Paul Staines AKA Guido Fawkes is on fire
Best known for his “Order Order” website, Paul Staines, AKA “Guido Fawkes”, the right-wing political critic, former “Acid House PR guy” voted number 36 in the “Top 50 newsmakers of 2006″ in The Independent, for his blogging website and his role in the Prescott scandal, has really “dropped himself in it”.
In 2011, Staines was ranked by GQ , along with his co-author Harry Cole at number 28 in the magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential Men in Britain. Paul Staines.
Guido was on fire then, but now he has some to put out that’s for certain. Did he use his influence to obtain favours from his political contacts? Our investigation would certainly point in that direction.
Martin Walsh, a founding partner of this firm was a former business partner of Staines. Martin explains:
“I first met Mr Staines, in July 1997 wherein he and I were introduced by a mutual friend, Simon Liddamore. I wanted to help Staines get into our business and our interim negotiations were reliant upon him opening a Bahamas registered company, depositing £30,000 into the corporate account in Hong Kong to participate in a group IPO trading business. Staines did not then have the resources to make the down payment, so Mr Liddamore covered his payment” .
“Mr Staines used the money in a number of IPO trades, founded essentially by my market intelligence, allowing him to benefit financially trading capital market instruments around those IPOs. With my help, Staines made about $1.4 million from the first quarter of 1998 until end of 2000” Paul Staines.
“By the end of 2000, Mr Staines appeared to have disposed of the vast majority of his earnings, he lived an extravagant socialist lifestyle, sniffing cocaine and living it up with high class prostitutes, in my opinion, by then, he was beginning to lose the plot”. Paul Staines – AKA Guido Fawkes
“At the beginning of 2001, Staines began threating me with potential court proceedings. He appeared to try and incriminate me, implying that I had outstanding UK tax liabilities. I had none, I had been non domicile for about 20-years, I suspected Staines owed about £700,000 owing to the Inland Revenue”.
“To cut a long story short, Mr Staines began demanding various sums of money from me and seeking to fabricate a claim against me in the sum of £180,000 off the back of the alleged contract that neither he nor I had ever negotiated or had sight of”. Paul Staines – AKA Guido Fawkes
Mr Walsh told us that due to the ambiguity naturally created, the relationship between the two parties quickly deteriorated.
Martin Walsh: Guido Fawkes and I didn’t exactly part on good terms – Fireworks
“As you can imagine with this conduct, Staines and I didn’t exactly part on good terms, it was a kick in the gonads after I had only tried to help the guy”.
On the morning of 23rd April 2002 Mr Walsh received a distraught call from staff at his Charles Street office in London. They opened the post and there was a “penal freezing order” threatening Mr Walsh with contempt of court if he didn’t comply with the order.
“On my behalf, Richards Butler contested jurisdiction on the grounds I was not UK resident. Even though the application for me to contest jurisdiction was not in fact formally decided, costs were awarded against me by Goldring J in the sum of approximately £35,000. I knew then something fishy was going on. I wish I knew then what I know now”.
“Staines breached his duty to disclose material information and facts resulting in the freezing order”
Mr Staines had effected an ex-parte (without notice) hearing before Judge Rimer for a UK penal freezing order against Mr Walsh.
The duty was on Staines to disclose all material particulars respective of the case ex-parte. The case was essentially reliant on an alleged contract, which formed the entire basis of the claim for the freezing injunction.
In any ex-parte financial proceeding, particularly for injunctions of this nature, there is a legal duty on the applicant to make full and fair disclosure. Staines did not even produce the contract on which his purported claim was founded.
Bizarrely, Judge Rimer raised no questions as to the whereabouts of the alleged contract originating the proceeding, he just took Mr Staines’s word for it. We consider this act to be at best, grossly negligent, but more likely, far more sinister.
Any judge in Judge Rimer’s position would have at the very least asked Mr Staines to produce the contract said to originate the claim. Had he done so, it would have been easily established that there was not one and that would have killed it in one. It was this negligent breach of duty or malfeasance on the part of Rimer that caused Mr Walsh to be defrauded by Staines and, essentially, the Court, who once again facilitated the fraud.
In support of the penal freezing order founded by failure to disclose and the false case, Rimer made an order in favour of Mr Staines capped at £180,000.
“Mr Staines misled the Court in relation to his true financial position, hoodwinking into belief that he was solvent enough to provide a personal guarantee cross-undertaking in damages, when that was far from the correct factual position”.
We were shown a later judgment of Mr Justice Laddie originating from when Mr Staines sought to increase the sum of the fraudulently obtained penal freezing order against Mr Walsh to £370,000.
At paragraph 7 it was found that Mr Staines had misled the Court to obtain the penal freezing order by failing to disclose his indebtedness to HMRC.
In PCV -v- The Y Regional Government of X [2014] EWHC 68 Mr Justice Hamblen set out, in clear terms, the rigorous nature of the duty to give full and frank disclosure to the court when making a without notice application. From that judgment, it was cited that:
“In the light of my conclusion on Issues (1) to (3) it is not necessary to determine this issue. However, since it was fully argued I shall briefly do so. The importance of making full and frank disclosure on without notice applications is well established and has been repeatedly emphasised by the Court – see, for example, Bank Mellat v Nikpour [1985] FSR 87 at p92; Brink’s Mat Ltd v Elcombe [1988] 1 WLR 1350 at p 1357; Arena Corporation Ltd v Schroeder [2003] EWHC 1089 (Ch) at [213].
As stated by Bingham J in Siporex Trade SA v Comdel Commodities Ltd [1986] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 428 at p 437:
“[The applicant] must disclose all facts which reasonably could or would be taken into account by the Judge in deciding whether to grant the application. It is no excuse for an applicant to say that he was not aware of the importance of matters he has omitted to state. If the duty of full and fair disclosure is not observed the Court may discharge the injunction even if after full enquiry the view is taken that the order made was just and convenient and would probably have been made even if there had been full disclosure.”
Strangely, Laddie J failed to set aside the order, which would have been the starting point in doing justice after finding that the order was founded by deceit.
The failure to set aside due to the absence of the contract at the heart of Guido’s case and that of primary consideration originating the ex-parte appears to be sinister.
In the many cases we have investigated, the common synergy is that those affiliated with the Conservative Party are provided impunity, a case of “justice subject to status”.
Deliberate failure to judge by concealment of crucial facts & evidence?
It does appear all too coincidental that Rimer J failed to ask Guido for the contract said to have originated his ex-parte claim, but then for Laddie to find the fraud and fail to set aside the order, this is a pattern we have seen all too often.
The UK’s courts have been doing injustice, appearing to widely advocate this kind of fraud when the public interest requires them to be penal by nature of any breach of duty to disclose in financial remedy proceedings.
Mr Staines owed over £700,000 to HMRC, by failing in his duty to pay tax on very substantial earnings for 3 – 4 years, he appeared to be insolvent at the time he gave his personal guarantee under false pretenses. It goes beyond civil contempt, meeting the bar of criminal fraudulent non-disclosure in our view.
Had full and fair disclosure been made, undoubtedly Mr Walsh would not have been defrauded in the name of justice.
Even in light of the findings of dishonesty that would have made a material difference to the order that had been made, the Court failed in its duty to preserve the public interest, setting aside the order and penalise the offender.
“I was doing not much else but looking at a Bloomberg screen and doing coke”
On 6th August 2018, Staines gave his own candid account of his lifestyle, he said;
“When the music stopped and the NASDAQ crashed, I was doing too much coke and I was in Tokyo and I was looking at a Bloomberg screen and doing not much else but looking at a Bloomberg screen and doing coke, I came up with this great idea of suing my backer”
Staines was referring to Mr Walsh, who had helped him get on his feet, showing him the ropes, how to trade the markets.
“Who was worth a lot more money than me and the lesson I have taken from this is, never sue someone who’s a lot richer than you”
“He danced around the courts for quite a while…” “He had the great idea of filling out my tax return for the last 5-years. The tax man sent it back to me saying I hadn’t signed it, but I did owe over £700,000”
“It was the legal fees, the tax battle and the fact that £700,000 is more than I had, so I just voluntarily..”
Staines was referring to the fact he voluntarily bankrupted himself as a means of evading the liability.
Watch the 2018 video of Paul Staines’s account of the events as they unfolded
On 6th August 2018, Staines really did “put his foot in it” openly admitting in public that he has, in effect, committed a criminal offence, resulting in Mr Walsh losing over £1 million due to his dishonesty.
Misleading the Court and withholding evidence ex-parte is substantially different from Mr Staine’s account of “suing my backer”. To sue someone, one would bring a standard CPR Part 7 claim, giving the party being sued opportunity to present one’s defence. Staines didn’t do that, he fabricated a contract that never was and intentionally misled the Court, whilst, it appeared, the politically led judges provided him impunity, assisting him in doing so.
Whilst admitting he was insolvent at the time he provided the personal guarantee under false pretence, Staines was not quite so candid about the fact he misled the Court and fabricated a contract that never was.
Indictable offences punishable by up to 10-years imprisonment
Statutory law makes it a criminal offence to knowingly mislead the Court, but to do so to obtain pecuniary interest by deception, is not only perjury, but Staines has, we allege, committed offences defined in section 2 and in section 3 of the Fraud Act 2006, for making false representations and for failing to disclose information. Indictable offences punishable by up to 10-years imprisonment.
Staines and his legal advisors made an application to strike out my claim for restitution for the wrongdoings on the part of Staines, concocting a story stating I had entered into some sort of contractual reliance position regarding his undertaking, relying on fabricated position of witness immunity”
“Sarah Aspen QC, the Deputy High Court Judge ruled in my favour and dismissed the fabricated claim by Staines”
“Staines and his legal team then appealed the decision dismissing the claim. Judge Rimer, who initially imposed the freezing order, affixed himself to the appeal”, explained Mr Walsh.
This was, quite categorically a conflict of interest, somewhat incriminating Judge Rimer, which is likely why he failed to request the contract, because he was working for Mr Staines.
In the Court of Appeal, Judge Rimer, Moore-Bick, and Ward LJ attached themselves to the appeal overturned the decision of Sarah Aspen QC striking out Mr Staine’s claim.
During the appeal hearing Lord Justice Ward commented that “the fact that the Court was misled is not the issue”, effectively lending credence to misleading the court, which is of course, perjury.
Without substance or any evidence of the alleged contract, it was predetermined that Mr Walsh had entered a contract (that never even existed) and that witness immunity applied to Staines.
“When I then challenged the decision in the House of Lords, I was told the point of law, as pleaded, is one we ought not to consider”
Witness immunity applies to protect witnesses in proceedings so they can freely give evidence.
The point of law in question is the fact that Mr Staines committed an alleged criminl fraud by non-disclose and the doctrine of immunity from suit applied only respective of civil proceedings, no one is above the law.
Staines, AKA Guido Fawkes will learn that the hard way we envisage, for until the fire has been put out, the fire is burning fast and the wick is short, and likewise, criminal offences do not carry an expiration date.
It has long been said in English law that ‘fraud unravels all, even post judgment‘ but that appears not to apply when the courts, public officials and their affiliates are in fact, part of that fraud.
We invited Mr Staines and Lord Justice Colin Rimer for comment on this article.
