News

Bradford & Bingley (B&B) took over the affairs of Merseyside Building Society (MBS) on 31^st March 1985. Mr Landsbury Laurie was the Secretary and only full time employee of the MBS. He was responsible for dealing with all mortgage accounts.

B&B’s first contact with Mrs. D was in Dec 1985, 9 months after the transfer.

Mrs D has always claimed that no account should have been transferred following a dispute with MBS. There had been no contact with MBS for the 4 yrs and 7 months prior to the transfer on Mar 31^st 1985, no demands for payment of capital or arrears and no court actions during this period. If this account had been in place as suggested by B&B, repossession would have taken place prior to the transfer.

B&B had decided that a debt of £25,149.93 should have been transferred to them and that by Dec 31^st1985 this amount had increased to £27,166.27.

Mrs D’s solicitor (Silverbeck & Co) sent a letter dated 21^st Mar 1986 to B&B requesting how the figure of £27,166.27 had been arrived at from an original advance of £12,000 on 1^st Aug 1980.

For B&B to explain how these figures had been arrived at, and to pursue a claim for repossession a record of account would be required, this would normally have been a straight forward request for the accounts dept had the account existed.

The accounts dept being unable to deal with this simple request referred to internal audit for advice on what to do. A response to the accounts department dated 25^th Mar 1986 was by a Mr. W.R. Wilkes in which he states;“Int audit not interested. Simply supply Silverbeck & Co with statements as to how the figure of £27,166.27 is arrived at. You reply but keep me informed”.

A fraudulent set of hand written figures was now produced, however Mr. Wilkes’s instructions were not followed out to the letter and the accounts dept did not dispatch the statements to Silverbeck & Co as instructed, and instead they were sent to internal audit for approval by Mr. Wilkes.

Mr. Wilkes responded personally to the request on 1^st April 1986 with a typed version of the original hand written draft. The handwritten statements were not disclosed until 2000, long after the repossession had taken place.

Although the court cases continued for the next eight years. The hearings were only sporadic, the Orders made only for the most part requesting further and better particulars from the B&B; the lack of an MBS complete record of account therefore did not become an issue. But as proceedings progressed into 1995 a letter from Mrs. D’s then solicitor, Thelwell Fagan, dated 21^st Dec 1985 touched on this very subject, saying “we note at this stage the absence of any accounts records from the Merseyside Building Society, and limited communications by that body to the Defendants and their then Solicitors”.

There was no suspicion at that time or in the few years that followed that B&B was involved in the fraud that is now so obvious.

The response to the lack of MBS statements was through B&B’s solicitor dated 26^th Feb 1996 making a clear and unequivocal statement saying “Our client holds no further information nor is it able to obtain any further documents or information. All documents relating to Merseyside Building Society were inadvertently destroyed and there is no further documentation that can be provided. They were destroyed in April or May 1985.

In a letter dated 9^th April 1996 Mrs. D’s solicitor requests evidence as to how the documents came to be destroyed and asks whether it was B&B’s intention to call as a witness at the trial of action Mr Landsbury Laurie, previously of MBS and then of B&B. In their response dated 19^th April 1996 B&B’s solicitor states “With reference to Mr. Landsbury Laurie, he does not have any particular recollection of this matter and in the circumstances there would appear to be little point in calling him as a witness to give evidence at the trial”. This statement means that B&B alone had decided that the lack of documents somehow meant that they must have been destroyed.

B&B’s response dated 19^th April 1996 changed the whole direction of the case stating that the whole basis of the claim was that a mortgage deed was signed in 1980 acknowledging the receipt of the full amount. This statement was equally valid in 1987 yet B&B allowed the argument to continue as long as the fraudulent account was not part of that debate, a new strategy was now required.

Having only touched on what has now become clear was the most important issue in the whole case i.e. the lack of MBS records of account, Mrs D’s solicitor made the odd decision of requesting a barristers opinion based on the evidence to date. This came back negative thereby depriving Mrs. D of legal aid. The absence of authentic MBS statements was not considered by the Barrister. B&B now amended their pleadings to strike out the Defence as frivolous. This was successful and the fraudulent account remained unchallenged.

Although appeals were made to the courts by Mrs D, B&B always applied to strike out her Defence as frivolous (to strike out became the order of the day for B&B), leaving the evidence of fraud untested. They had achieved their goal and evicted a widow from her home and left her financially ruined. Anything she tried to do was to prove costly and ineffective.

By the time the eviction took place B&B had consumed in excess of £100,000 of Mrs D’s equity in legal costs.

With B&B’s conspiracy of silence growing with time, raising public awareness to this matter of great public interest (in my opinion) is her only chance of gaining any justice in this sordid affair.

LEAFLET 3

(august 2010)

Conspiracy to Prevent Justice at Top Level in Bradford & Bingley Building Society

Part 3

In the case of Mrs. A. Dickson’s plight for justice and her accusation of fraud and conspiracy within the Bradford & Bingley Building Society (B&B) it is apparent that knowledge of this fraud is at the highest level.

Following a letter in December 2006 to which B&B did not respond it was decided to inform the Chief Executive of B&B (Mr. Steven Crawshaw) of our intention to apply to the courts in a bid to get an explanation as to how the figures had been calculated. This letter was responded to by Karen Slinger of the Office of the group Chief Executive stating that she had been asked to respond by Mr Crawshaw on his behalf and she states, “Bradford & Bingley will refute any allegation made and will apply to strike out any claim Mrs. Dickson pursues”

Clearly Karen Slinger would of tested the evidence and answered it if it had been possible for her to do so, after all it is a simple question as to how the interest on an account has been calculated, which is something that should be able to be done by any account holder at branch level, without a treat of further legal costs to the account holder.

There is no shortage of names of people within (B&B) who have been questioned about this account and are fully aware of this fraud and chosen to remain silent, lied when responding to the questions posed, or simply avoiding answering the question posed, the following names included;

Mr. D. Robson, Mr. C. R. Hughill, Mr. Mark Simmons, Miss. Tina Harrisson, Michael Petrie (Customer reltions officer) Chariman Mr. McKinnley.

All of these and other between them can not explain how this one account has been calculated and (B&B) only defence is to spend any equity Mrs. Dickson may have left in here property, to get the courts to strike out her claim for justice.