith Harris
was having a very uncomfortable year
in 2002. It was leaving a large dent in
his image after his wheeling and
dealing in the football scene had backfired
badly. He had taken refuge in a pub near the
office and was putting back his second beer.
He needed a game of golf, or a cruise
onboard his new gin palace. He longed for a
place where he could lick his wounds -
anywhere he could hide.
Harris’s failed attempts to secure an ITV

Digital deal rebounded, forcing him to resign
as chairman of the FA leaving football clubs
with a £131 million collective shortfall.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
A number of the clubs were put on the edge

of bankruptcy. When it became clear that
ITV Digital was itself close to bankruptcy, its
parent companies, Carlton and Granada - the
TV giants, refused to honour the remaining
multi-million pound contract with the
Football League.
Even the UK Government’s Sports Minister

Richard Caborn slammed Harris’s tactics.
After the resignation in response to media
pressure over Harris and his sidekick, chief
executive David Burns, Caborn was quoted
as saying that “the two top men have gone
and that has been a decision by the league.
“It's like any other business - if people are
seen to have made unsound decisions they
have to pay the price.
“There needs to be a more realistic

assessment of football to avoid the situation
that has occurred with the league. A lot of
people had been warning the bubble was
going to burst, but in the event it did so 18
months sooner than was expected.”
Most of the club chairmen blamed the ITV

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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Digital collapse on its shareholders, Carlton

and Granada, but an increasing number had
begun to criticise Harris and Burns for
rushing into a new four-year £95million Sky
Television deal, which had a disastrous
knock-on effect.
The whole matter ended with Carlton and

Granada being defeated in the High Court,
the judge ruling that the league had failed to
secure shareholder guarantees on the money
it was owed. May Day was auspicious when,
at 7 a.m., ITV Digital actually pulled the plug
on its pay TV channels while they were on air
and went into administration.
Outside the arena, the press slated Harris

and Burns, accusing them of being ‘incapable
of running a kebab shop.’ In typical fashion,
Harris pointed the finger of blame at
everyone else. During an interview with
Radio Five Live, after he and chief executive
David Burns had resigned from their posts,
Harris insisted the ITV Digital fiasco was
down to other people’s errors.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
He said: “Let's face it, the mistakes were

other people’s, really strongly other people’s.
“What we tried to do is clear up other

people’s mess. When you haven’t been the
one creating the mess, that’s quite tricky.”
Harris added that in quitting, former chief
executive Burns said: “Keith, just think,
you’ve given the asylum back to the lunatics.”
It was clear that Mr ‘Fix It,’ as Harris had

been regarded by many, was coming
unstuck.
H arris also knew of the IEQ plc claim

against Seymour Pierce Private Equity
Limited and wasn’t a happy man. The
name David Alexander stuck in his gullet.
Had it not been for him, the other IEQ
shareholders would have quietly melted
away. He gave a loud chuckle over the
Marriott Harrison gaff of signing off on the
court document. That thought lifted his
spirits, because he’d been told by Anthony
Caplin that the solicitor’s error would stop
this upstart Alexander in his tracks. They’d
just have to quietly wind the company up
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
and that would be the end of it. It had

happened many times before, with other
investments in which he had been involved,
and it would happen again. He and the
former IEQ board members were all singing
from the same hymn sheet and they’d be
damned if they’d be beaten.
The football debacle, some had referred to as

his ‘own goal’, was beginning to chip away at
his huge ego, as he had loved being involved
with the game and being FA chairman had
given him what he thought was ‘ultimate
power.’ Everyone had fawned over him.
Harris stared into his beer as he thought

about Seymour Pierce. He had decided it
would be better to try and find a buyer for
the firm’s investment banking business and
Alchemy Partners was coming up into the
frame rather nicely. He looked up at the
painting of an old London scene behind the
bar and thought it must have been grim in
Victorian times if you were on the wrong side
of the tracks.
187
DAVID ALEXANDER
He reckoned he could sell the banking

business for around £7 million and throw in
the name ‘Seymour Pierce.’ The deal would
have to include a few crumbs for Richard
Feigen, who would come along for the ride,
but he would retain his interest, so it didn’t
matter to him who he had to pay off in order
to get the deal done. At this stage of the
game, it was literally life or death for
Seymour Pierce. Thinking about the
shareholders - but only briefly - he decided
they didn’t really need to be bothered about
the sale. Peter Crystal could find a way
around the need to ask their permission.
The other matter worrying him was the

hedge fund business, Pavilion Capital, which
was in need of a good capital injection itself.
It was really struggling in a fiercely
competitive market and couldn’t make much
progress. When the figures finally came out
there would be a furore. It would be posting
major losses. He needed to find a buyer.
Seymour Pierce was also going to try and sell

Pavilion Asset Management, which managed
more than £3 billion in funds.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
MGM Assurance was one of its largest

clients, and was particularly sensitive after
the Robert Maxwell scam. Harris suspected
they might try to throw a spanner into his
plans. They worked to the book. He didn’t;
and if he wasn’t careful, they would turn out
to be a fly in his ointment.
He nodded at the barmaid, noticing for the

first time that she had a pretty face as she
pulled him another beer. He sat on the bar
stool staring into the colourful bottles behind
the bar. He felt a shiver run through him as a
name popped into his head: Radio First. He
sighed. That name conjured up a nightmare,
because David Alexander had been on his
case there as well.
He had been chairman of Radio First plc and

one of its principal supporters, both
personally and through Seymour Pierce. He
had spoken to John Mackay discreetly at a
speakers’ forum they had both attended and
that discussion had resulted in Mackay and
his fellow IEQ directors approving the
investment. They ploughed in £200,000.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
They didn’t feel compelled to reveal to IEQ’s

shareholders the links back to Seymour
Pierce Group nor Harris’s involvement - it
was all very cosy. David Alexander had just
managed to recover £25,000 before the
company was struck off AIM for failing to
comply with reporting regulations. In the
end, as with so many other IEQ investments,
Radio First found its way into liquidation
with creditors and shareholders losing the
lot.
Keith Harris reached for an aspirin and

swilled it down with his beer. He thought it
was time he looked at that latest Mercedes
sports car he had seen last Saturday in his
local showroom. He thought he needed—no,
checking himself, he deserved to treat
himself.
I t was a showery day when the mailbox

rattled in my new Kent cottage. I left
Marie softly sleeping in the king-sized bed
we had just bought and shuffled to the front
door. The rain-spattered envelope was from
Marriott Harrison. I stood reading it in my
worn dressing gown that I’d loved since we
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
got married eleven years ago and went slowly

to the kitchen to put the coffee pot on. I
couldn’t believe what I was reading.
I switched onto automatic: reaching for a

cup, pouring the coffee, adding the milk then
flip-flopping through to the lounge. The
letter said that Memery Crystal, IEQ’s former
solicitors, had filed an application for
‘security’ on behalf of their clients, Mackay,
Foster, Shaw and Seymour Pierce Private
Equity Limited. This was pretty well their
response to IEQ having filing a lawsuit
against them. They now had the audacity to
request that we place £527,000 with the
court on the basis that IEQ had no money
and that its investments were worthless. I
was in shock and just sat there next to the
empty log fireplace, re-reading the letter.
After we had taken control of the company in

September 2001, I had instructed Henry to
perform an audit - to draw a line under the
previous director’s record, so that we could
move forward positively. That act was now
being used against me.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
If only I had left the accounts as they were,

the figures would have shown the former
director’s inflated valuations, and their false
accounting practices would have pre-empted
their current plan.
For heaven’s sake, Memery Crystal was the

company’s former solicitors! Clearly that had
to be a conflict of interest - something the
Law Society would frown upon. To add pain
to misery, Keith Harris, through Seymour
Pierce, had the nerve to request that IEQ
lodge funds with the court because
investments he had fronted only months
before had gone belly up, thanks to his poor
judgement and incompetence. A used car
salesman at heart, he knew how to sell
people on his ideas, but in the end, he never
made a dime for the public shareholders of
any company of which he was the boss.
Thankfully it was a weekday and Marriott

Harrison would be open. I glanced at the
walnut-cased wall clock. They would just be
opening. My coffee looked stagnant so I
trotted through for a fresh cup. Marie was
wandering about with tousled hair, making
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
her look very sexy. Not now, I thought. I

showed her the letter and her fiery blood
gave rise to expletives that even in French
still made sense to me.
I called the solicitors and it annoyed me that

I was kept hanging on the line. Eventually
Jane Jales answered in a very soft, almost
meek voice. She explained that Memery
Crystal was working on the basis that,
according to UK law pursuant to the
Companies Act, if a company appears unable
to pay a defendant’s costs should they be
unable to prove their case in court, the court
may order security. Jane said she had
attempted to show the court that IEQ was
without funds because of the defendants’
previous actions. However, the court did not
consider the merits of the claim in arriving at
its decision, and so it ordered IEQ to pay
£85,000 to the court in three instalments.
Jales considered it a victory. She would say
that, wouldn’t she?
It was getting worse. Why should victims

have to put up with crooks trying to rob them
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DAVID ALEXANDER
yet again? IEQ plc had no money. None. I

instructed Jales to appeal, adding that I
would “take this to the European Court if
necessary,” since the UK court was ordering
the company to do something it was unable
to do. That, I considered, was a violation of
its human rights. The company had a right to
a fair trial and a right to seek to recover its
money from these defendants. I could
imagine her nodding, but her heart wasn’t in
the fight. In her last year, Jales was looking
for an easy exit, but deep within her, there
was a solicitor. If only I could inspire her to
recall why it was that she had become a
solicitor in the first place.
Dressing quickly I called Jim and Henry.

They both agreed Memery Crystal was acting
improperly by not disqualifying themselves
from the case.
I moved about the house like a bear with an

open wound. Marie kept well clear of me. I
was never one for taking walks, but I felt that
might be a good option at the moment. I
wanted to be away from people and
problems.
194
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Walking up the public footpath to the top of

a hill where the view over the Kent
countryside was stunning, I was pleased to
see that Urban development hadn’t marched
into this area yet. It was still preserved, with
a character from a couple of centuries ago. I
was able to walk through rough boundaries
of wild damsons, cherries and ripening
conference pears. The sun was pleasantly
warm so I just kept going.
Three hours later I returned home footsore

to a message from Jane Jales. The follow-up
call told me they were going to force the issue
about Memery Crystal’s conflict of interest. It
flitted briefly across my mind that there was,
on the face of it, a friendly contact between
our solicitor and the opposition’s. I pushed
Jane on the matter, but her stock reply was
not to “fall out” because it might “hamper
our chances of getting a reasonable out of
court settlement.”
Such was my cynicism, I felt by now that they

were all up each other’s backsides. The seed
of doubt was forming in my mind and I
wasn’t happy.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I called Jim again and he called Marriott

Harrison. It wasn’t long before he came back
to me.
He gave a chuckle. “Now we’re getting to the

bottom of it, David. It’s called ‘saving your
bacon,’ and there’s some truth in it. Our legal
system says that if a client is unable to pay
security, then that client must, by
assumption, be unable to pay legal fees. If
the solicitors are aware of these
circumstances, they must resign or notify the
other side that the firm has agreed to a
conditional fee. And here is the crux of it: In
certain circumstances, the law firm could be
held liable to pay the other side’s costs
should they fail to prove their case. You can
be sure Marriott Harrison won’t be willing to
take the risk.”
There was a long silence. “So where’s British

Justice throughout all of this, Jim?”
“I know. It’s crap, isn’t it David?”
I put the phone down. Everywhere I looked

there were obstructions. Everything seemed
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
to be loaded against us. The defendants had

been allowed to drag matters out and IEQ’s
solicitors had screwed up with signing off the
£55,000 as full and final settlement. Now
IEQ had to come up with £85,000 it didn’t
have… What would come next?
Marie and I had more than £600,000

invested in IEQ, through our family’s
company. Despite this, there was a limit to
our generosity. We were simply not willing
to support the mounting cost of IEQ’s
litigation. I suspected the defendants
thought that given enough time, we would
run out of money and the thorn in their
backside would disappear. Whilst it was true
that we had made the decision not to
contribute financially to IEQ’s litigation, and
we would not waver on that subject, what the
defendants hadn’t reckoned on was my
honesty and need for justice. I’m known for
being tenacious and for never letting things
go. Never.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
JimMarriott
had obviously kept the pressure on at
Harrison to hound Memery
Crystal about their conflict of interest. I
think he felt if he could break that little gang
up it would weaken the others. Numerous
letters passed through Mount Pleasant
sorting office between the two sides. Memery
Crystal refused to acknowledge there was a
conflict of interest and that according to the
rules they should resign. At one stage, they
actually said that if my solicitor wanted to
file a complaint with the Law Society then
they should do so, but it would make little
difference. Jim confirmed that was probably
true.
“The Law Society had lost its teeth long ago,”

he said. Not many solicitors were pulled up
in front of the disciplinary committee these
days. The mistakes being made were like a
growth industry.
Going against the grain, I banged my fist

against the wall. I was one angry man.
Patience was one of my strong points, but
that quality was truly being tested here.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
T he millionaire was having a Hellish

nightmare. He had decided to stay
overnight in his penthouse office suite
near Blackfriars Bridge as he had an early
flight to Amsterdam from London’s City
Airport at Docklands.
Images of him whipping the blonde girl, her

enlarged breasts quivering with fear,
snatched his sleep from him. He kept
awakening to the vivid scenes of blood-
spattered skin dancing in front of him and he
started to cry. He didn’t mean it to happen,
but she just seemed to want more by just
standing there not telling him to stop.
He liked a fight. Her body was covered in

lashes and it was one particular crack of the
long lunge whip that caught her under her
left breast. She fell like a stone. He knew how
to feel a pulse and put his fingers over her
neck. Nothing. He withdrew his hand, away
from the sticky blood smeared over her neck
and shoulders. Then he panicked. Shaking,
he lifted the phone, staring out the window
and fixing his glance on Tower Bridge, as if
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DAVID ALEXANDER
to will the other person to answer. He did,

and the voice said he would be along with the
van to pick up ‘the package’.
The result of the deal was that the millionaire

now owed someone a favour, and he knew
the bargain would be kept.
200
13
"Good people do not need laws to tell
them to act responsibly, while bad people
will find a way around the laws."
—PLATO
M
arriott Harrison solicitor Jane
Jales was beginning to dread going
in to work each morning. It was
taking all her strength to walk the
short distance to the railway station. The IEQ
nightmare wasn’t going away and she knew
deep down it never would. She took a final
look in her hallway mirror and couldn’t be
bothered making an effort to give her dark
hair a final comb. She noticed she was also
becoming forgetful and was writing more
‘Post-It’ notes to herself, even at home. Her
husband, Andy Hartland, hadn’t a clue what
was going on at her work; he never really
asked. They had an unwritten rule that work
201
DAVID ALEXANDER
shouldn’t be brought home, whenever

possible. The rules were sometimes broken.
Andy had noticed Jane had changed; she was

becoming more snappy and preoccupied and
she wasn’t interested in sex, which seemed
quite odd, since their nocturnal activities had
always been the best part of their thirteen-
year marriage. He didn’t like what he was
seeing, particularly when his efforts to seek
an explanation fell on stony ground. He
couldn’t abide moodiness, and she seemed
very moody at the moment. He thought
perhaps she was ‘having it off’ with another
man. When she spoke at all about her work
now, she talked about a new client, David
Alexander, a former barrister who had
invested heavily in a company but then it had
all gone pear-shaped. He thought about this
for a few minutes and then thought his wife
might be giving this Alexander bloke
something more than ‘a little legal advice.’
Jales stared at the damp countryside as her

train sped towards London. By now people
were standing and even the guards van had
customers. The cattle prod commuter route.
202
CROOKED KNIGHT:
She vaguely noticed the overweight man,

whose flab overlapped into the adjacent seat
and who stank of onions. As the train neared
London it went into its regular stop-start
routine then finally stopped outside the
station, awaiting a free platform.
She walked to her office and was almost

knocked down by a courier cyclist as she
stepped onto the road. She stopped and
bought a lunchtime sandwich and a Danish
pastry: some comfort food.
Sitting down behind her desk, she wished

that she could lock the door and keep all the
problems and the people with them out in
the corridor. She had to try and salvage her
IEQ mistake. Doodling on a notepad, she
thought about what David Alexander had
said when they last spoke. IEQ had no money
and the existing shareholders would not
contribute any more funds towards her
firm’s fees in what appeared to be an endless
litigation. She stabbed her pen at the pad,
piercing several sheets of the yellow legal
pad. Her problem was enormous.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
There was no escaping the fact that she

shouldn’t have accepted the £55,000 as full
and final settlement. If her firm stepped
down, another solicitor might accept the case
on a conditional fee basis. That option had
been discussed recently with her client
because IEQ couldn’t pay. He had made that
point very clear.
The result might be that the new solicitors

would, if they were worth their salt, expose
her error. She was on the verge of an
excellent career, but it was likely to vanish
before long. She felt a headache coming on
and reached for some pills in her desk
drawer. She stared at the growing stack of
IEQ papers. There was really very little
chance that Alexander would drop the
matter.
She had to find a resolution as there would

be little chance of Marriott Harrison
recovering the fees owed for both billed
invoices and work in progress, unless the
litigation proceeded to trial. The latter sum
was fast approaching £100,000. She was in a
quandary. Should she tell the client about
204
CROOKED KNIGHT:
her mistake? Should she tell her managing

partner, Tony Morris, or should she spill the
beans and come clean to them both? She felt
her eyes beginning to sting with sudden tears
of self-pity. She couldn’t tell anyone what
was going on, so the lies continued. She
would have to pull it together and somehow
force the other side to settle IEQ’s claim so
that her mistake could be put to bed at last.
F rustration was an understatement of

how I felt about the entire IEQ fight. It
shouldn’t be as difficult as this to get
answers. What I didn’t realise was that Jane
Jales was playing a totally different game
and was actively working against us.
However, I did eventually begin to twig that

something was wrong. She didn’t appeal the
order, although I couldn’t have known this
was for her own personal reasons. She made
application after application for delays and
postponements. Whatever means Jales could
employ to push the problem further away,
she used to her own advantage. Her excuse
to the court was that her client IEQ needed
205
DAVID ALEXANDER
more time to realise some of their

investments and raise funds.
Jim was also becoming concerned. He

chased up the excuses Jales was offering and
paid Marie and I a visit one weekend at the
cottage after we had returned from Paris. I
was becoming used to commuting and, as
always, the EuroStar was where I found
peace and quiet, away from the stresses of
IEQ. We took a trip down to Leeds Castle
near Maidstone and, after walking around
the magnificent grounds and castle, found a
shady corner near the aviary full of exotic
birds.
“Jales is playing a stalling game, David,” he

said to Marie and myself. “Something’s going
on. I checked up on one of her
postponements and her excuse is that you
are trying to raise funds.”
The IEQ recovery programme had now come

down to a one-man band - me. The other
shareholders seemed to think I’d sort the
whole thing out for all of us.
206
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I laughed in disbelief. “But she knows we

haven’t got any investments left to sell. We
haven’t a hope in Hell of raising £85,000, if
that’s what they want. In fact, IEQ would be
hard pressed to pay for the bus fare to your
office. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, David, but I’ve got a meeting

next Tuesday with her. I’m having it out with
her then. I agree we cannot let this go on any
longer.”
As promised, Jim called after his meeting
with Jane Jales. It hadn’t taken place at her
office, but at a small wine bar near Canon
Street.
“She’s cracking up, David. She’s a total

nervous wreck and she’s drinking too much.
She won’t give me straight answers,
pretending to be surprised when I tell her
IEQ’s cupboard is bare. I’m going to contact
her again next week and keep up the
pressure.”
I thanked him and then decided to call Jales

myself anyway. At first I had problems
207
DAVID ALEXANDER
locating her, then I rang her direct line,

blocking my number before I dialled, and she
picked up the phone on the first ring.
Although she was surprised to hear my voice,

she tried to reassure me she was doing
everything possible and that the court
extensions were reasonable. But I knew she
realised I wasn’t happy. She was talking way
too fast and was too pat with her answers. I
was becoming worried.
About a month later the phone rang and

Jales was at the other end. Could we meet up
discreetly? I invited her to the cottage. She
looked terrible. Her coat had stains that
matched her bad hair day framing a very
pale, drawn face. She was shivering, although
it was a pleasant sunny day and I was in my
shirtsleeves. She waited for me to open the
conversation, probably because she was
trying to stave off the impending doom - or
more likely my well known wrath - but as I
began to speak she beat me to it anyway.
Breathlessly, she blurted out, “I want to do a

deal with you.”
208
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I raised my eyebrows, thinking a deal was

about the last thing I would do with her.
“I’m in a mess,” she said tearfully.
“I know,” I replied testily. “Aren’t we all?”
“No, I mean a real mess.” She went on to tell

me things had come to a head, admitting she
had been responsible for the extensions. The
problem was the legal bill had now doubled.
I listened with scepticism as she laid out her

scheme. She explained there was no way she
could go to her firm’s partners with any of
the IEQ mess; she was carrying nearly
£150,000 in legal fees, much of it work in
progress and not recorded within the firm’s
billing system. “If Tony Morris knew how
bad things really were,” she said, “he’d sack
me in a heartbeat.”
Finally looking into her eyes, I asked:

“What’s on your mind Jane?”
“I’ll cover the security order. But I need you

to confirm my story, which will be that IEQ
209
DAVID ALEXANDER
borrowed the money from your company,”

she said.
Didn’t she think that was ambitious, even

considering she must be well paid? After all,
£85,000 was a lot out of taxed income, even
a senior partner’s. “Are you sure?” I asked.
She nodded her head vigorously. Jane was

convinced this was her way out. It certainly
appeared to be the only one, but I didn’t like
becoming involved with it and that’s exactly
what she had intended. I knew she wouldn’t
care where I landed, either.
We talked a bit longer to work out the

details, before I brought the meeting to a
close. I didn’t want it to go on much longer,
almost because she might bring bad luck to
my happy cottage home.
Jane Jales was biting her nails again, a

habit she had broken in childhood. She
knew she was a physical wreck at the
moment, drinking more than she should; but
she thought it was only for a short period
until she sorted the IEQ debacle out. She sat
210
CROOKED KNIGHT:
hunched over copies of the IEQ court papers

at her small desk at home. Alongside lay her
bank statements, or rather the joint ones
with her husband. With a shaky hand, she
lifted the phone and called her bank manager
at Coutts Bank - the Queen’s bank - asking
him to wire the amount of £30,000 to David
Alexander’s account. She couldn’t pay it into
the court herself, of course.
The next day, David would pay the same

amount into Marriott Harrison’s client
account and then she would arrange for
Marriott Harrison to pay the first instalment
of the court ordered security. At least that
bought her some more time, even if it had
cost her and her trusting husband £30,000.
Jales then took a bold step and told Adrian

Murtagh at Marriott Harrison that IEQ had
borrowed the £30,000 from one of our
private companies. This was confirmed by
his email to me, sent immediately after his
conversation with Jane, in which he
expressed relief that we had been “able to
organise the money.”
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DAVID ALEXANDER
If only he knew, I thought, that his boss was

lying to him - someone he’d known for years,
who was present at his wedding only last
year, and someone he considered to be a
close friend.
T here were only a couple of investment

scraps remaining in IEQ’s portfolio, if
you could call it that, and so I had no
compunction in flogging Wise & Lovey
Information Services for just over £30,000.
Within 45 days, IEQ paid Jales back with an
additional £450 in interest, which Jim had
suggested would be a nice touch to our plans
for her - after all, “paybacks are a bitch,” he
said.
Each day when Jane Jales awoke and looked

at her pale green bedroom ceiling, she felt
physically sick. Her nights were so broken
with tossing and turning she couldn’t
remember if she’d had any sleep at all.
Every effort was made by Jales to extend and

even reverse the order that required the
payment of a second instalment of $30,000
into court. It was like a dam about to burst.
212
CROOKED KNIGHT:
She was desperate to ensure the lawsuit

continued because she saw it as the only way
to recover the fees owed to her firm. But she
had overstepped her authority in allowing
matters to go as far as they had, and now she
was way past the point of no return.
Christmas 2002 was the worst in living

memory for Jales as she acted out the
pretence of joviality at the office party. She
just wished the whole seasonal celebration
would disappear under an avalanche of
snow, but it never came.
Consumers were spending like there was no

tomorrow, a symptom of the nervousness
British people were feeling over a possible
war with Iraq that the vast majority were
solidly against. It was two weeks of living
Hell, and those days were spent at home with
her husband, from whom she had hidden the
secret bank transactions.
T here was nothing else Jales could do as

another payment day approached. In
January 2003, she paid a further
213
DAVID ALEXANDER
£30,000 to David, who in turn paid it into

Marriott Harrison’s account, who again paid
the court and the legal fees continued to
mount. Every attempt to slow down the
payment process was pushing that legal debt
up further. Adrian Murtagh thought IEQ was
just a slow payer. Not an unreasonable
assumption when a company is on its knees.
A few weeks later, after dismissing the idea

of pulling a Monday sickie, Jane Jales saw
the note on her desk as she arrived at work
and wished she had done. She had been
summoned to her partner’s office, no reason
given, but it didn’t take much working out.
She lifted the phone and quietly told his

secretary she would be coming along now for
the meeting. Her feet felt like lead, resisting
each step as she made her way along the
corridor. By the time she got to the door her
legs were like jelly. Even her hand knocking
on the door was shaking, her palms sweating.
She entered to find two senior partners in

the office, a glum look on their faces. After
asking her to take a seat, one of them asked
214
CROOKED KNIGHT:
how the IEQ case was coming along.

Flustered, she rambled on about the
company trying to raise funds through the
disposal of its remaining investments. This
was a lie, of course. The other partner then
broached the subject of their fees, which
were spiralling up at a rate of knots. Not a
penny piece had been paid towards the
unpaid balance since August 2001, when the
court had ordered the £85,000 security and
David Alexander had told Jales that he would
not put another penny into the investment.
True to his word, he had not. But Jales had.
They noticed she had been in court more

than usual trying to defer various dates. Jales
blabbered that again this went back to
attempting to get IEQ much needed time to
raise the money, but she was sure they
would. She left the office only marginally
relieved that they had swallowed her
argument that it was all a temporary cash
flow problem that would relieve itself soon.
The relief rushing through her behind the
closed door almost made her faint, and a
secretary walking along the corridor
215
DAVID ALEXANDER
expressed concern, asking if she needed help.
“No, I’m okay,” she replied. She slid into her

office and admitted quietly to herself that no,
she was not okay. She had nowhere to go.
The future was one massive dark room, void
of any light, in which she was trapped and
there was no way out.
T he Crooked Knight was in a bad mood

and his driving reflected it as he
hammered down the outside lane of the
M3, headlights on high beam, carving up
anyone in his way. The Irish end of his family
had been embarrassing him with their antics
over the water and he was praying the press
wouldn’t pick up the shenanigans in the UK.
September 2002 wasn’t a good month for

him. In Northern Ireland, Marion Scarlett
Needham Russell, a relative of Sir Richard
Needham, alias the Earl of Kilmorey, was
sent to prison for defying a court order to
return various family antiques worth more
than £250,000. The heiress had hidden the
twenty-eight items of furniture and paintings
after a ten-year family feud.
216
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Despite the judge giving her a final chance to

hand over the antiques that she had removed
from Mourne Park House, the family
mansion in Kilkeel, County Down, that
belonged to her brother and sister, she stood
firm and was sent to Maghaberry Prison,
County Antrim, for contempt of court. The
application to have her committed to prison
had been made by lawyers acting for her
sister, Mrs Debonair Norah Needham
Horsman, of Banbridge, County Down and
her brother, Philip James Anley, of Mourne
Park in Kilkeel.
The feud had arisen over an argument as to

whether the estate should have been kept in
private hands or opened up to a paying
public. She alleged that her late father had
wanted her to open the property up.
An unrepentant Mrs Needham said, “I will

not tell where the antiques are. I have lost
enough.” She went on to say she had spent a
large six-figure sum renovating the estate.
The house was falling apart and taking the
items was her way of preserving what little
217
DAVID ALEXANDER
was left before everything was destroyed. She

said she had only taken what was hers.
Her lawyers had advised her to separate her

interests from her brother and sister’s, and
four years later she had run up legal bills of
£400,000.
The court again ordered her to return them,

because a planned auction organised by her
brother and sister wouldn’t work without the
antiques.
Sir Richard crunched through the car’s gears

as if the gear stick was a sword and swung
into his estate. “If there are any press near
the front door, they will be under the
wheels,” he muttered to himself as he
thundered up the drive.
218
14
"If you think you're too small to have an
impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in
the room." —ANITA RODDICK
J
ane Jales had started coming into work
late. She had to ensure she managed to
snatch her bank statement at the precise
moment the postman appeared, so that
her husband wouldn’t open it and ask why
there were £60,000 worth of unusual
transactions on their joint account.
Although there was a set day each month

when Coutts posted statements out to their
privileged customers, the leeway on timing
from then until the moment Jane’s might
drop through her letterbox could be up to
five working days.
At Christmas, only a month previously, she

was driven frantic by the seasonal postal
219
DAVID ALEXANDER
delays, and the magic envelope didn’t appear

until Christmas Eve, a half-day at work
anyway. She called in sick as she’d done
many times before, and with greater and
greater frequency. Jales could almost hear
the staff at work groaning about her being off
yet again.
She did feel ill anyway, she said to herself by

way of justification. Her nerves were in
shreds, her nails broken, her hair breaking.
She reflected on her previously impressive
career, the experience she had acquired, how
she had obtained substantial recoveries on
behalf of international clients, and now how
her experience in fraud recovery was
assisting her as she strove to stave off the day
of reckoning with IEQ. Jales had often said
that you needed to think like a crook to catch
one. You needed to know how to lie to
recognise one. The problem was that she had
crossed the line now and there was no
turning back. Deep down, she knew her
career was over; she was simply waiting for
the knock on the door.
She was good in court, of that there was no

220
CROOKED KNIGHT:
doubt, but she was increasingly leaning on

me for support and I wasn’t giving it - not
any more. Not since I discovered that she
had lied to me. I simply couldn’t get my head
around the business with the bank
statements. Meeting the postman, for
heaven’s sake! How old was she? I would
have owned up ages ago. Jales’s lies had
compounded themselves until she couldn’t
separate fact from fiction. Her husband was
still clueless as to what was happening with
their joint account. I had lost all respect for
her, and as far as I was concerned, she was
no better than the crooks we had set out to
expose.
January 2003 was a strange month. Not

only was IEQ in the throes of unnecessary
additional court actions, but Fox News
Channel had made the unusual decision of
inviting the late Princess Diana’s love rat
James Hewitt to become a war
correspondent for a reported sum of
£100,000. Hewitt, who had tried to tout
Diana’s private love letters to almost every
newspaper to no avail, had no journalism
221
DAVID ALEXANDER
experience, although he was a veteran of the

first Gulf War in 1991. He was due to fly out
to cover the anticipated Iraq conflict.
Iraq was also making the markets jittery,

with talk of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) being able to be easily launched at
western European targets on short notice.
George W Bush and Tony Blair had both
mentioned 45 minutes. People were
psychologically tightening their money belts
after the Christmas free-for-all and none
more so than the senior partners at Marriott
Harrison.
Three months passed by until I received a

letter through my post box in Kent from
Marriott Harrison’s senior partner, Tony
Morris. It was early April 2003, and at first I
thought it was an April Fool’s joke. I was
being told fair and square that unless IEQ’s
legal bills were cleared by 16 April - only two
weeks away - Morris would withdraw as
IEQ’s representative. That was a blow
because I thought everything was in hand
through the deal I had struck with Jane.
222
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I called Jane, who seemed distant. I suspect

she had received a Hell of a talking to from
the senior partners. I then called Tony
Morris, who although his main expertise was
in media and entertainment, when it came to
the fees issue, he wasn’t prepared to budge
one inch. I suppose I could understand why.
He hadn’t a clue what had been going on
with his partner, Jales. He made me feel as
though I had done something wrong, when
all I was trying to do was recover £3 million
owed to IEQ’s shareholders. His voice was
cold and calculated. I suspected that he was
still in shock, having just learned that his
trusted partner was a lying cow who had
risked the future of the firm to further her
own career. Still, he showed no compassion,
and he deserved whatever happened to him,
his partner and the firm.
I am a man of my word. Having told Jane

Jales that we would not contribute any
additional funds to support IEQ’s plight, I let
the threatened 16th April date come and go to
see what would happen. I was basically
putting the onus on Jales.
223
DAVID ALEXANDER
She had messed up in the first place, so let

her sort it out, I thought. I was becoming fed
up with the entire bodge-up anyway. Marie
and I had other business affairs to deal with
and knew they were being neglected while we
wasted our time with what was being
referred to as ‘the IEQ saga.’
T he next day, 17th April, Jales had decided

to go back to court, thereby signalling
that the threat to abandon IEQ’s claims
had passed, if only for a short while. She had
been working it all out mentally for days on
her bedroom ceiling, through her many
sleepless nights. She filed a new lawsuit
against Jonathan Wright, Memery Crystal
Solicitors, EMCEE Nominees Limited, Peter
Crystal’s shelf company and John Shaw, in
respect of IEQ’s initial capital. By now, Jales
was staking her entire personal and
professional life on a gamble. Her objective
and prime need was to force the parties she’d
filed against to cave in and pay up.
However, what emerged was that Adrian

Murtagh, a dapper sort who didn’t like
strong language, began losing the plot as he
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
drafted the Particulars of Claim, just as he

had done previously in the original lawsuit—
confusing the amounts being claimed.
The second lawsuit claimed negligence

against solicitors Memery Crystal for
advising the founding IEQ directors that they
could go public with just £2 capital and a
conditional allotment to John Shaw. It had
already been confirmed that their advice was
contrary to the Companies Act. The
investigation division of the Department of
Trade & Industry (DTI) had already
confirmed that IEQ’s Certificate to Trade &
Borrow should not have been granted on 9th
June 1999, based on the false declaration by
Jonathan Wright. Then, for good measure,
Murtagh added a claim against Shaw for the
£49,998 theoretically owed to the company
in respect of the shares allotted to him when
Form 88 (2) was signed on 1st June 1999 and
filed with Companies House. Paradoxically,
this meant that if IEQ won, it would also
lose, bearing in mind that it was impossible
for the company to be correct on both claims.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
Either they were correct on the first or they

were correct on the second, but not on both.
Murtagh seemed to have had a problem

grasping the basic concept of this new claim.
He was an assistant solicitor in the firm, but
even so, Jales should have checked his work.
Taking her anxiety into consideration, I
would have thought she might have taken
more care to ensure no more errors were
made. She was going for shit or bust on the
case - she had to. The problem was that she
simply wasn’t up to the challenge.
M ay 2003 brought more problems for

Fox News Channel. The company
appeared to be on someone’s hit list.
British television regulators received nine
complaints of bias over the Murdoch-owned
channel. It seemed British viewers objected
to the pro-US stance the broadcaster took,
accusing it of bias during the recent war on
Iraq.
Remembering that the majority of Brits had

been against it, it seems incredible that
viewers couldn’t just switch to another
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
channel.
On the other hand, a crass remark was

dropped into the fray by Julian Petley, the
chairman of the Campaign for Press and
Broadcasting Freedom who said:
“Impartiality is not required in every
programme, as long as the broadcaster can
show impartiality over a period of time.”
In the City, Iraq and the Middle East in

general became the blame factor for
everything that went wrong in the markets
during May. Even Keith Harris couldn’t
allow the opportunity to pass - using the
potential crisis to justify his miserable
performances of late.
UK pensioners were also becoming

increasingly concerned about their
investments upon finding their compatriots
were receiving a good deal less than
promised or expected upon retirement.
Indeed, one noted financial adviser based in
Exeter said: “pensions are a waste of money
for anyone below a £35,000 income. They
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DAVID ALEXANDER
would be far better setting aside cash in the

bank each week.”
It was also in May that Henry invited Jim

and I to a cricket match at Kent County
Cricket Ground at Canterbury. We were
enjoying a drink in the bar, looking at all the
photographs of former teams hanging along
the walls when Henry posed a question. Did I
know there might be a way around the
current IEQ debacle? He and Jim were bang
up to date with all of the dodges Jales was
using to avoid the truth.
“Do the Marriott Harrison senior partners

know yet what she’s been up to, David?” he
asked, looking over my shoulder at a 1952
photograph.
“No,” I replied, “but her husband does and it

doesn’t look like a happy family from what
she told me.”
Jales’s husband Andy had finally

demanded to see all of the recent bank
statements, after checking the balance
online, as he wasn’t sure how many
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
transactions had gone through or when they

had gone through and for what purpose.
Without offering the documents, Jales was

ready to counter anything he asked about the
first payment of £30,000. He still didn’t
know about the second £30,000. His voice
sounded more puzzled than angry, and he
simply shrugged his shoulders when she
explained why she had loaned the money to a
client - lying again - but adding quickly that
the original payment had been repaid within
45 days and that they’d earned £450 interest.
He asked her if that was it, the end of this
silliness, as he called it. “Yes,” she replied.
Another lie.
Jales felt relief flowing through her at having

got through the worst of the confrontation,
and poured herself a drink. She had escaped.
She looked at her husband. He was too calm
and she tensed up. Maybe it was seeing the
drink in her hand that was upsetting him. He
had recently become concerned at the
amount she was putting away.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
But then it happened. He went ballistic,

shouting at her, accusing her of ‘having it off’
with her client. He ranted and raved and
smashed some furniture and then told her to
get out of the house. Jales had never seen
this side of Andy, but instead of leaving, she
just sat on the couch, with tears in her eyes,
and her knees pulled up to her chest, she
quietly chanted: “this really is the end, it has
to end now, it has to end now, it has to end
now.”
T he following week I received a call from

Jales. “Could we meet up?” she
enquired. Again I suggested that she
come down to the cottage. I was spending
most of my time in the UK now and that
worried me. I didn’t like being away from
Marie and it wasn’t fair on her. She didn’t
seem bothered, but it’s too easy to fall into a
routine. I think that’s why I was becoming
tetchy myself. I felt I had to be in England to
see this saga through, yet I knew I should be
back home. I was pulled between two poles
and much of it was due to this (what I would
now call) rather silly woman. It wasn’t worth
risking my marriage for either her or IEQ.
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We met on a very hot day and I had

organised a table of drinks with a sunshade
in the garden, but Jane was too nervous to sit
outside. She told me you never knew who
might be watching. I looked around and
couldn’t see anyone. Smiling at her, I said
almost as a joke: “Just because you’re
paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get
you, Jane.”
Glancing around the room, she said in all

seriousness, “I’m glad you understand,” It
was clear this woman was troubled. I felt
edgy simply being in her presence, so
unpredictable was her manner.
She kept her jacket on as if she were cold,

and her hands were continually moving,
fussing, smoothing the couch, brushing the
coffee table. I asked how her husband had
reacted to the revelation concerning the
payments and she just shook her head, tears
welling up. I didn’t pursue it.
I then asked if the partners knew and her

whole body shook with the word “no.”
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DAVID ALEXANDER
When I suggested she should tell her

partners, or offered to do it for her, she
erupted into her broken woman routine,
pleading with me not to tell them.
“You have to, Jane,” I said firmly.
“No, not yet,” she pleaded. She went on, “You

know it was illegal for me to have paid the
money?”
“Yes, and I also know there are several

Witness Statements, made by both of us,
attesting to the source of the funds. On your
advice, we told the court that the money had
come from my private company when it
hadn’t. You really dropped me right in it, but
then I’m not a solicitor and you are. Why
should I do you any more favours?” I looked
hard at her.
She grabbed both my hands and held them

cupped in hers, imploring me again not to
tell anyone. She would fix it, she promised. I
knew she couldn’t.
I let her go on and on - a pitiful sight - then

landed my bombshell, which I had been
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
holding onto for nearly a week since Jim had

told me.
“You seem to have forgotten to tell me

Justice Patten has just ruled that because
I’ve paid the £60,000, as we both have
falsely claimed, that I should now be
required to pay the remaining £25,000.”
“How did you know that?” she asked meekly.
I literally roared with anger as I blasted out

at her. “Don’t think you’re my only bosom
buddy, lady. A good friend, one who wouldn’t
let me down, told me because he was in court
at the time. I think it’s time to draw a line
under this crap, Jane. It’s gone too far.”
She looked horrified. Again she didn’t want

anyone to know about the payments, the
Witness Statements and the lies, and despite
being told that “one day everyone would
know, regardless,” she begged for my
cooperation. She was making it worse for
herself with each word.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
“You know, David, even if IEQ or I paid the

last £25,000 required by the original order,
there would only be another application for
security and then another order.”
“Why?” I asked, puzzled.
“Because the defendants, Shaw, Wright and

the others, feel certain that IEQ can’t pay and
the court would require payment as we’d
shown ourselves able to pay all along.”
I looked at this weak excuse for a lawyer with

disgust. “You will recall that I told you in
August 2002 to appeal the original order. I
told you that IEQ could not and would not
pay that order, and yet you ignored my
instructions,” I said. What a fuck-up; and all
because this silly little bitch tried to save her
own bacon. She had placed IEQ in a far
worse situation than it had been, simply
because she needed to recover the money
owed to her firm and now to her personally.
She was a selfish, self-centred woman who
deserved to be struck off the solicitors’
register. Her time was coming.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
She looked at me with strong eye contact and

saw just how much I now despised her. She
also knew I was now her most dangerous
adversary, far beyond her partners and her
limp-wristed husband.
T he Mercedes purred along at a crawl

around the side streets alongside King’s
Cross Station in London. It went up York
Way, then Caledonia Street, then back to
Euston Road. There were fat girls, slim girls,
lots of girls - and they all wanted him. They
wore knee-high leather boots and short mini-
skirts and most had their cleavage slashed
low. Their faces were hard and very young,
under fifteen in some cases, and looking at
them was giving the millionaire a hard-on.
Since the blonde managed to force herself
into the lake in Kent he wanted to up the
ante. This was dangerous, coming out into
the open, kerb crawling. He could be
recognised. But the thrill of this hunt and the
risk of exposure was his pleasure.
All the girls invited him to stop. He selected

the one he wanted, dark-haired this time and
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DAVID ALEXANDER
wearing an all-PVC mini-skirted outfit with

chains looped under her small breasts. She
lifted her leg and pressed her foot up against
the lamppost so he could view the goods
even better.
He stopped the car. She bent over through

the open window and asked him if he wanted
some business. He asked how much; she
asked how much he wanted. They settled on
a £25 hand job. This was his first time
picking up a prostitute in an open street, but
he knew he would come back.
She satisfied him very quickly, too quickly,

he thought. He had been desperate. After she
left, he considered cruising the area again,
but he couldn’t have raised anything so
quickly,
236
15
"Every step you take is a step away
from where you used to be."
—BRIAN CHARGUALAF
M
arie and I decided to take a long
weekend in Berlin, a city we’d
never tackled, and were pleasantly
surprised by its development since
East met West. You cannot help but be
overwhelmed by its history, so many armies
having marched through the Brandenburg
Gate and along Under der Linden.
We spent quite a lot of time at the

Charlottenburg weekend flea markets and
walking along the Kurfurstendamm to the
upmarket Kaufhaus Des Westens (KaDeWe)
in Berlin's City West. In the old days of the
divided city, the store was a stamping ground
for the elite East Berliners, with its smart top
floor restaurant and expensive Western
clothes shops.
237
DAVID ALEXANDER
Marie’s browsing resulted in a hefty dent in

our cards, but I didn’t mind. Retail therapy
isn’t a bad thing.
She had a few more days’ holiday due, so she

came back with me to the cottage in Kent.
We’d had enough lonely nights apart. We
had a late morning lie-in and just sat in the
conservatory, peacefully scanning the daily
papers.
Turning to the business section, I noted

speculation on the demise of Prudential’s
Mark Tucker was rife, as the company’s
shares had slumped. It was suspected he’d
left on account of the company restraining its
growth to maintain a higher dividend.
Analysts see that as a fundamentally
unsound policy.
The phone broke our comfortable silence. It

was our personal solicitor, Jim Brown. Could
he come down? Marie looked at me pulling a
face. “More problems?” she sighed at me.
Jimnotedskidded into our gravel driveway and I

he had a bounce to his step. He
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
wasted no time.
“Guess what?” Marie and I nodded in unison.

“I think I’ve found a way out of your mess.
I’ve spoken to Jane and she’s up for it.” That
bit was worrying. Cynical as I was becoming,
I thought if it met with her agreement it
could only be to improve her position more
than ours. Yes, I was beginning to dislike the
woman.
Jim went on. “There’s a scheme called FIRS

run by the UK Insolvency Service that makes
it possible for claims against former directors
to be pursued through a liquidator who
obtains adverse costs insurance.”
My heart was just beginning to lift. It did

sound good. Jim was looking hard at both of
us.
“This means the defendants are protected,

with the result it removes IEQ’s need to pay
money into the court to satisfy these never
ending security orders.”
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I could just picture it: pathetic Jales crying

all over Jim when he told her about it. I must
admit it sounded like the answer to our
prayers as well, but there was that nagging
question in my mind that if Jales knew her
job so well, why hadn’t she know about this
scheme anyway? Why hadn’t she suggested
it from the onset? She couldn’t have known
about it unless she’d mentally flipped and
willed all the hassle she’d endured. No, there
was something professionally lacking with
her.
I asked Jim if I should call her immediately.

He nodded and Marie agreed, so I dialled her
direct line, which I knew by heart. I held the
phone at arm’s length as her excited voice
echoed around our lounge. When I came off,
Marie, a smirk on her face, said “I take it
she’s happy then?”
I explained that obviously pound signs had

rung up in Jales’s eyes when she looked into
the scheme further, which she had done
since speaking with Jim. IEQ, she had said,
could now pursue its former directors for
their unlawful behaviour and easily recover
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
the more than £3 million. She shrilly

repeated that figure, which was the amount
being claimed after the recent amendment to
the original complaint.
“So, what’s the next move?” Marie asked.
I’m going onto the Internet to see what I can

find out about these insolvency people. I
walked over, switched it on and found the
web page Jim had mentioned. A firm of
chartered accountants, Kingston Smith,
seemed to be running the scheme. About
“FIRS” - an abbreviation for Forensic
Insolvency Recovery Scheme - the blurb said
“FIRS brings together a specialist team
comprising insolvency practitioners,
solicitors, enquiry agents and counsel to
assess, investigate and pursue insolvency
related claims (particularly corporate
insolvency) in an effective and cost efficient
manner.
With the use of a special cost structure and

conditional fee agreements, the FIRS team
ensures that the funding requirement is kept
to a minimum.”
241
DAVID ALEXANDER
A typically dry accountant’s description, but

it sounded just the ticket for our problem. I
lifted the phone and asked to speak to Tim
Bramston, who was named on the web site,
but was put through to Ian Defty. He
explained that he had joined the Kingston
Smith corporate recovery and business
construction side of the firm in 2001. His
experience over the past 14 years had been
with the Insolvency Service, which included
the Company Directors Disqualification
Unit. He had also qualified as a certified
accountant.
He sounded very confident that he could

pursue our claims on behalf of the
shareholders and creditors - an encouraging
start. He also suggested the other legal arm
of the company would be brought in, namely
Kingston Smith & Partners LLP. Defty said
he should first speak to Jane Jales, to make
sure that he had all of the relevant facts
concerning IEQ’s claim.
Jales was in an upbeat mood, after

speaking with Ian Defty.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Her calls to me were now full of optimism.

The woman was like a yo-yo, but I suspected
her prescription had recently been filled. She
joked about how great it would be when this
was all behind us. She seemed to have
blanked out that she was the perpetrator of
this entire wrangle. Her advice had been
minimal and she still couldn’t get away from
the fact she’d paid monies from her own
personal bank account to the court, albeit
indirectly through me, to cover her tracks.
The considerable sum of money IEQ owed to
her firm was the result of her time wasting
pursuit of delays, postponements and
extensions relating to the security order,
which I had instructed her to appeal 9
months before. She just didn’t get it.
As is the way with fairy tales, a tinge of

concern began to fall over me. The alarm
bells were muffled, but ringing all the same.
Jales and Ian Defty were working hard on

IEQ’s case, but what they had in mind didn’t
quite equate to a professional way of
working.
243
DAVID ALEXANDER
I went to Defty’s office near London’s St

Bart’s Hospital and Smithfield Meat Market.
I guessed correctly that Jales didn’t want me
anywhere near her offices in case the
partners pounced on me for the IEQ fees.
Defty opened the conversation. “We have a

problem with the money owed to you and
your company. We need you to provide us
with another claim for an unsecured debt.”
My mouth hung open. “You want what?”

More lies, involve me even further. Wasn’t I
caught up deeply enough in Jales’s schemes?
Did anyone work legally in the UK?
“Why?” I asked, breaking my stunned

silence.
Defty went on to explain that since the

money was owed by IEQ to me, and my
company was secured, the court wouldn’t
make an order to wind up IEQ on a claim
Petitioned by a secured creditor.
“So what are you asking me to do?” I directed

the question at Jales.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
She said: “You need to fabricate a further,

say, £18,000, which we will claim is owed to
you personally and then we can petition the
court on your behalf.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, as Jim always

said. I agreed then and there and noticed
signs of relaxation on both their faces. If
they wanted to stake their reputations on this
IEQ mess, then who was I to argue with
these so-called ‘professionals’?
The idea behind the new arrangement

sounded better once I understood the angle
Defty was coming from, but the word
‘fabricate’ still stuck in my throat. When I left
that meeting having agreed to go along with
their suggestion, I decided to walk back to
Blackfriars, but I changed my mind and
swung up and cut through various streets,
coming out in Fleet Street. It was very
different from the old days of drunken hacks
and copy deals being struck with editors. I
walked up past the Law Courts to the Strand
and popped into the Strand Palace Hotel for
a drink. I needed some thinking time.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I ordered a beer and picked up a discarded

copy of the Evening Standard and turned to
the City pages.
T he pharmaceuticals giants
GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca had
had weak showings, and popular web
site Lastminute.com was buzzing with gossip
that TUI, Europe’s largest tour operator, was
thinking of making a bid for the company.
I turned back to the general news section and

came across a pro-European band of former
ministers, business people and sundry others
who were starting a “let’s go for the Euro
ASAP” campaign. Prominent in that was
James Dyson’s right-hand –man, the
Crooked Knight, Sir Richard Needham.
He was quoted as saying, “Many foreign

companies are moving their operations out
of the UK, and we are failing to gain their
higher value-added opportunities that are
now going to Euro-zone countries. Ruling
out membership of the Euro in this
parliament is likely to turn a problem into a
disaster.”
246
CROOKED KNIGHT:
No matter what your view on the Euro,

Needham still managed to get some
headlines.
I asked for another drink and on the spur of

the moment and against the grain, decided to
go on a pub-crawl. This I did exceptionally
well, ending up sleeping through several
stations on my way home, being wakened at
the end of the line in Hastings. So I just
crossed to the other platform and slept my
way back up, and more by good luck awoke
as the train drew into my station. I felt better
for having had a blow out, but the following
day was dreadful and I ignored the ringing
phone, thinking if it was that bloody woman
Jane Jales. I might say something to make
her burst into tears again. Well, there was
always hope. We were beginning to row over
the phone to the extent of slamming it down
on one another.
W hen I had discovered her initial screw-

up of signing off the £55,000 I was
very angry, but our entire relationship
was now built on a succession of lies, and it
247
DAVID ALEXANDER
was all down to one woman. She lied, but

Jim had told me the truth, and I kept my
knowledge of her deceit to myself, sharing
my true feelings only with Marie and Jim.
You reach a stage where enough is enough,

and I was there. I decided it was time to kick
back. Thinking about it, IEQ had a very good
case of suing Jales and her firm and I had
now reached the stage where I would start to
get tough.
The lies had gone so far and Marriott

Harrison’s legal bills were now so far off the
scale, inflated to more than £280,000, that I
felt I had the upper hand. Her partners still
didn’t know about her previous stalling
efforts; her husband now knew some, but not
all, about her money diversions from their
joint account, and her personal and private
life had become one that no one would envy.
In reality, no one could sustain the pressure,
but I now had no pity for her. From my
angle, I saw there was more than £3 million
at stake (by her calculations) and she’d better
get it for us.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
Jane Jales called me later that week to say

she had filed the Petition, even paying the
court fees and publication costs. She was
now using every available means to recover
the fees IEQ owed to her firm and the money
she had paid so that IEQ could meet the
court-ordered security. She had jumped
straight into the quicklime.
S ir Richard Needham stopped at his hall

mirror and made minor adjustments to
his recently tinted hair. It has to blend
with your skin tones as you mature, the
stylist had said, and she’d done a pretty good
job, although he didn’t like the word
‘mature’. He’d worn rather well, he thought.
Better than many of his contemporaries, and
he could still get away with using a photo
from his youth on the London Speakers’
Bureau web site, though there were a few
surprised looks when he turned up looking
rather older and with a good deal less hair.
His appointment at the hairdresser’s en
route from the train station was always out of
hours. That was because he’d now
succumbed to having a facial and his
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DAVID ALEXANDER
eyebrows touched up. He did enjoy having

the facial after a hard day, and his tip to the
beautician kept her mouth shut as to who her
client had been that day.
As he closed the front door, his wife called

from the kitchen. Anthony Caplin had called
a few times. Could he return the call? He
frowned. He and Caplin needed each other,
but he didn’t like him. Far too coarse. He
didn’t like his Northern etiquette. Anything
north of Watford wasn’t very twee. He
recalled one of his friends even asking where
Watford was and laughed to himself.
He called Caplin, who was heading for a

dinner in the City. It was the IEQ business
again, he snarled. Needham closed his eyes,
thinking God wouldn’t it die a death. The
good news had been the company’s solicitor
had messed up. Their mutual friends at
Memery Crystal and John Shaw had
celebrated being let off the hook. However,
Caplin was now telling him it was back on
track and that was worrying. That David
Alexander chap was sticking to the case like a
leech. He had to sit down and think out his
250
CROOKED KNIGHT:
next move.
Needham had never felt comfortable with

mobile phones since the unfortunate though
true comment about Maggie Thatcher, but
used them out of necessity. He was sitting in
his study when the text message ring went
off. The words hit him like a bullet. A voice
from the past had texted “need to meet up,
soonest.” He cursed not changing his mobile
number. His wrinkled brow deepened even
further. This was a bad omen. He slumped
down in his chair, an increasingly large cloud
of depression falling over him.
O n the other hand, 2003 had been a

buoyant year for Keith Harris. On 11th
April he had turned 50 and he had had
his big party at Langan’s Brasserie near
Piccadilly with all who considered
themselves a celebrity. It was a glittering
affair with all his cronies and plenty of girls
to add to the glamour. He was stunned when
his old friend, Express Newspapers owner
Richard Desmond, gave him silver replicas of
three trophies.
251
DAVID ALEXANDER
They were of his much-loved Manchester

United’s wins in 1999: the European
Champion's League, the Premiership and the
FA Cup.
The year had finally seen the £7 million

acquisition of Seymour Pierce’s investment
bank arm, giving him a bigger slice of the pie
and fewer regulators to deal with, as the new
company was private. Always a deal maker,
Harris’s focus was now on pulling off the
Chelsea Football Club sale, advising Russian
billionaire Roman Abramovich. Roman was
subsequently investigated by the Russian
authorities for tax matters and cleared. It
was reckoned that if he received payment at
the usual City market rates, Harris’s Russian
deal would probably be worth £1 million for
the new private limited company Seymour
Pierce, of which he was now chairman. Had
he consulted with the company’s
shareholders before he sold the bank, there
would have been a lot less for him.
Of his company he was quoted as saying that
“it was possible to make money as long as
you kept control of costs, such as turning off
the lights and saving on paper clips.”
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
He went on to say that he had been “greatly

helped by his company’s willingness to
manage its cost control.” Fine words indeed,
but bullshit all the same.
The press were also making a number of

comments at this time implying that Harris
had a second-rate record as a serial deal-
doer, and that all his so-called “deals” were
merely to support his football interests. “Del
Boy has never got off the terraces,” one City
insider said of Harris when he had moved
out of earshot.
The year’s downside so far had been his

ongoing negotiations with MGM Assurance.
Headed by ex-Merrill Lynch dealer
Christopher Reeves, Harris’s firm Seymour
Pierce was being given a hard time.
Still, everything was going right for him and

he had been hearing rumblings that Black’s
Telegraph Group was running into trouble
and he loved new challenges. He sighed,
feeling like a happy man, and decided he
should buy or commission more football
253
DAVID ALEXANDER
paintings for the office. The reception

already sported a number of mediocre prints,
but his office was rather lacking in mementos
befitting a champion of football.
254
16
"The only real valuable thing is intuition."
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
T
he Crooked Knight was walking with
leaden feet from Cannon Street tube
station along Fenchurch Street to the
offices of Dresdner Kleinwort
Wasserstein. Even the morning June sun was
failing to brighten his spirits. He felt like a
doomed man walking to the gallows. His best
description of himself was that he was
‘feeling his age’. To the business people
streaming past him towards their
appointments he looked an old man,
unrecognisable, as he used younger
photographs of himself - to inflate his ego.
Both Sir Richard Needham’s body clock and
the events of the past year and a half were
catching up with him.
255
DAVID ALEXANDER
He was heading to an Extraordinary General

Meeting of Biocompatibles International plc,
a medical device company for which he was a
director and chairman. The meeting, to be
held after the main AGM, was to seek
shareholder approval for a capital reduction.
He was expecting fireworks. The company

was going to say that there was no guarantee
that the conditions for the repayment of
capital would be satisfied. This meant that
even if the resolutions were passed, there
could be no assurances that payments would
be made to shareholders, and that was the
obvious sticking point.
Biocompatibles had a chequered history.

Some suggested it was a ‘bad bet’, comically
referring back to company director Andrew
Shortall, who had lost nearly £250,000 in a
series of spread bets with Cantor Index on
Biocompatibles in early 2002 - punts from
£250 to £500 on every penny movement of
the share price.
Shortall could have made a fortune, but

when Biocompatibles announced that
256
CROOKED KNIGHT:
human trials of a major drug in the US had

failed, the share price plummeted. Shortall
called Cantor and told them to close his bets,
hoping to limit the damage, but it was too
late. Shortall lost £241,000. Cantor then took
legal action against Shortall to recover
money owed on his delinquent account.
In that same month during 2002, when

Biocompatibles’s share price dropped, the
market was puzzled. Selling a business
generally produced a share price rise. Not in
the case of this company, though. Its
development of stent technology for keeping
the arteries open had been highly acclaimed,
making it a market leader.
It was therefore quite surprising that with

this breakthrough came the news that the
company was selling out to its US marketing
partner Abbott Laboratories for just £164.7
million.
It was reckoned that Biocompatibles had

been sold on the cheap, having negotiated a
royalty deal for an undisclosed value. Fingers
257
DAVID ALEXANDER
were pointed at Needham to answer a

number of questions.
Needham’s stride remained constant as he

pounded the hard London pavement. He
thought about dropping into a coffee bar, but
time was tight. In addition to the shareholder
approval, the AGM’s original notice asked for
the re-elections of himself, Peter Stratford
and James Hambro, although the latter had
resigned abruptly the previous month after a
27 per cent Biocompatibles staked owned by
J O Hambro Capital Management, North
Atlantic Smaller Companies Investment
Trust and Oryx International Growth Fund
was placed by Nomura International with a
number of unnamed investment institutions.
This suggested all was not well with board
members and that there was infighting or
certainly disagreement concerning the future
for the company.
Needham unconsciously nodded to himself

as he reflected on the bitter rows late in the
evening at the company’s offices. He hated
them and he hated working late as well.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
A beggar sat hunched, wrapped in an old

tartan blanket against the wall of Dresdner
Kleinwort Wasserstein’s offices as he
approached. He asked if Needham had ‘any
spare change, mate.’ The beggar’s mongrel
dog eyed Needham, who in turn made eye
contact with the animal and both knew
where they stood. Needham brushed past,
thinking lazy louts like him should be put
down. Scroungers, that’s all they were, living
off our taxes on top of the handouts from
lesser men.
T he meeting was sparsely attended, but

Needham recognised a few the diehard,
‘troublemaking, pain in the arse
shareholders,’ as he called them. He felt
irritated by them. If he could have got away
without any such meetings he would have
done so. He had in the past at IEQ. He took
his seat as chairman and worked his way
through the AGM agenda almost at a racing
turn. Were he honest, he had only made the
effort to come up for the EGM that would
follow.
259
DAVID ALEXANDER
It seemed too easy. Without any quibble they

bought the EGM special resolutions
regarding the proposed return of £22 million
of capital, equivalent to 50 pence per share.
He stood up and read out his Chairman’s

Statement. “We have successfully sold our
contact lens business, divested our stent
business.” No one questioned that one. He
explained that 27 per cent of the company’s
shares had been acquired by high calibre
investment institutions - that was the
Nomura transaction - and told his audience
that the company was much stronger than it
was a year ago. Was it? And so he droned on.
They believed him.
An application to the High Court to confirm

the reduction would be made once the
conditions described in the shareholders’
circular dated 12th May 2003 had been
satisfied as set out in that formal document.
He walked out the office with a positive

spring in his step that upset the beggar’s dog,
which snarled as Needham approached. He
cursed the man, calling him a lazy scumbag.
260
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The dog bared its teeth savagely.
Needham scurried along past the Bank of

England. He felt invincible. Even that silly
nonsense in Northern Ireland with the family
heirlooms had found its place in the deep,
deep recesses of his mind. His cousin had
taken 28 items out of the country so they
couldn’t be touched and spent just 14 days in
jail for contempt. “It was worth it,” she had
said. The remaining items had been sold at
auction, raising nearly £1 million, most of
which was swallowed up in legal fees
amounting to £750,000 for the brother and
sister’s fight against their sister Marion.
Needham thought they were silly bats

anyway. He walked towards Moorgate to
catch the Circle line westbound tube to
Paddington Station for his homebound train.
His mobile rang. He stopped, looked at it and
froze. It was another message. “Remember
me?” To most that would be meaningless. To
Needham a name had leapt into his mind
producing utter fear.
261
DAVID ALEXANDER
A round the same time as Needham’s

meeting in London, I arrived back in
Paris with my head bursting with
tension. I needed to chill out and the Kent
cottage was becoming too close to the heart
of my problems. It was nice falling back into
a regular domestic routine with Marie. After
a morning picking up my emails and sorting
out the snail mail I decided to take the Metro
a couple of stops along and do what Marie
normally loved to do: window shop.
I ended up walking for miles, albeit in a

broad circle. My mind had shut down and it
was quite pleasant strolling along the wide
streets. The Bois de Boulogne had its usual
catchments of prostitutes parked in small
camper vans along the roadside. Legs
akimbo, draped over the steering columns, I
couldn’t help but think that France should
really get its act together and ban this type of
behaviour. A licensed brothel would be
preferable. Not a good tourist image, I
thought. Then mused at the sight of one very
respectable businessman struggling out of
one of the vans, having just been serviced.
262
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Returning to the flat there was another hour

before Marie arrived home, so I put the time
into work. I turned on my computer again
and began to pull more emails down. Jane
Jales had sent a few messages. We had
agreed to inflate the amount IEQ owed in
legal fees to compensate them for their
continued support - they now claimed more
than £280,000; if only her partners knew
the truth. She had obtained a winding-up
order for IEQ plc and in accordance with our
agreement, ‘the creditors’ - meaning Jales on
behalf of Marriott Harrison and myself on
behalf of our private company - appointed
Kingston Smith to act as liquidator. It was
beginning to look a more orderly process
now and I turned off the computer a happier
man as Marie sailed into the room looking
gorgeous, even after a hard day at the office.
I told her we were going out for dinner. No
dish washing for us that night.
Over dinner I brought her up to date and she

too felt more relaxed that matters were
moving towards their conclusion. But were
they?
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DAVID ALEXANDER
I an Defty, Jane Jales and myself had been

in almost continual contact over the past
couple of weeks. His reassurances that it
would be impossible for his firm, Kingston
Smith, to be unable to obtain adverse costs
insurance put us all at ease, although in
hindsight, he perhaps protested too much.
So we all felt confident that we had cracked

IEQ’s ‘intermediate’ financial problems and
that we could now pursue IEQ’s claims
against the former directors and thus get the
whole tawdry mess over with once and for
all.
Prior to my return to Paris, there had been a

meeting with Jane Jales and Adrian Murtagh
at Marriott Harrison’s office and Marie had
taken a day’s leave from work to join me.
Jales seemed relaxed about us attending her

offices, probably on the gamble that as things
were working out, we would still keep our
mouths shut. I had no idea whether she had
come clean with her partners yet. She
hadn’t.
264
CROOKED KNIGHT:
The outcome of the meeting meant that

Marriott Harrison would continue to
represent IEQ, but on a conditional fee. Jales
said that the firm wanted a written
undertaking from Marie and myself which
stated that we “would personally pay
Marriott Harrison’s legal fees regardless of
the outcome of any litigation.” Marie
protested. She was seething.
The way this whole saga was turning was just

plain nasty. We had been shafted by one of
their partners for long enough and now they
wanted it both ways. I questioned why the
new fee agreement with Kingston Smith
wouldn’t suffice and was told it just wasn’t
enough security for them. That rang a major
alarm bell, but I had to keep it to myself until
I had rummaged around a bit more. I mean,
how watertight did they need it? My
understanding of a conditional fee
agreement was that if they did not prevail on
behalf of IEQ, then they did not receive their
fee. Kingston Smith, the company’s
liquidator, would reimburse Marriott
Harrison for disbursements, but apart from
265
DAVID ALEXANDER
that, they were now taking a punt just like

the shareholders had. Now they wanted
Marie and me and our company to provide
written undertakings to pay their fees, even if
they didn’t win. Furthermore, they wanted a
100 per cent uplift in fees, payable to both
Kingston Smith and Marriott Harrison on
success, which was described as a judgement
in favour of IEQ, or settlement. In the end,
we agreed. If they failed, all that business
about Jales and Murtagh having lied to us,
the lies to the court and the false witness
statements would have to be used. I am quite
a patient man.
The partner at Marriott Harrison waited

until he saw us walking away from their
office then lifted the phone to Kingston
Smith. He quietly told the accountant we had
given them almost a carte blanche to charge
what they liked regardless of the outcome.
They laughed with one another and agreed to
meet for a celebratory drink the next time
Ian Defty was in the City.
I t was late July and a much-needed

thunderstorm was breaking up the stifling
266
CROOKED KNIGHT:
summer heat-wave. I was working in my

study at the Kent cottage when the phone
rang. It was Ian Defty. After the usual
pleasantries, Defty came straight to the
point.
His voice was very subdued. “I can’t get the

insurance company to cover your case,
David. I have really tried,” he added hastily.
I sat rigid. “What?” I replied. “No one? You

told me you used three insurances
companies and that it was ‘impossible to be
turned down given your firm’s reputation’
and your 100 per cent success record.”
“No, I’m really sorry David,” the quiet voice

at the end of the phone said.
“So where’s your personal guarantee gone?

Or don’t you remember you told us it was
impossible not to get coverage through your
firm?”
Silence. I repeated myself. I heard him

drawing his breath.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
“It was difficult, David. IEQ’s not a good risk.

You know that…”
I reacted angrily. “I repeat, that is not what

you told Jane Jales, Marie and I when we
met. What has Jane got to say about this?
Have you told her?”
“Yes. She said it was regrettable.”
I nearly choked. Regrettable? Is this all this

wanker could offer? It was much more than
regrettable. Politicians have that same
irritating habit of understatement.
Regrettable? I heard Defty’s voice whinging

away on the phone plying one more excuse
on top of the other. As he waffled on it was
becoming clear to me that we’d been fit-up
on this from the beginning.
It was then that I really went for him. Did he

not recall that I had told him that Keith
Harris was a director of one of the UK’s
largest reassurers, or that his friends at
Marriott Harrison represented Durlacher
Corporation plc, where Anthony Caplin was
268
CROOKED KNIGHT:
chairman, whilst they acted for IEQ plc?
They never chose to admit that fact to IEQ’s

shareholders nor myself. The build-up of the
past two and a half years was spilling out of
me now. I raged on. “The bottom line is,” I
explained to him tersely, “that IEQ’s
shareholders have lost more than £3 million
because of the actions of the company’s
former directors.” He sympathised, but
didn’t care. He was in damage control mode
now and simply wanted to get off the phone.
I seemed to be talking to the wall. It was like
water running off Defty’s back. He bid me
goodbye and put the phone down.
I paced the cottage floor, far too angry to

think properly. Every time we tried to
advance, something would come along and
pull us back down. I suspected Defty knew
full well from day one we’d never get the
insurance he kept blabbing on about. They
were all con-merchants.
They may well turn their noses up at the

actions of other less graceful mortals who
269
DAVID ALEXANDER
end up in prison for their actions, but the

entire lot who had previously managed and
advised IEQ should have had first option of
prison sentences when they were dishing
them out. The City was being run by an
efficient mafia gang that laundered money
and operated on a system of ethics that
meant they grabbed the money and ran.
They were also very powerful.
It was inevitable. IEQ’s shareholders had lost

the opportunity to recover the £3 million
because the company had been milked dry by
its former directors and therefore now
couldn’t afford to pursue its claims. Jane
Jales had screwed up the case from the
beginning and Adrian Murtagh had helped
her cover their tracks. Now this corrupt
liquidator had lied through his teeth to get
his appointment, only to fail at the expense
of IEQ’s shareholders.
I knew I was near the end of the road. The

grip these thieves had on the London
markets and the legal system was incredible.
They didn’t deserve the confidence investors
gave them. They were morally bankrupt
270
CROOKED KNIGHT:
criminals who operated with impunity

because they were well and truly up each
other’s backsides and there was no
separating them.
I went over to the cabinet and poured myself

a drink. I then called Jane Jales. Not
answering her calls. I then dialled our phone
at home in Paris and left a message for
Marie. She’d know by my tone how low I felt.
I was disgusted with the UK in general by
now. It seemed that once you became a
victim your position was doomed to become
worse.
I absently switched on the news to take my

mind off our misery. Another mafia, the
British Government, was blaming a number
of its members for the apparent suicide of
weapons of mass destruction expert Dr
David Kelly.
Tony Blair’s spin-doctor Alastair Campbell

was blaming the BBC’s role in the affair,
maintaining it had spilt the beans by naming
the scientist. The Corporation had been
271
DAVID ALEXANDER
under attack throughout the Iraq war from

politicians who said that the BBC had
showed bias against the war despite the fact
that many of their reporters were present in
combat situations and some were killed.
Dr Kelly, in many people’s eyes, had become

a scapegoat. He had been put under severe
pressure during cross-examination in a
televised Parliamentary committee meeting
in quite an unpleasant manner. He was
hounded by the press and had been pushed
into the spotlight. He too had found there
was no way out. I understood how he must
have felt, but I didn’t buy the suicide story.
W hilst I had been recovering from my

latest shock, the millionaire had
picked up another busty blonde a few
miles away, near King’s Cross station. She
was straddled across him on the passenger
seat, his dick fully inserted inside her and he
was in ecstasy. He pushed his face between
her enormous breasts and yelped like a dog.
The girl thought nothing of it. From his car,
she knew she’d picked up a good tipper. The
fact that he wasn’t too well endowed wasn’t
272
CROOKED KNIGHT:
going to prevent her from trying for a large

tip. He felt her hips thrusting in time with
his. He came quickly.
Further south, in a health club near Gatwick,

Keith Harris was enjoying a full massage
after his sauna and steam session. He had
had an altercation with a fellow swimmer
who objected to his diving into the shallow
pool despite the notices. The other swimmer
was told to “fuck off”.
Although very relaxed, he never really

switched off totally and was working out
where to invest next. He had been told about
the latest IEQ news and thought Alexander
could go take a hike. It wasn’t his problem.
He relaxed under the masseur’s fingers.
273
17
"Once we realize that imperfect
understanding isthe human condition, there
is no shame in being wrong, only in failing
to correct our mistakes."
—GEORGE SOROS
O
ctober 2003 was a very bad month
for IEQ plc, but a great one for the
crooks who had brought about the
company’s demise. Anthony Caplin
was now imbedded as non-executive
chairman at Durlacher Corporation plc. His
profile for that company states that he “is
specialised in assisting with turning around
loss-making businesses into profitable
businesses.” That is an extraordinary
statement for the former IEQ director after
he blindly handed out US$750,000 to
MadeForChina without ever having met or
directly communicated with the
management of that company. The
statement is hard to accept as “truthful,”
274
CROOKED KNIGHT:
given the number of companies that have

failed in his wake. Caplin had doled out
funds to several companies in which he had
undisclosed interests, such as 2020Me and
BiblioTech, without any consideration for the
shareholders of IEQ. The total absence of
fiduciary duty was simply astounding, but
then few would challenge him and fewer still
could do anything about it.
The Crooked Knight, Sir Richard Needham,

was also happily earning a crust as deputy
chairman of Dysons, the cleaning appliance
company. He and Dysons were
Gloucestershire neighbours, so his
commuting time had been reduced. Dysons,
one or two smaller companies for which he
was a non-executive chairman, and his
chairmanship of Biocompatibles made the
former Tory minister a busy man. And it
looked as though that nasty IEQ affair was
nearly over.
Richard Desmond, on the other hand, was

experiencing a dreadful month. He should
have consulted his own newspaper’s
275
DAVID ALEXANDER
astrologer for October.
He had been pulled in front of Gerald

Kaufman’s government select committee and
admitted that there had been times when he
had been prepared to pay reporters for
writing stories. He told the committee:
“there have been times when I have been
prepared to pay reporters for writing stories.
But I would like to make it clear that this is
very much the exception and not something I
normally approve of. It's only done when
there is no other option and in the public
interest.” In fact, Desmond had a reputation
for obtaining copy for free off the Internet.
He told reporters before giving evidence to

the committee, “It’s the only moral way. If
proprietors like me start paying for stories all
the time then it’s a slippery slope towards an
Orwellian nightmare scenario. Hacks will
end up just writing what we want them to
and where's the journalistic independence in
that? When people talk about having a free
press that’s what I imagine it means.”
276
CROOKED KNIGHT:
One of his companies, Express Newspapers,

was also suing its solicitor, Linklaters, for
negligence, claiming more than £2 million in
purported damages relating to tax issues
surrounding his purchase of the group.
On top of that, he was still reeling from the
fallout after being accused earlier in the
summer of inflating his profits in comments
to a journalist from the Wall Street Journal.
Desmond had told the WSJ that his main

holding company, Northern & Shell, would
report profits of £60 million. However,
accounts prepared by his auditor, Price
Waterhouse, and filed at Companies House
showed that his company only made an
operating profit of £8.8 million, down from
£24 million the previous year and a far cry
from the £60 million he predicted.
Desmond attempted to explain matters by

saying that he had paid himself £21 million
that year, although under pressure about a
deficit within the Express pension fund of a
similar amount, he muttered that he had
paid £20.4 million back into his fund, which
277
DAVID ALEXANDER
should be considered a shrewd tax move. The

employees’ pension fund, however, showed a
deficit of £22.6 million after receiving a
payment of £11.4 million, so perhaps all was
not as he wanted everyone to believe.
Operating a privately held company,

Desmond’s reporting requirements were
greatly reduced. Had he followed through
and floated his company, as he’d once
threatened, he would have been in breach of
Stock Market regulations.
The media persisted with their almost daily

enquiries concerning Northern & Shell and
sources close to Desmond, who was the
company’s only beneficial shareholder, failed
to come up with any explanations.
Meanwhile, an auditor said privately that the
Inland Revenue would be most interested in
such profit posting discrepancies. People
throughout the City were filing complaints
and providing tips. Richard Desmond was
not a well-liked man and he knew it.
I was feeling unsurprisingly depressed at

the way the IEQ case had panned out.
278
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I was also very angry. The regular calls

between Jane Jales and myself had ceased. I
had nothing pleasant to say to her and so we
spoke only when it was imperative for IEQ’s
claim, and that was becoming less and less
the case. I would never forgive her for lying
about the mistake she had made. The
blunder wasn’t as bad as the lying. She could
have been honest and admitted that she’d
screwed up when she had first accepted the
£55,000 as full and final settlement in
relation to the amounts IEQ had claimed
against Needham and Caplin. Adrian
Murtagh, who discovered her error as soon
as he had returned from his skiing holiday,
could have come clean as well. They were as
bad as each other.
Jales’s firm, Marriott Harrison, had

insurance, as all solicitors are required to
have, but Jales once told me she’d never
made a claim against her insurance and it
was her last year in practice - pride
prevented her from admitting the truth, even
to herself. She had lied to me, to her
partners, to the court, and to her husband,
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DAVID ALEXANDER
but worst of all she had lied to herself by ever

thinking she could get away with it.
We were about to go into court again and I

trained it back from Paris. I hadn’t made it to
all of the previous hearings, but I wanted see
justice done in person. Being there was
important for me. Somehow, I hoped that by
being there I would be able to change
matters. I was wrong.
Marie wasn’t with me this time. I think she

secretly didn’t want to witness the death of
IEQ. Also, she wasn’t as aggressive as me. In
her mind, she had already written off the
£600,000 we had invested. I, on the other
hand, wanted the bastards strung up. I had
made it my sole purpose to obtain
recompense, for me and for the other IEQ
investors.
When my train arrived at Victoria Station I

caught a number six bus, and overshot the
stop deliberately: I got off at the bottom of
Fleet Street. I wanted to see what it really
looked like now that the main press offices
had moved to the Docklands and
280
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Kensington.
There was only one newspaper group left. D

C Thompson, which ran the English end of a
Scottish paper, The Sunday Post, which still
had an office at 185 Fleet Street.
I stopped for a glass of wine in a nearby bar

filled now with legal wizards and business
people. Up to the 1980s the same pubs were
packed with steadily drinking hacks. A lot of
business and jobs had been won and lost in
those hostelries.
As I continued up towards the High Court,

located in the Strand, I saw the impressive
set of buildings where history had frequently
been made and wondered how many other
companies the Crooked Knight had run
roughshod over; how many other families’
savings he had plundered. Television
cameras were outside, but, I correctly
assumed, not for our case.
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DAVID ALEXANDER
T he Kingston Smith front man, Ian Defty,

was waiting with their solicitor, Justin P
Fletcher, and he gave me a brief
handshake and terse smile. I felt like
breaking his bony fingers. Fletcher was a
weak man who said nothing and just stared
at a spot on the pavement, never offering his
hand. It wasn’t long before we were called
and entered court. I noticed that no one from
Marriott Harrison had bothered to attend. It
took around ten seconds to throw the claim
out. I stood stunned. The claim had been
struck out in one fell swoop because IEQ had
failed to provide the adverse cost insurance
cover and/or the £25,000 court-ordered
security.
I had offered the Court a written statement

regarding the source of the initial £60,000
Marriott Harrison had paid into court. The
cat was well and truly out of the bag now,
and Jales would have to face the music. I
attempted to get the court to reconsider the
order by Justice Patten, who was of the
opinion that because I had paid the first two
payments, I should be required to pay the
final £25,000.
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CROOKED KNIGHT:
If only he had known the truth at the time. If

only Jales had followed my instructions in
August 2002. If only.
In the end, my statement wasn’t even

considered. I knew it had been received, but
IEQ’s claim for £3 million was simply struck
out on a technicality.
Ian Defty, that little bastard standing next to

me, must have known what would happen.
He couldn’t return eye contact with me as I
turned and glared at him. I could see a flush
of red working its way up from his neck to
his cheekbones. Quivers were setting around
his mouth and his eyes and even from my
side angle I could see his eyes moistening
with fear. Had we not been there in that
courtroom, a crime most foul would have
taken place. But now was not the time. I
remained staring at him and eventually he
turned, drawing himself up in a brave
attempt to counter my stance. He just lamely
held out his hand and said: “I’m sorry it
didn’t work out, David.” I didn’t accept the
handshake.
283
DAVID ALEXANDER
Coming within inches of his garlic-smelling

breath I hissed at him: “You are going to be
sorry, believe me.” He fell back, looking like
a rabbit caught in car headlights.
I turned and walked out of the court. It had

started to rain, which matched my mood, but
I didn’t care how wet I became. I started to
walk aimlessly along the Strand, past Stanley
Gibbons, the postage stamp experts, and up
towards Trafalgar Square. I found a pub in
Duncannon Street and plonked myself down
on a stool at the bar. It was pre-lunchtime
and I almost had the place to myself and that
was how I wanted it. My nerves were shot.
I didn’t notice the first drink going down, so

I ordered a second. I looked up and there
reflected in the bar mirror in front of me was
Jane Jales with someone I’d never seen
before. I swung round on my stool.
She now saw me and stopped, then

pretended she hadn’t noticed me and gave
her full attention to her companion. Oh no, I
thought, you don’t get away with that one.
284
CROOKED KNIGHT:
I walked over to their table and right up to

the point I reached them, Jales ignored me.
“Hello Jane, forgotten me so quickly?” I

asked. She finally looked at me; her male
friend was looking rather irritated.
“No, David, of course not,” she flustered.
“Do you know about the court result?”
She nodded affirmatively, dropping her head

and fussing with her scarf.
“Before or after?” I added sarcastically.
Her head shot up. I nodded at her and went

on. “I think you must have known what
would happen, Jane, both you and your
friend from Kingston Smith. In fact, for a
long time I’ve thought you both knew exactly
what the outcome would be and you just
strung me and the other shareholders along.”
I could see her palms were moist as she

played with her hands.
285
DAVID ALEXANDER
“There’s another case coming up on the

twenty-third of this month, isn’t there?” she
was struggling badly now.
“What’s that got to do with it? Maybe you

can tell me what that will be as well? After
all, you’re dealing with it aren’t you?” She
nodded vigorously, but couldn’t find the
right words.
I turned and walked out with a parting

warning shot that she’d “better get it right
this time.” I couldn’t call Marie yet as I was
so steamed up and needed to cool off. I
walked into Trafalgar Square with its
fountains. To my right was the National
Portrait Gallery. I’m not an arty sort, but I
saw it as one possible way to lower my blood
pressure. An hour or two wandering around
the galleries might be just the ticket to
clearing my befuddled head. I was ultimately
going back to the Kent cottage, so before
entering the gallery, I made a couple of calls
to Jim, my personal solicitor, and then to
IEQ’s accountant, Henry. I needed a lads’
night in. They were both up for it.
286
CROOKED KNIGHT:
O ctober 2003 also saw Conservative

leader Iain Duncan Smith backed up
against a wall as his party drew its
knives. Despite improving the party’s
showing in recent Parliamentary by-elections
and the May council elections, members felt
he lacked the oomph needed to win the next
general election. He tried to stand up to the
growing pack of baying wolves, but they were
circling for the kill and he decided to back
down and let a leadership contest take place.
Folkestone MP Michael Howard QC became
an uncontested front-runner for the job.
Duncan Smith was on the way out.
Henry had brought to my attention news of

the final outcome of the Isle of Wight Cable
and Telephone Company (IOW) when we
met up.
During his tenure as director and chairman

of IEQ, John Mackay had authorised a
£650,000 loan and equity investment in the
failing company whilst he was also CEO of
Seymour Pierce Group plc. He failed to
mention, to the IEQ shareholders either that
287
DAVID ALEXANDER
Seymour Pierce had a floating charge over

the assets of the company or that Seymour
Pierce earned £500,000 for arranging the £7
million bridging loan, or even that IOW was
just 60 days from failure - something the
directors must have known. And Keith
Harris, who was chairman of Seymour
Pierce, was also chairman of IOW. Harris
was also a director of CLS Holdings plc, one
of the largest IOW shareholders. The bottom
line was that unless Seymour Pierce was able
to arrange the loan, it would have to make up
the difference. IEQ’s money was so easy for
him to take; he simply dipped into its
account for the final top up. In the end, IEQ
lost all of its money, bar the £100,000 I was
able to recover shortly after I have taken over
control of the company.
As Keith Harris was now disposing of all the

Seymour Pierce assets, he sold its interest in
the new Phoenix company - Wight Cable
Limited - to CLS Holdings. The original
investors, really the company’s management,
had borrowed £7 million, defaulted, and got
back their investment for a nominal sum
from Seymour Pierce.
288
CROOKED KNIGHT:
It was really a sweet deal for them. The

bonds they had forged with Harris were
strong and those that belonged to The Club
looked out for each other. Harris was simply
returning a favour.
I must have subconsciously gone into a

defeatist mood because whilst I sat at my
desk every day in the cottage study, the
thought of selling the place was gaining
momentum. On the other hand, I was also
trying to work out how I could get even with
those crooks and liars. For me, it was more
than the loss of the £600,000 Marie and I
had invested in IEQ. It was more than the
lies we had been subjected to at the hands of
the defendants, our solicitors and even the
liquidator. For me, it was a challenge to
recover the investments on behalf of the
1,650 smaller investors, many of whom had
bought only £250 worth of shares. For many
of them, their £250 stake was akin to our
£600,000 punt.
The problem was that it seemed everything

was set against us. There is no British
289
DAVID ALEXANDER
Justice. The victim, in this case, a company

and its shareholders, faces an uphill struggle.
Few solicitors will accept a case on what is
called a “conditional fee,” and even then,
defendants are entitled to apply to the court
for security intended to cover their costs
should the company fail to prove its case in
court. IEQ didn’t have sufficient funds
because the former directors had raided the
company’s bank account, leaving no money
with which to mount a claim, and they knew
it.
I remained determined, however, to do

something to justify the last two years’
efforts; to obtain some form of redress. And I
had both Marie’s backing and that of my two
closest friends, Jim and Henry.
To kill time, I decided to take my hired car

for a day trip to Calais through the same
tunnel that would eventually take me home
to Paris. The people of the South-East and
Kent in particular have become quite blasé
about shopping over the Channel.
290
CROOKED KNIGHT:
It was a beautiful autumn day when I went

over. I was surprised at the lack of passport
interest on the part of the authorities, but
that was their problem. The journey only
took thirty-five minutes.
I drove off the train and made my way

towards Boulogne on a secondary road
rather than the main A16. Motorways have
always bored me.
Calais is quite under-developed along the

coast road and it’s easy to feel you are miles
away from anywhere, despite being able to
see the white cliffs of Dover over the water.
French traffic also seems to disperse quickly
from the ports and you can drive in comfort.
I passed the two Caps and wound my way
down towards Wimereux, an old-fashioned
seaside resort with houses painted in bright
pastel colours and most wearing smart
shutters.
Rather than go on to Boulogne, I stopped

there for lunch. I wasn’t disappointed. My
love affair with seafood was satisfied in full
291
DAVID ALEXANDER
and I returned back along the coast road

relaxed.
At the Eurotunnel Terminal at Coquelles, an

area that is technically a part of Kent if you
want to be historically accurate, I stopped off
for a duty free browse.
I was scanning the red wine bottles when a

familiar head caught my eye on the other
side of the stand. It was Nigel Wray, who
was, as ever, immaculately dressed. He lifted
his head and we briefly made eye contact. I
don’t think he really recognised me, but as I
looked at him he briefly responded. It was
then I noticed he had people with him, a
man, woman and young girl. What struck me
was the hatred the young girl appeared to
have for Wray. She seldom took her eyes off
him and when she did it was only to caste an
anxious eye at the other man. I took a closer
look and recognition began to dawn. He had
briefly been involved with the Talisman
House, Intermediate Equity business. He
looked old. His face was ravaged with
wrinkles and he didn’t look happy.
292
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Suddenly my train number was called, so I

had to rush to the duty free checkout desk.
N igel Wray had just driven from Brussels

and was sick to death of these people,
who seemed determined to stick to his
jacket tails, following him around the
terminal shopping area. He’d had the
business meeting with the guy. He wasn’t
moving an inch on him. The deal had been
made. As far as he was concerned, it was
tough if he’d lost his job because of it. Not
my problem, he thought; but it was that girl.
How she hated him.
He presumed her father had spun some great
stories about him. At one point she dared to
stand directly in front of him, glaring with
steely eyes. He had to admit it unnerved him,
though. She was far too young to understand
and should be enjoying her Enid Blyton
books, instead of watching him.
He was about to tell her to go away when her

mother called. Relief flooded and he strode
to the checkout and went back to his car.
293
DAVID ALEXANDER
There were a couple of messages on the

mobile. One was from his secretary,
wondering when he’d arrive in London, but
the other was a strange one from a young
man he couldn’t recollect ever meeting.
Strange the man had his mobile number.
That was very private. He shrugged his
shoulders and deleted the message.
294
18
"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."
—THOMAS ALVA EDISON
I
t was a gloomy autumn day to match my
mood on 23 October 2003 when I
returned to the High Court for a hearing,
that dealt with the second lawsuit. I was
almost resigned to it not turning out in IEQ’s
favour and I was spot on. The court struck
out the claim. Kingston Smith had failed to
defend Memery Crystal’s solicitor’s
application for additional security.
I remained sitting in the courtroom long

after everyone had left. I didn’t even want to
look at my brief. I felt sick.
After a while, I called Jim and asked to see

him. He always had an open door. After
listening attentively to my sorrowful tale, my
295
DAVID ALEXANDER
trusted friend put forward ideas on what he

thought I should do. As usual, I agreed with
him.
Originally, Marriott Harrison had been asked

to recover money that was rightfully owed to
IEQ, the result of serious breaches of the
Companies Act and a total absence of
fiduciary duty on behalf of the company’s
former directors. It was thought that within a
very short time all of the defendants,
terrified of their fraud being exposed in open
court, would offer a settlement to keep their
misdeeds a secret. We were wrong.
They had realised very quickly that our

solicitors were incompetent when Jales had
accepted the £55,000 as full and final
settlement. The problem was that we didn’t
know until it was too late.
Collectively, the defendants admitted to

having spent in the region of £170,000
merely trying to make IEQ pay the last
£25,000 in security. Now that beggars belief
if you think about it. In fact, they had been so
sure IEQ couldn’t pay the £25,000 that it
296
CROOKED KNIGHT:
was worth £170,000 to stifle the claim rather

than having to face a potential £3 million
judgement or an embarrassing public trial.
Had we paid the £25,000, they would simply
have used that payment against us and
repeated the need for more security. It was
hopeless.
During the entire legal process, the UK

system of justice did not live up to its
reputation of fair play. It fact, the system was
continually used against us.
I was sitting in my favourite chair, gazing

vacantly at the television set at the cottage
in Kent, reflecting over all the hassles we’d
been through in the past two years. I had put
the house up for sale although I didn’t really
want anyone coming to see it. I suppose I
just wanted to be left alone. Marie had
seemed relieved it was all over, perhaps
hoping we could resume a ‘normal life’.
I decided it was time to open Pandora’s box.

Crime had paid off for these crooks who had
cost us so much money and time (and part of
297
DAVID ALEXANDER
that cost was emotional). They had gotten

away with corporate murder by conning
IEQ’s shareholders. But the con didn’t end
there. These men represented many other
companies and the shareholders of those
companies had also suffered at their hands,
though many weren’t even aware of it. This
was their power. The City fronts for these
thieves.
I logged onto the Internet and looked up

Kingston Smith’s web site to see if they had
posted any news of the case. I think I was
being naive. Of course they hadn’t. What I
did see was all of the promises they were
attempting to sell an unsuspecting public,
about the FIRS project in which they were
still involved, and their alliance as
practitioners with the government-backed
scheme run by the DTI. The picture they
painted was that they could and would do
almost anything for companies whose
directors had been ‘naughty’ and milked
them dry, thereby leaving no funds to pursue
litigation. Not in IEQ’s case, however, that
was for sure.
298
CROOKED KNIGHT:
In fact, all that Kingston Smith was capable

of were hollow promises and outright lies.
One small victory was that as a direct result

of my complaint to the DTI regarding their
obvious favouritism toward Kingston Smith
and the way that they actively and exclusively
promoted the firm, they removed the entire
contents of their web page located at:
http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/information/
firs.htm
They replaced it with the statement: “Sorry,

this page is currently unavailable.” Indeed.
A few days later, I lodged a complaint

with the Law Society, the English and
Welsh solicitors’ governing body,
against Marriott Harrison but Jane Jales in
particular. They promised to proceed with an
investigation. Naturally, given the track
record of the British courts, that dialogue has
not reached any conclusion so far. There
have been numerous other complaints
against that professional body accusing it of
losing its teeth.
299
DAVID ALEXANDER
I wrote again to Justice Patten of the High

Court, who had been on the receiving end of
Jales’s lies, presenting the facts regarding the
true source of the £60,000 paid into the
court by Marriott Harrison. Perhaps he
would have ruled differently had he known
that IEQ was unable to pay the security he
ordered. Perhaps he would have varied the
original order had he known that Jales was
funding the litigation and lying about it.
At the time of IEQ’s final death knell, Keith

Harris went into the name changing routine
again after losing yet another £7 million of
Seymour Pierce shareholders’ funds. These
guys lose their - or, rather, other people’s -
millions like sweet wrappers. Seymour Pierce
was to be given yet another name ‘subject to
shareholder approval’. Harris had chosen
“Investment Management Holdings plc.”
That was rather ironic given that he had
spent a great deal of the year doing what he
does best, shedding off Seymour Pierce Bell
and Seymour Pierce Green and other
company assets for peanuts when compared
to the amounts he had paid for those
300
CROOKED KNIGHT:
businesses just 2 years before. Recording

massive disposals of goodwill, more than
£70 million in all, and posting huge losses, it
was just another day for Harris.
The Crooked Knight had an interesting

autumn looking after himself and his family.
His son Andrew invited Sir Richard and
brother Robert Francis, now returned from
swanning about in Hong Kong, to join him
on the board of Fenix (obviously spelling was
a problem) Media Limited, a “youth”
publishing concern based in Reading. The
company claims to advise on marketing
strategy, implementing field campaigns and
providing research on the youth market, with
much of this undertaken via its web site.
They also publish a city youth guide,
“Inside+Out,” focusing on twelve UK towns.
It makes you wonder where the expertise has

come from to run a company like that, but
then, Richard Needham was a former Tory
government minister, his son Robert Francis,
also known as Viscount Newry, lied through
his teeth over the MadeForChina loan
301
DAVID ALEXANDER
needed to bail out his friend Byron Constable

and his buddy Micah Truman, so bullshit
runs pretty deep in that family.
Needham also accepted a patronage of the

Clifton Scientific Trust alongside some
prestigious names such as Lord Jenkin of
Roding and Professor Colin Blackmore, no
doubt all unaware they were sitting alongside
someone who had committed such a huge
fraud.
S o as we enter 2004, what are these

crooks up to? Jane Jales has gone
missing, wiped off Marriott Harrison’s
website. It’s as if she never existed. Tony
Morris, managing partner of the law firm,
confirms that Jales left ‘to pursue other
interests’. Although he is vague about her
departure date, she left shortly after I filed
the complaint with The Law Society, towards
the end of November 2003, though he seems
to have forgotten to inform them.
Adrian Murtagh is still with the firm, his only

crime having been that when he was faced
with the choice, he chose to protect his boss
302
CROOKED KNIGHT:
rather than to tell the truth. Typical lawyer.
John Mackay and Christopher Foster are

tucked up nicely as a non-executive and
corporate director respectively with the
Wiggins Group plc, now called Planestation
Group plc.
Nigel Wray has been property dabbling in

the Docklands. The Columbus glitch and the
Notts County football club share debacle
appear to be well behind him.
Richard Desmond is still learning how to run

a second rate newspaper, but ambitions to
buy the Telegraph may be snookered as the
billionaire Barclay Brothers come into the
frame, although they all have links to the
millionaire’s island of Jersey, as has Keith
Harris, now having hit the buffers with his
shareholders.
A large Seymour Pierce Group plc

shareholder Andrew Campbell is leading a
call for an independent solicitor to
investigate claims the company may have
303
DAVID ALEXANDER
against current and former directors and

advisors. Sound familiar? The basis for his
letter to other shareholders was Seymour
Pierce Group’s continuing slide in a market
where quoted brokers have rallied with
strength.
It could be that 2004 will turn out to be the

year of retribution for Keith Harris, who is
Seymour Pierce executive chairman with old
Talisman House mate Richard Feigen as
executive director and his right hand man. I
recall Harris’s friend Richard Desmond
comparing me to Asil Nadir in the libellous
Express article. Imagine that? That’s the pot
calling the kettle black.
Anthony Caplin is still looking after

Durlacher Corporation plc, but has managed
to spin a yarn setting himself up as “Mr
Holier than the rest” and covered his tracks
so well that the new Conservative leader
Michael Howard MP invited him to sit on an
“expert team” to root out waste in the public
sector. Well, he’s certainly rooted out IEQ’s
bank account in the private sector.
304
CROOKED KNIGHT:
Caplin was described by Howard as a ‘City

company doctor.’ Had he been a medical
doctor he would have been struck off long
ago.
The Crooked Knight is the real thorn in the

crown. Sir Richard Needham is still sucking
up praise at Dyson and he is chairman of
Biocompatibles. We’ll see what another year
brings with those companies.
In the end, we have now done what we

should have done at the beginning of this
saga. Jim Brown and I have hired a private
investigator who is tracking each of them;
watching, taking photographs, making sure
we know where they are and what they’re
doing. It’s interesting to see how well they
recovered from the IEQ debacle, with no
desire to compensate the shareholders they
screwed, no remorse, no intention to ‘make
things right.’ It’s interesting to me to observe
them, to see how they actually believe that
one can steal more than £3 million and
simple walk away without any consequences.
305
DAVID ALEXANDER
One must remember that what goes around

comes around, and now it’s my turn.
I am a patient man.
Author’s 4th Edition Note

Without very much space available in this 4th
edition, I am able to report that since first penning
this tome, Jane Jales is no longer a solicitor in
the UK—her name having been removed from the
Law Society’s list of solicitors. Additionally, after
much effort, the Law Society agreed that Jales
“acted in a transaction where her interests
conflicted with her those of her client”.
Sir Richard Needham is constantly whining to

his solicitor, Ms. Jo Keedie, of Dawsons of London
about the contents of this book and numerous
articles published on OfficialWire, but he doesn’t
dare sue; primarily because this book is true and
also because should he ever work up the nerve to
sue the author or publisher, a counter-suit will
follow and the entire IEQ saga will finally get its
day in court.
Please sue, please sue.
306
Where are these people today?
The following publicly available information was
provided by Companies House in the United
Kingdom. This list includes only “active” UK
directorship/secretary appointments and does not
include any directorships outside the UK. Neither
does it include a myriad of dissolved and former
directorships, for each person shown below:
The Rt. Hon Sir Richard Francis Needham

The Croft House, Somerford Keynes
Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 6DW
1. Dyson Limited
2. United Kingdom – Japan 21st Century
Group
3. Richard Needham Consultancy Limited
4. NEC Europe Ltd
5. Tartan Check (Holdings) Limited
6. Tartan Check Limited
7. Merlion Healthcare Limited
8. Biocompatibles International plc
9. NYNE Limited
10. Network Programs (Europe) Limited
11. Fenix Media Limited
12. Hansard Group plc
13. Newfield Information Technology
Limited
Jonathan Wordsworth Wright
Flat 1, 58 Coolhurst Road
London N8 8EU
1. Seymour Pierce Limited
Anthony Lindsay Caplin

22 Elm Lodge
London SW6 6NZ
1. Easynet Group plc

2. Global Sealing Technologies Ltd
3. Norprint Labelling Systems Limited
4. Irevolution Group plc (Liquidation)
5. Tadpole Technology plc
6. Hansard Group plc
7. Northamber plc
8. Alternative Networks Limited
9. Dynamic Commercial Finance plc
10. Hand Picked Hotels Limited
11. Durlacher Corporation plc
12. Webdraw Limited
13. Syncforce Limited
14. Ant Ltd
15. The Family Holiday Association
John Sebastian Mackay
Blemheim House, 137 Blemheim Crescent
London W11 2EQ
1. Public Network plc

2. Swan Enford Limited
3. Jarvis Investment Management plc
4. Planestation Group plc
5. Notting Hill Preparatory School Limited
6. Mount Street Investors Limited
7. Mount Street Advisory Services Limited
8. Mount Street Investment Management
Limited
9. Mount Street Modus IBI Limited
Keith Reginald Harris

14 Eaton Row
London SW1W 0GA
1. Radio First plc (Liquidation)

2. Benfield Holdings Limited
3. Seymour Pierce Limited
4. Wembley National Stadium Limited
5. Isle of Wight Cable and Telephone Co.
Limited (Liquidation)
6. Keith Harris & Associates Limited
7. Investment Management Holdings plc
8. UBC Media Group plc
9. Pavilion Asset Management Limited
10. CLS Holdings plc
11. Seymour Pierce Ellis Limited
Christopher Kenneth Foster

Springwood House, The Avenue
Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7LY
1. Planestation Group plc

2. Wiggins Homes (South) Limited
3. Wiggins Management Services Limited
4. Wiggins Castle Wharf Limited
5. Duskwave Property Limited
6. Kent International Business Park Limited
7. Tomorrows Leisure Limited
8. Wiggins Lancaster Limited
9. Kent International Travel Limited
10. Wiggins Leisure Limited
11. Wiggins Lifestyle Limited
12. Wiggins Investments Limited
13. Wiggins St Johns Limited
14. London City Racecourse Limited
15. Wiggins (Burford) SPV Limited
16. Wiggins (Liverpool) SPV Limited
17. Wiggins (Killingworth) SPV Limited
18. Wiggins (Hellaby) SPV Limited
19. Kingsbury (Cinema) Limited
20. Wiggins Fairfield Limited
21. Wiggins Kingsbury Limited
22. Wardtown Limited
23. Norham Multi Leisure Limited
24. Norham Investments Limited
25. Emptico Limited
26. Selltime Limited
27. Charles F. Hunter (Leisure) Limited
28. Caldwell & Davies Limited
29. Wiggins City Clubs Limited
Richard Clive Desmond

The Badgers, White Lodge Close
The Bishops Avenue
London N2 0BL
1. Badger Finance Limited

2. Northern & Shell Properties Limited
3. Export Magazine Distributors Limited
4. Sightline Publications Limited
5. O.K. Magazines Limited
6. The Green Magazine Company Limited
7. Northern & Shell plc
8. Sorse Distribution Limited
9. The Northern & Shell Tower Management
Services Limited
10. Northern & Shell Distributions Limited
11. Tower Magazines Limited
12. Northern & Shell Videos Limited
13. Northern & Shell Services Limited
14. Northern & Shell Group Limited
15. O K Magazines Trading Co Limited
16. Northern & Shell Titles Limited
Northern & Shell Investments
17. Limited
18. Portland Investments Limited
19. Burginhall 677 Limited
20. Newco Three Limited
21. RCD1 Limited
22. Northern & Shell Network Limited
23. Northern & Shell Media Holdings Limited
24. Northern & Shell Media Limited
25. Northern & Shell Nominee Limited
26. Sunday Express Limited
27. United Magazines Publishing Services
Limited
28. Express Property Management Limited
29. Broughton Printers Limited
30. Express Printers Manchester Limited
31. Beaverbrook Newspapers Limited
32. Blackfriars Leasing Ltd
33. Daily Express Limited
34. Daily Star Limited
35. Express Newspapers Properties Limited
36. Express Newspapers (Unlimited Liability)
37. Scottish Express Newspapers Limited
38. Northern and Shell Finance Limited
39. West Ferry Printers Limited
Clive Bradley
8 Northumberland Place
Richmond, Surrey TW10 6TS
1. Feltsted School Trustee Limited

2. Age Concern Richard Upon Thames
Peter Maurice Crystal

46 Conduit Mews, Paddington
London W2 3RE
1. Sports Injuries Clinics Limited

(company secretary)
2. Crystal Business Training Limited
(company secretary)
3. Crystal Media Training Limited (also
company secretary)
(Liquidation)
4. Cablefree Solutions Limited
5. TUV Product Service Limited
6. Babt Product Service Limited
7. Axcelerant Group plc
8. EMCEE Nominees Limited
9. Marshall Zoing Limited
10. TUV Suddeutschland (U.K.) Limited
11. Crystal Media Training Limited
(Liquidation)
Viscount Robert Francis John Newry
6 Lattimer Place, Chiswick
London W4 2UA
1. Newfield Information Technology

Limited
(also company secretary)
2. Network Programes (Europe) Limited
3. Fenix Media Limited
Nigel William Wray

Avenue Brassine 30
1640 Rhode-St-Genese
Brussels
1. Carlisle Holdings Limited

2. Investment Management Holdings plc
3. Invox plc
4. Electric Word plc
5. Moneypitch Company Limited
6. Brendon Street Investments Limited
7. Domino’s Pizza Group Limited
8. English Rugby Partnership Limited
9. Domino’s Pizza UK & IRL plc
10. Wilink plc
11. Syncbeam Limited
12. Saracens Limited
13. Urbium plc
14. Brendom Street Securities Limited
15. Prestbury Investment Holdings Limited
16. Extreme Group Limited
17. Spin SPG Limited
John Richard Shaw

Garden Flat
4 Camden Terrace
London NW1 9BP
1. City Financial Associates Limited (also

company secretary)
2. CFA Capital Group plc (also company
secretary)
3. Abinger Investments Limited (also
company secretary)
4. Talisman House Limited (also company
secretary)
Jane Angela Jales

40 Bradmore Park Road
Hammersmith
London W6 0DT
No current appointments
About the Author
David Alexander, an English barrister,

was called to the Bar in 1975 at the Inner
Temple, having eaten his required
number of dinners, listened to Michael
Crystal give tutorials at Oxford, and took
his law degree flat on his back, totally
pissed but very eloquent. He now
resides in Borneo with his family.

Crooked Knight: How It All Went Wrong For IEQ

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Crooked Knight: How It All Went Wrong For IEQ

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“Beware of the fury

of the patient man.”

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware

Copyright © 2004-2008 by David Alexander

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004101151

Printed in the United States of America

The Rt. Hon Sir Richard Francis Needham

Each person listed above contributed in their

She saw him tucked away in the corner of the

when he came to show someone around who

She slowly unwrapped herself from the pole,

She spun round, bent over and thrust her

Legs apart, she thrust her firm breasts out

T he BMW’s air conditioning was

John Mackay knew all his immediate

The mobile rang; the number showed Keith

“Yes, still jammed,” he said. “Wish I’d gone

Harris said something at the other end, the

Mackay then got out of the car and walked

Mackay got back in the car and turned over

H e knew little about why he’d been

He noticed brake lights ahead and with relief

After several miles driving through country

Keith Harris’s luxury home, set near Gatwick

Mackay caught a glimpse of two women

“We wondered if you’d ever make it,” he said,

He steered Mackay through the oak-panelled

Waiting were Nigel Wray and Peter Crystal, a

K eith Harris looked hard at them and

He went on: “I met Stephen Barclay, the

A spark ignited in Peter Crystal and he raised

Stephen Barclay put the phone down, a smile

He reflected on the telephone call,

his hospitality, but hints about one or two

John Shaw had spent a long day the previous

His host, Keith Harris, had been CEO of

Shaw was on his way to ask Jonathan Wright

Shaw felt a surge of satisfaction run through

John Shaw entered Memery Crystal’s offices

Instead, he pulled out his pen. Intermediate

North Korea sent a missile whistling over

I t had been snowing hard around the M25,

They met in a private room on the Hilton’s

O n a bleak January morning in 2000,

Whilst Cherie Blair, the prime minister’s

In what might have been thought a rash

Harris disliked shareholder meetings as a

What he had in mind was something else. All

The meeting wasn’t well attended, although

S eymour Pierce Group’s chairman’s

Harris had a lot of Internet interests that

Barclay and his directors left to enjoy their

Their reward ensured Harris was appointed

The meeting finished early and Harris pulled

He eyed each one of his directors, seeing

He glared at them and said: “If I ever catch

of the press, you’ll never work again.

Hesitantly, the row of suits nodded.

Nigel Wray looked at him with a secret smile.

T he small man came out of the steam

The health club knew they had to get it right

Richard Desmond was the King of Porn. He

competitor Hello head on. However, there

His company, Northern & Shell, was