HORSFALL: JAIL FOR DAVENPORT’S ACCOMPLICES

Three men who helped millionaire socialite Edward Davenport pull off a £4.5m ‘advanced fee’ fraud are facing jail today (Thurs).

Solicitor David Horsfall, 56, David McHugh, 54, and Richard Stephens, 67, helped the self-styled ‘Lord’ fleece dozens of victims.

Davenport, nicknamed Fast Eddie, was the ‘ringmaster’ behind a bogus financial institution which scammed entrepreneurs by offering them start-up loans for their businesses.

Victims were promised millions of pounds worth of credit, but were asked to pay for ‘due diligence’ investigations into their companies before they could be lent the cash.

Among them was Princess Diana’s wedding dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel, who lost her life savings.

Businesses were persuaded to pay £4.5m in deposits and advance fees for due diligence, after being promised an astounding £2bn in loans.

McHugh was described as an ‘on call fraudster’ who posed as both a solicitor and accountant to suit Davenport’s needs.

Stephens, formerly Kirkup, posed as a surveyor to inspect projects the gang pretended to be sourcing funds for and was heard to have created reports ‘fleshed out with extracts from Wikipedia’.

Surrey based solicitor Horsfall was paid more than £65,000 to write a ‘comfort letter’ to reassure worried clients.

Davenport charmed the rich and famous, with Kate Moss and Princes William and Harry among the guests of raucous parties at his £30million mansion in Portland Place, central London.

His home was used for scenes for the Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech.

Davenport was jailed for seven years and eight months alongside  Peter Riley, 64, in September this year.

Borge Anderson, 65, described as the plot’s ‘most valuable asset’ for his ‘fluency and plausibility’ in fobbing off victims was jailed for three years and three months.

The six men helped operate Davenport’s bogus lending business under the company name ‘Gresham’.

To outward appearances it was long-established, wealthy and prestigious,” said prosecutor Simon Mayo QC.

‘It operated from expensive London premises and had a balance sheet showing significant assets.

‘It had a flattering corporate brochure and used headed notepaper that lent an image of corporate credibility.

‘That image, however, deliberately cultivated by these defendants, was entirely false.

‘In truth it was a company which had only been set up by Edward Davenport in late 2005.

‘It was essentially worthless. Its only business was fraud.’

The barrister said the company employed Davenport’s friend Horsfall, based in Godalming, Surrey, to add extra legitimacy to their claims.

He said in response to a request from Riley the solicitor had written a letter stating that his firm Layard Horsfall had acted for Gresham in relation ‘to a large number of substantial, real estate transactions concerned with the sale and purchase of buildings’.

It added that the company had ‘transacted loan agreements on various projects and disbursed monies on their behalf’.
 
Mr Mayo said the letter was then sent to four brokers and, off the back of that document and a phonecall from Horsfall to one broker, two previously concerned clients parted with more than £65,000.

Stephens was recruited to Gresham by Riley after serving three-and-a-half years for a similar advanced fee fraud that netted £5m.

He was employed as a surveyor and travelled the world to visit the sites of proposed building projects to assess their viability.

Mr Mayo said concerns were raised about Stephens by some clients.

‘They noted that he seemed to spend an unusually short amount of time in site, did not ask relevant questions and produced reports of little substance that appeared to have been fleshed out with extracts from Wikipedia,’ he said.

‘[Stephen’s] was not chosen because he was a qualified surveyor, which he was not, but because he could be trusted not to give the game away and to help maintain the pretence that the loan applications were being genuinely considered and progressed.

‘His real value to the team rested in the fact he had done it all before.’

Stephens was heard to have pocketed close to £150,000 for his role in the fraud.

Bogus lawyer McHugh, a former business partner of Stephens, was employed to falsify Gresham’s 2007 accounts and to help Stephen’s change his name from Kirkup, after it was feared his criminal past was about to catch up with him.

He was also used to help defraud one of the advanced fee victims ‘Loginns’ of 319,000 Euros.

The court heard McHugh posed as a lawyer acting for Loginns in proceedings against Gresham and wrote to the sham company accusing it of running a ‘scam’ and demanding money.

Mr Mayo said: ‘In short, the letters were merely a tactic to further deceive the victim nd keep them from their money.’

McHugh also allowed the address of his sham legal and accountancy firm in Warrington to be used as the registered address of Gresham.

He earned £29,600 for his part in the scam, the court heard.

McHugh, of (2) Birch Avenue, Winwick, Warrington, Cheshire, and Stephens, of (Little Barn) High Street, Calver, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud between December 29, 2005, and December 3, 2009.

Horsfall, of (Paramount, 12) Deanery Road, in Godalming, Surrey,  pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation.

Davenport, of [33] Portland Place, central London; Anderson, of Roland House, Roland Way, South Kensington and Riley, of The Old Bakery, The Galleries, Warley, Brentwood, Essex were all convicted by a jury of conspiracy to defraud earlier this year.

The hearing continues
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ENDS