Stephen David Jones (“Jones”), who qualified in 1986, was the kingpin for Scot Young, a hugely successful entrepreneur who concealed the family’s vast wealth during costly and drawn-out divorce proceedings with his wife, Michelle between 2006 – 2010.
Michelle, also a successful entrepreneur, built the family fortune with Scot during their 11-year marriage.
At Southwark Crown Court last week Jones was sentenced to 12 years for 2 counts of fraud by abuse of position in an unrelated transaction after pleading guilty to defrauding U.S firm, Discovery Land Company (DLC) of $16 million.
Police & CPS inaction cover-up : “such an obviously prosecutable case that was crying out for prosecution“
Presiding over the case, HHJ Griffith said Jones acted with “rank dishonesty” and “caused immense damage”. Criticising the Met Police and Crown Prosecution for their inaction, Judge Griffiths expressed dismay, saying it was a “great shame the British authorities were requiring an American company to undertake the Proceeds of Crime Act in this country” and that “it is such an obviously prosecutable case that was crying out for prosecution”.
In August 2019, Judge Zacaroli jailed Jones for 14 months for contempt of court after breaching undertakings to return the money whilst failing to explain what had happened to it. Jones fessed up, and within 48-hours of the order he confirmed to the Court that he would not be able to return the money. Zacaroli directed the case be sent to the CPS, yet after over 18 months of procrastination by the police and CPS, who essentially work under instruction of the Tory Law Ministers, no further action was taken.
Another cover up by the political kleptocracy, the old boy’s network of liar lawyers unfolded. The UK didn’t earn its reputation as the economic crime capital of the world for nothing. What’s less exposed, until now, is that the most culpable fraudsters are the corrupt public officials and the judges they control.
After despair out outright failure by the CPS and police to have prosecuted when Jones was caught “red handed”, DLC brought a private criminal prosecution under the direct access scheme, resulting in Jones being jailed.
Were it solely for reliance on the UK’s sham police and corrupt government departments, Jones would have evaded justice, it would have been covered up and the victims would have been deprived justice, as have so many others.
Michelle Young was right all along, economic crime in the UK has become an accepted practice, the lives it destroys in the process appears to matter not. Deceit lasts only until the truth is told.
Scot Young placed is trust in the wrong parties
In 2006 Jones was given a lasting power of attorney by Scot to manage the Young’s vast portfolio, “restructuring” assets via Jirehouse offshore fiduciary companies. After doing so, Scot was adjudged bankrupt in April 2010. Half the wealth belongs to Michelle, who worked equally hard to create it.
Wootton Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire
One of two luxury Oxfordshire properties owned by Scot and Michelle, Wootton Place, the Grade II listed country estate was transferred by Scot Young to Blondell Assets Ltd in the British Virgin Islands on 23rd of November 2006 for a purported consideration of £9.5 million. Blondell Assets Ltd was established by Jones.
Michelle announced her intention to divorce Scot on 5 November 2006, just 18-days prior.
Bizarrely, we found that Wootton Place was sold for £12.25 million on 4th of September 2020. Scot died in December 2014. Where did the money go?
In October 2018 we attempted to encourage Detective Inspector Wynn, head of Thames Valley Police Economic Crime Unit to investigate the money and corporate trail of Blondell Assets Ltd via the Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System Act 2017, but like the Met in the murder case, to no avail.
Had Thames Valley Police performed, on the balance of probabilities evidence would have been gathered to further strengthen the prosecution case that Jones and Scot had concealed this asset, and that the Joint Trustees were part of it. The fraud would have been stymied much sooner, and fraud against DLC by Jones would have been prevented.
Project Moscow
Scot claimed to have lost all his money in “Project Moscow ”, a purported property deal which allegedly went wrong.
In our previous report, we established that Scot himself admitted in Court that he lost no money in Project Moscow, and that in fact the Project Moscow scheme was introduced by Jones.
After its journalists investigated and attended the trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Stand, in November 2013 the Independent, one of the UK’s leading tabloids reported that:
“Documents were read out in court showing Mr Young signed over “power of attorney” to control interests held by the tycoon in offshore trusts in March 2006. Mr Jones said he was acting on “instructions from the creditors”.
“The court also heard that £6 million from “Project Moscow” had been siphoned off into an offshore entity called the “SY Refinance Foundation” controlled by Mr Jones”.
Mr Jones had previously given evidence to the High Court in 2011 that Mr Young had lost “between ten and fifteen million pounds in cash terms” on Project Moscow. But on Monday, he agreed with Mr Young’s latest submission last week, that the businessman never lost any money on the deal at all. Mr Jones said: “He personally didn’t lose any money”.
Mr Justice Moor said he was “very troubled” by evidence that Jirehouse had assigned debts to itself and had become a creditor to Mr Young’s hotly-disputed bankruptcy in 2010.
Jones introduced Grant Thornton trustees to the equation, with David Ingram and Peter Hicken acting as joint trustees in Scot’s bankruptcy estate from April 2010.
In our investigation we established a non-exhaustive list of 79 offshore and UK fiduciary / nominee companies associated with Jones and Jirehouse which were used to conceal assets of the super-rich.
Boris Berezovsky
It appears all too coincidental that Jones was also closely affiliated with Boris Berezovsky, Paul Castle and Robbie Curtis who were all extremely wealthy and met violent, highly suspicious deaths within 4 years of each other. Insolvency figured in each. Scot was last on the list.
Berezovsky divorced Ms Besharova in 2010 and when they divorced, Berezovsky claimed to have assets including property worth over £500 million (excluding potential recoveries from litigation), which included substantial property held in various trusts, companies and other entities. The divorce settlement between the couple was said to have been the largest in the history of the UK.
Berezovsky died in March 2013 and in similar circumstances to Scot, the coroner recorded an open verdict.
On 29th of April 2013 Berezovsky’s deceased estate was declared insolvent and similarly, Messrs Kevin Hellard and Nicholas Wood of Grant Thornton UK LLP were appointed as Joint Receivers.
In July 2016, Mr Justice Arnold, sitting in the Chancery Insolvency & Companies Court, a judge we have established in other cases to be dishonest, claimed that only £34 million remains in Mr Berezovsky’s insolvency serving account, but that creditors’ claims run into “hundreds of millions of pounds”.
What happened to Berezovsky’s money? Did it just “disappear” under the watch of the UK’s corrupt courts, Jones and Grant Thornton just like Scot Young’s did?
The most devious fraud is that perpetrated under the guise of law & “justice” – The victims are deprived of both
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right.
We reveal a common synergy in all the insolvency cases we investigated, the judges themselves are defrauding their victims of statutory rights to assist unscrupulous members of the legal and insolvency fraternity.
Like Jones, these judges, who we find to be part of a criminal racketeering network sponsored largely by the taxpayer, are fraudsters who abuse their positions to cause immense loss to the middle classes and their businesses, whilst making gains for the corrupt lawyers and corporations who feast off proceeds of crime and fraud.
Lawyers have become a law unto themselves, and many of England’s judges fall in that remit.
The UK’s systemic corruption machine is driven from the top down. Enshrined in secrecy and concealment, police and regulatory authorities all fall into line to ensure fellow corruptors who abuse the system and our laws, are made above the law.
What originated from fraudulent breach of fiduciary duty by the Joint Trustees, David Ingram and Peter Hicken, manifested into a fraud on the Court, a fraud by the judges themselves, who are proven to be equally complicit.
Sworn to act at all times “according to law, so help me God”, the UK’s judges of today work for the corrupt establishment and their cronies, there is no independence whatsoever.
Michelle was defrauded of her rights as requisite majority creditor of Scot’s bankruptcy estate, and of her statutory right to enjoyment of the law in set off. This fraud by the judiciary resulted in hundreds of millions in assets being intentionally kept beyond reach of Scot’s only legitimate creditor.
In our investigation we exhibited evidence from 2010 and 2011 in the form of Scot Young’s life insurance policy documents held in a discretionary trust.
Ingram was insistent on seeking to gain control of Scot’s life insurance policies, yet 3 years prior to Scot’s death.
Anyone knows that a life insurance policy is not and would never be an asset of the policyholder. A life insurance policy becomes an asset of the beneficiary, only if the policyholder dies or falls terminally ill.
Alarm bells should surely have been ringing out loud amongst law enforcement. Not in the UK.
Mutual dealings – the £1.385 million life insurance capital
19th October 2010 letter from Zurich to Ingram of Grant Thornton:
“I enclose a copy of the Trust that applies to the above plan. The existence of a Trust may mean that you are not entitled to claim the proceeds. If you consider that you may be able to claim the proceeds, it is our understanding that you’ll need to apply to the Court for the Trust to be set aside. If you are successful, please send us the appropriate documentation from the Court so we can delete the Trust from the records and proceed with your claim. If you do not intend to apply to the Court for the Trust to be set aside, please let us know”.
8th August 2011 letter from Zurich in response to another demand to surrender Scot’s life policy:
“Dear Mr Ingram,
Thank you for your letter dated 25 July 2011 asking us to surrender this plan and send the proceeds for the creditor of the insolvency services account. First of all, please accept our apologies for the delay in replying to you. We are unable to accept your authority to surrender this plan as it is currently held subject to a Trust. I enclose a copy of the letter we originally sent to you in October 2010, which confirms our understanding that you will need to apply to the court for the trust to be set aside. We will need to see the documentation confirming this before we can remove the trust. I’m also enclosing a copy of the trust, the trust provisions and a current value statement for this plan”
Evidence we examined verified that Ingram had received the letter of 19th of October 2010. It is therefore proven beyond doubt that by 9th of August 2011, 9-months and 20-days later, Ingram knew that Michelle was Trustee of the discretionary trust life insurance policy with a payout of £1.385 million if Scot died.
The statutory duty to apply insolvency set off in respect of claims arising through mutual dealings
In June 2020, the Supreme Court’s judgment in Bresco Electrical Services Ltd v Michael J Lonsdale [2020] UKSC 25 examined and ruled on the law of insolvency set off. At paragraph 29 of the judgment it was established that:
“it applies to every type of… mutual dealing, and also to secured, contingent and future debts”
…insolvency set-off is mandatory, and takes effect upon the commencement of the insolvency (the “cut-off date”). It is said to be self-executing, and for some purposes the original cross-claims are replaced by a single claim for the balance”
Mandatory set off is statutory law, conferred in section 323 of the Insolvency Act 1986, it applies to personal bankruptcy equally as it does corporate insolvency and administrative orders. Judges are under a mandatory legal duty in administration of due process to apply set off prior to making insolvency orders where there claims arising through mutual dealings between a creditor and a debtor.
323 Mutual credit and set-off.
(1) This section applies where before the commencement of the bankruptcy there have been mutual credits, mutual debts or other mutual dealings between the bankruptcy and any creditor of the bankrupt proving or claiming to prove for a bankruptcy debt.
(2) An account shall be taken of what is due from each party to the other in respect of the mutual dealings and the sums due from one party shall be set off against the sums due from the other.
(3) Sums due from the bankrupt to another party shall not be included in the account taken under subsection (2) if that other party had notice at the time they became due that [proceedings on a bankruptcy application relating to the bankrupt were ongoing or that ] a bankruptcy petition relating to the bankrupt was pending.
(4) Only the balance (if any) of the account taken under subsection (2) is provable as a bankruptcy debt or, as the case may be, to be paid to the trustee as part of the bankrupt’s estate.
The Zurich life insurance trust capital, and the other life insurance policies, and the fact that the Joint Trustee’s of Scot’s bankruptcy estate owed Michelle a fiduciary duty from December 2013 onwards, are the mutual dealings.
Ingram and Hicken both knew that Michelle was Trustee of the life policies and on signing the Trust documentation, capital would be released immediately.
On 8th of December 2014, Scot was found dead, impaled on the railings. It just so happened on the night of the incident, in that heavily surveyed area of Marylebone, the Met Police CCTV cameras were not recording.
Scot’s death was widely publicised, Ingram and Hicken clearly knew immediately of his death, even if they didn’t already know it was coming in 2010 / 2011.
It was not until June 2015 that Ingram and Hicken presented a bankruptcy petition against Michelle, in the sum of circa £86k.
Ingram and Hicken failed entirely to disclose particulars of the policy, knowing that the cash sum would have provided Michelle with capital to have instantly repaid their alleged debt.
Insolvency law “reverse engineered” by Scot Young’s Trustees in bankruptcy
Insolvency was the vehicle to defraud, and the vehicle to conceal Scot’s assets, leading to his death
It was all about defrauding Michelle of her status as requisite majority creditor, hoodwinking her of the £26.6 million judgment order and half of the value of the assets of the estate recovered.
It was fraud by the judiciary, in this case, Registrar Garwood, sitting in the High Court Insolvency Court, who abused his position by defrauding Michelle of her statutory right under section 323 of the Insolvency Act.
We exhibited the transcript of Michelle’s bankruptcy petition hearing, and the choreography is rather revealing.
During the proceeding on 20th July 2015, Christopher Branson, who we later discovered didn’t even have higher rights of audience to represent the Joint Trustees in the case, immediately sought to conceal the life policies, when he and Garwood knew the life policies were imminent payments due to Michelle.
“It’s an asset of the bankruptcy estate Sir”
Responding immediately, Garwood came in with the cover up:
“what entitlement would she ever have to receive that money?
Garwood then added:
“if somebody comes before the court and the court is persuaded that there is a reasonable prospect of payment of the debt within a reasonable time, the court may, and probably will, adjourn to give them time to pay”.
Garwood knew the life insurance policies would have been that reasonable prospect of payment, as anyone in his position would have done.
In tandem, Garwood wilfully failed to apply set off, knowing, just as Ingram, Hicken and Branson did, that the life insurance capital was substantial, in the millions, and the capital would be released imminently. Michelle was denied time to pay, just as she was of her statutory right.
It was orchestrated, there was never a debt on which the bankruptcy was based, but for the fraudulent failure by Garwood to administer the mandatory law.
Ingram, Hicken and their conspirators remain at large, primarily because the Met Police and CPS covered it up.
The corrupt Tory law ministers protect fellow white-collar criminal lawyers from prosecution so they can continue doing what they do.
So, when we say, Jones being jailed was just the tip of the iceberg, what is revealed underneath is much, much bigger.
In the Millinder case, he was defrauded of over £10 million, both of his companies had claims against Middlesbrough FC, and once again, the judges, who knew of the claims vested in the companies that extinguished the Tory owned Football Club’s claims, defrauded Millinder of his statutory right of insolvency set off.
This is how the corrupt establishment are using insolvency to defraud.
The Lord Chief Justice’s November 2022 retirement speech
“It has been a great privilege to serve as Lord Chief Justice… I have been honoured to lead a wholly independent judiciary dedicated to the rule of law, the administration of justice and public service which confidently celebrates its traditions yet has quietly assimilated very many modern working practices.”
Lord Ian Duncan Burnett of Maldon
It is however a matter of public record that in fact Burnett knows there is no judicial independence at all, in December 2020 he admitted it himself:
Lord Chief Justice sounds warning over “unprecedented political interference in courts”
‘There has been nothing quite like it in my experience”
The liar lawyers at the very top are at it, it is clear that everything they lead is going to nosedive far southwards and that’s precisely what has happened to the UK.
There is no rule of law or judicial independence because the corrupt establishment control the judiciary and therefore, all those with a responsibility for the justice system, including the Lord Chief Justice and his cabal of unscrupulous fraudster judges, have broken the law.
Section 3.1 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 confers a legal duty on all with a responsibility for the justice system to:
Guarantee of continued judicial independence (1)The Lord Chancellor, other Ministers of the Crown and all with responsibility for matters relating to the judiciary or otherwise to the administration of justice must uphold the continued independence of the judiciary.
Raab, the Lord Chancellor swore oath of office to “respect the rule of law” and to “maintain the independence of the judiciary”. They have all failed, yet they all swore the Parliamentary oath to act “according to law, so help me God”.
The mandatory law of insolvency set off is statute, and it is this law they are wilfully failing to apply to defraud innocent creditors of their assets.
A wholly corrupt and compromised judiciary dedicated to assisting white-collar criminals and corrupt corporations in using the façade of “law” and “justice” to defraud and asset strip. All those with a responsibility for the justice system in the UK have breached their constitutional oaths, they are afforded no position in public or judicial office.
We invited the Law Ministers to comment on this report. We shall publish their comments in our follow up.
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What a mess the UK is. Shit running out the government, through the pipes, into the rivers and seas. Is it the mandate for tyrants to destroy everything including law and justice???