Unravel a Crime - Tangle With Women (4 page)

"So what went
wrong."

"Initially nothing.
Apparently about several dozen transactions went through without a problem, and
National made quite a lot of money; more than they would have done if they had
been lending on ordinary domestic properties. However, as you probably know,
after the boom, came the Northern Rock fiasco, and the credit crunch, and the
property market slowed right down. "

"And the converted flats
didn't sell?"

"Correct, and of course
National was exposed."

" I expect that there was
quite a fair bit of capital owed to National. "

"As I said this is a
multi million pound case; I'm not sure how much. I'm sure that the precise
figure is somewhere in the boxes. The National found itself with a sizeable
chunk of money outstanding on what was supposed to be short term lending. A
decision was taken to repossess the properties and sell them. They had to sell
them off for less than was owed, although David says that the sale prices were
higher than they were originally valued, but there was a substantial shortfall.
"

"It certainly was a risky
exercise for a Building Society to have taken, but why the criminal charges.
What is the basis of the conspiracy charge?"

"Well to deal with your
first question, there always has to be a fall guy. One person it's not going to
be is your friend Mr. Masters. The man who persuaded members of the public who
had accounts with the Society to take a relatively small payoff in order to
turn a perfectly respectable mutual Building Society into a Bank, and then
induced slick Yankee investors to put money into the Bank is not going to admit
that he made a commercial mistake."

"And he's a bastard"

"Well, you should
know!"

"But if Newberry was
accurate in his valuations, and if he did not make the lending decisions, how
can he be charged with any criminal offence?"

"Well the problem does
appear to be in the valuations."

"They were bent?"

"Of course not; at least
David is adamant that they were not, but I am sure that you know from your
experience that valuation is something of an empirical science; shades of grey
as opposed to black and white."

"And so?"

"And so, apparently the
Prosecution have a witness, a surveyor just like David, who says that David
overvalued them at the time. "

"And that's what this is
all about?"

"Well not quite. That
would be too flimsy to prosecute; it would be a battle of experts, one for the
Prosecution and one for the Defence, and the Prosecution could never prove
beyond all reasonable doubt, that David's figures were wrong. The actual charge
is conspiracy to defraud, and alongside David in the dock are the Developer,
and the Developer's solicitor."

"I see. Well that's a cop
out for a start, as any prosecutor knows. If you don't have any hard evidence,
use conspiracy . Create enough prejudice to convince a jury that there must
have been some dirty work, and get a conviction that way. What's David's
defence?"

Mortimer shrugged his
shoulders. "'Not guilty. I did nothing wrong'."

"So in effect we've got
to prove a negative?"

"Looks like it. Look this
is all I can really tell you."

“
Gee thanks.” Said
Brakespeare. “Your baby now.” was Mortimer’s parting shot.

Brakespeare turned to the
witness statements The first one was from the other Chartered Surveyor, John
Black who was a staff surveyor with the large London firm of Redshaw Linden and
Steele. Brakespeare had often seen their For Sale or To Let boards on his
visits to the Capital. He remembered that there had been a To Let board on the
office block just across the road from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in
Farringdon Street.

It took him half an hour to
digest the contents of Black’s statement, and then, only with the help of a
notepad upon which he could jot various figures down.

It appeared that Black had
been asked to retrospectively value the properties, and he had produced a chart
giving his valuations, together with the values that David Newberry had
allegedly given for them at that time.

In
each case Newberry's original valuation of the properties was above Black's,
and a table showed percentage differences ranging from 8.1% to 51% higher. The
statement pompously concluded:

''I have set out the
Percentage difference in the estimated capital values between the original
valuations carried out on behalf of the Society and my estimate of the true
market value of the properties on the relevant dates.

In my experience where there
is a difference in value of less than 5% I would strongly recommend that no
action is taken on the basis that it would be very difficult to prove that the
valuations are in any way untoward.

Where there is a difference in
value of between 5% and 25% these are in a ''grey area" and in my view,
open to challenge. Reliable comparable evidence is the true test in such
circumstances.

Where there is a difference in
value of more than 25% then serious consideration should be given to
appropriate legal action. "

Brakespeare added up the
figures on a calculator.

If Black were right 17
properties had been overvalued by just under £3,000,000.00 or almost 50%.

Brakespeare whistled, sat back
in his chair and studied the ceiling of his office. As naturally suspicious as
any lawyer is by training, he could see that a jury faced with this information
would need to see or hear some very convincing contradictory evidence not to
convict.

Brakespeare was surprised at
how quickly he managed to read the remaining statements, which, as often
happens in fraud cases, merely confirmed facts and produced documents. No-one
ever stands and watches a fraud taking place.

Interestingly, he noticed,
there were a number of statements from surveyors who had worked under Newberry,
and who confirmed that they had carried out valuations on some of the
properties around which the charges centred, but said that they had never been
put under any pressure by Newberry as to the amount of their valuations.
Brakespeare could not see how these advanced the prosecution case. In fact they
contradicted it. Was this sloppy preparation?

There was a final statement,
which produced copies of the Company House records for Clearfield Properties.
It appeared the majority of the shares were owned by Jonathan Levy. There was
no mention of Newberry’s name. Strange if Newberry were supposed to have an
interest in it!

Well that at least excluded
his current employers from any involvement. No mention of the partners names.

Finally, there was the
transcript of a long interview by the Police with Newberry. Brakespeare was
surprised that it was conducted by two Detective Constables. Bearing in mind
the sums involved, and the status of the National Building Society as one of
the most prominent mortgage lenders in the country, he would have expected at
least a Detective Inspector to have been involved. He decided that that would
wait.

"OK" thought
Brakespeare, "so the picture is that some dodgy valuations were carried
out on properties owned by Levy's company, but where does Newberry fit
in?". He blanched at the thought of having to read through the pile of
exhibits, but he knew that it would have to be done.

“
Lisa?” he mused.

As if on cue, the door opened,
and Lisa came in smiling.

"How's it going"

"Well I've only looked at
the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't look at all good for our Mr. Newberry."

Her face fell. "The
partners won't like that".

Mel, the journey and
concentration had made Brakespeare tired, and he momentarily forgot himself.

"Sod the partners. I
haven't got a magic wand. I can only tell you what I've found" Lisa
inadvertently took a step back from where she stood in front of his desk.

"I'm sorry," said
Brakespeare, "I shouldn't have said that.” He paused and looked at her.
“Quite honestly I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to do anything. "

Why had he said that to a girl
he hardly knew?

Lisa recovered and smiled
again. "That's OK It's already forgotten. Is there anything I can do to
help?"

Brakespeare gestured to the
pile of papers. "I wish there were, but at this stage all I can do is read
this lot and try and try to come to grips with the case. "

"Couldn't I do that for
you?"

"Ever done any criminal
work?"

"Well I've taken witness
statements for Gordon, and sat behind Counsel in Crown Court .. "

"Would you know what to
look for?"

Her smile broadened. "Do
you?"

Brakespeare smiled back.
"Touché. No I don’t, but I might be a little quicker at finding it."
He didn’t want to upset the girl, but at the same time wanted to keep her
interested in the case.

"Where are you up to
now?"

Brakespeare explained the
evidence had had read so far. "But I still can't see how Newberry was
physically involved,” he added, “I was looking for a case summary of some sort
but there doesn't appear to be one "

"Have you looked in our
working file. I'm sure that something came in last week."

"Good girl, where is
it?" said Brakespeare without meaning to be as condescending as he thought
that he sounded”.

"I knew I could be useful
to you," said Lisa giving him a knowing smile as she walked over to one of
the filing cabinets. She opened a drawer. "Here's the correspondence file,
among the "Ns" and here," she pulled a sheaf of papers out of
the file with a flourish, "where Margaret has systematically filed it so
that no-one can find it, is a document headed' Prosecution Case
Statement"'.

She handed it to Brakespeare,
and sat down opposite him at the desk while he started to read it.

He looked at her knowingly.
"And now the moment of truth. "

The document was 4 pages long
and consisted of numbered paragraphs. Brakespeare read the contents out loud so
that Lisa could hear.

1
.
Whilst this document is not intended to be exhaustive of the case against Mr.
Newberry it is an indication of the evidence on which the Crown intend to rely.

2. Mr David Newberry was at all
material times the Area Surveyor for the National Building Society for the area
that covered the Greater London Area and as such was in overall control of the
survey department in that area. The other surveyors within the team had to
report to him. He was therefore responsible for the preparation of some of the
valuation reports in respect of the security that was being proffered as the
basis of the loans.

“
That’s interesting”, said
Brakespeare, as he paused from reading. “he only carried out some of the
valuations. So why haven’t the other surveyors charged”

Lisa looked at him blankly.

“
Don’t worry, it’s a
rhetorical question!”

3. He was a member of Clearfield
Properties Limited from it's inception

3.1 business plan dated 28.11.84
(Exhibit XAC1.23) reflects Newberry's 10% shareholding as
"anonymous".

"I'll find it." Said
Lisa without prompting. She went to one of the boxes, and squatted down on the
floor in front of the pile of documents. Brakespeare could not help but notice
how she managed to squat on the carpet with her feet either side of her thighs.
Lisa noticed his gaze.

"Double jointed" she
volunteered.

"Useful" Brakespeare
replied, nodding his head in appreciation, and thought of Mel. After all she
was a dancer, but he had never seen her do anything like that in the positions
they had tried.

Brushing her long hair back
from the side of her face, Lisa hauled out a volume of papers some 3 inches
thick.

"Here it is, volume XAC
1. "

"Page 23?"

Lisa opened the volume at the
page, and quickly glanced at it. She stood up, then handed it to Brakespeare,
and unselfconsciously walked to behind his chair and leaned over his shoulder.
She was totally absorbed in looking at the document, but Brakespeare could not
help but be aware of the warmth of her body and it's faint perfume.

The document was a mass of
figures and projections, but at one section there was a list of shareholders.
Sure enough someone was listed as "anon" and had been allocated an
10% shareholding.

"Yes, well?" asked
Brakespeare.

"Proves nothing, does
it?" asked Lisa from somewhere near his ear. “There must be millions of
‘anons’

"Right. What's
next?" Brakespeare returned to the Case Statement.

3.2 This is reinforced by the note
found at the same time which stated "Don't mention David's name"

"Now where's that"
said Brakespeare.

Lisa lent forward and turned
the pages of the volume. "Here you are, next page"