Crown Prosecution Service v Lawrence

The central issue in these proceedings has been the question of who is the beneficial owner of a property known as 2 Scarsdale Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, B42 2JW currently registered in the name of the interested party Mr Laurence Lawrence. It arises in the context of enforcement proceedings under the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 (‘the 1994 Act’) seeking the appointment of a Receiver in relation to an unsatisfied confiscation order made against the defendant Mark Joseph Liscott in criminal proceedings. A restraint order made over the defendant’s assets in September 2004 had identified a property at 41 Queslett Road but this order was varied on the 31st July 2008 to include the Scarsdale Road property.

It was on the 12^th January 2005 at the Birmingham Crown Court that the defendant pleaded guilty to the supply of a controlled drug (Class B cannabis). On the 13^th December 2005 a Confiscation Order was made against him by HH Judge Stanley in the sum of £2m to be paid by 30 June 2007 with 7 years imprisonment in the event of default. The judge in his judgment explaining how he had come to make the order described the defendant as being at the centre of an intricate web of conspirators to import cannabis from Europe. The defendant’s benefit was assessed in the sum of £4,245,542 being some 20% of the overall benefit figure for the conspiracy of something over £21,000,000. The judge went on to consider what realisable assets, that is to say property held by the defendant, were available to satisfy that sum and, in accordance with the statutory scheme, to make a confiscation order equal to that sum. The judge in making the order he did found there were considerable hidden assets. In regard to known assets, and material to these proceedings he made a specific finding, contrary to the contentions of the defendant, that he was the beneficial owner of the property 2 Scarsdale Road, albeit the registered owner of that property was not the defendant but rather, Mr Lawrence.

The material part of the judgment is in these terms:

The application before me is in terms one by the Prosecutor (the Crown Prosecution Service) for the appointment of an Enforcement Receiver under section 29 of the 1994 Act to enforce this Confiscation Order because the order remains unsatisfied. The order sought is, amongst other things, specifically to empower the Receiver to realise the defendant’s assets listed by schedule to include the property at 2 Scarsdale Road. Further, a Declaration is sought that the defendant owns the beneficial interest in the property.

The application was issued on or around the 22^nd May 2009. The defendant himself has taken no part in these proceedings before me, having indicated since agreed directions were made by Keith J on 9 October 2009 that he does not contest the making of the order. The preconditions in section 29(1) of the Act for the making of such an order have undoubtedly been satisfied (the confiscation order has been made, is not satisfied and is not subject to appeal), and subject to the determination of any third party claims, I have no doubt such an order should be made, having regard to the legislative steer in section 31(2) of the Act, with a view to making available for satisfying the confiscation order the value of the realisable property.

The directions of Keith J. were designed to progress this matter to contested hearings of third party claims. In the event the prosecutor resolved on terms the dispute between it and the interested party, Mr Randle, over the proceeds of sale of the property 41 Queslett Road, leaving only the continuing dispute between it and the interested party Mr Lawrence who notwithstanding the judgment of HH Judge Stanley has maintained his objection to the appointment of a Receiver over 2 Scarsdale Road in which he maintains the defendant has no interest.

Mr Lawrence was not a party to proceedings before HH Judge Stanley and has been fully entitled to insist that his objections be given a proper hearing before any such order is made. The 1994 Act expressly caters for the possibility that innocent third parties will be caught in the inevitable cross fire between prosecutor and defendant and in particular gives third parties the opportunity at the enforcement stage to make representations to the court in respect of their interests and to allow them to retain property which does not represent the proceeds of the defendant’s crime or a gift caught by the Act (see sections 29(8) and 31(4) of the 1994 Act).

It is with Mr Lawrence’s representations in relation to Scarsdale Road that the hearings before me have been concerned. The Prosecutor Applicant concedes, subject to the operation of the gift provisions in the 1994 Act, that as a matter of ordinary principle there is a presumption that as registered owner of the property, Mr Lawrence owns the beneficial interest in the property and the onus is accordingly on the Prosecutor to establish on the balance of probabilities that the contrary is the case and that that beneficial interest lies with the defendant (See Stack v Dowden [2007] 2 A.C 432, paragraph 4 (Lord Hope) and paragraph 56 (Baroness Hale)).

The property was purchased at auction on 3^rd March 2000 for £49,500.00. A deposit of £4,450 was paid on exchange of contracts at the auction. The buyer was named in the contracts as one Gary Joseph Wadhams of 156 Dyer Ave, Great Barr, Birmingham and it is common ground that Mr Wadhams did conduct the bidding for the property and was the person who paid the deposit (although Mr Lawrence was to say he repaid it thereafter). Subsequently however before completion, solicitors on behalf of Mr Lawrence wrote to the seller’s solicitors to say that it was in fact Mr Lawrence who was buying the property and that Mr Wadhams had been acting at the auction as his agent although nothing to this effect appears in the agreement. The solicitors ( Davisons ) by letter dated 15 March 2000 replied in these terms;

The completion monies were made up of a mortgage of £34,980 obtained from Barclays Bank in the name of Mr Lawrence and a balancing sum of £10,116.14 which was paid by way of a transfer in such sum from an account held by Mr Lawrence. The source from which Mr Lawrence was able to make such payment and to fund subsequent substantial renovations to the property which involved, according to Mr Lawrence, building a kitchen extension, and to make the required mortgage payments, given the evidence as to his employment history and the fact that as at March 2000 he had been claiming job seekers allowance since 26^th February 1999, has been the subject of much controversy before me, raising in part the credibility of Mr Lawrence’s now claim that he had the benefit of inheritance monies under the will of his father following his death in Uganda in 1995.

The Applicant’s case in the round has been that the registering of the property in the name of Mr Lawrence was a sham/fiction to hide the true position namely that it was the defendant’s monies which were behind the purchase and this was no more than a money laundering device to hide the defendant’s interest; that the likelihood is that the original intention had been that Mr Wadhams, who on the prosecutor’s evidence, had close links with the Operation Axial conspirators, would act as the defendant’s nominee in the purchase of the property but Mr Lawrence was then substituted for Mr Wadhams.

The defendant was arrested in July 2003. The police investigation into the defendant’s interest in the Scarsdale Road property was triggered in part by fact that at that time his son Mathew (sometimes known as Liscott, sometimes Orton after his mother) was living there and documents relating to the defendant were seized from the premises. They included invoices in the defendant’s name for the purchase of white goods (fridge/freezer) delivered to the property in January 2001 and goods from ‘Lee Longlands’ to the value of £1,700 which were to be delivered to the property having been paid for in July 2001 and even though Mathew Orton was to say in a police interview in 2003 that he rented the property fully furnished. I say ‘in the defendant’s name’ because the white goods invoice was invoiced to ‘Mark’ and the July receipt ‘Mr M Liscott’ and predated any date when it has been said either by Mathew Orton or Mr Lawrence that Mathew (who according to Mr Lawrence was the first tenant to go into occupation after the renovation work) began renting the property. In his 2003 interview Mathew Orton put that date as January 2003 and Mr Lawrence in his 2005 statement as September 2002 although this subsequently altered to October 2001 in his 2010 statement. It has moreover always to be remembered that the undisputed evidence before me is that Mathew Orton was in 2001 a student with no declared source of income. Certainly on the evidence Mathew Orton was living at another address (22 Allen House) when the white goods were purchased/delivered and could himself give no explanation for these documents when asked questions about them in interview. They also included an envelope from Birmingham City Council dated 08/02/01 addressed to “Martin Lawrence and Mark Liscott” at 2 Scarsdale Road. The police obtained evidence from the Elections Officer at Birmingham City Council that the defendant had placed himself on the electoral register for 2 Scarsdale Road in September 2002 in addition to the existing entry for ‘Martin L Lawrence’.

The resolution of this dispute has been fraught with adjournments, with the upshot that the evidence lodged with the court on behalf of Mr Lawrence, who was originally represented by solicitors, Messrs Rogols of Birmingham, but has latterly (since May 2011) represented himself, has grown over the years. A witness statement made and signed by Mr Lawrence with exhibits dated the 5^th of November 2009 and a further signed witness statement with exhibits of 16 December 2010 both lodged by his then solicitors, has since been supplemented by a 24 paragraph witness statement from him dated 14 November 2011 with numerous annexes, purporting to be an application to discharge the restraint order over Scarsdale Road. Included within these annexes were two copy statements purportedly from and signed by the defendant dated respectively 3^rd September 2011 and 5^th September 2011 and purportedly, among other matters, disclaiming any interest in 2 Scarsdale Road. For the resumed hearing on the 27^th February 2012 Mr Lawrence produced further ‘supporting evidence’ by way of a further albeit slim bundle of documents and an accompanying signed skeleton argument.

Mr Lawrence gave evidence himself but called no witnesses preferring instead to exhibit within the annexes of his lodged statements copy statements purportedly emanating from persons whom he says have knowledge of material events and matters relevant to his case, such as the defendant himself and Mr Wadhams. The cross examination of Mr Lawrence before me concentrated to a large degree upon inconsistencies in the accounts of material events contained within his various statements and further when compared with the contents of the witness statement of 7^th March 2005 taken by the police from Mr Lawrence and purportedly signed by him, and referred to by HH Judge Stanley.

A copy of that statement of 2005 is before me. That statement is in the form of what is known as a section 9 statement (referable to section 9 of the Criminal Justice act 1967) and contains the rubric purportedly signed by Mr Lawrence that the statement was true to the best of his knowledge and belief.

Mr Lawrence does not dispute that he made and signed this 2005 statement together with the subsequent statements but says that the 2005 statement has been unfairly used against him given the informal circumstances in which he was led to make it consequent upon the visit by the interviewing police officer to his home seeking a ‘chat’ about Scarsdale Road and that the statements lodged on his behalf by his solicitor, albeit signed by him, were wrong in some fundamental respects having been taken by a firm experienced only in immigration cases and inexperienced in this type of dispute.

I however reject Mr Lawrence’s patently, in my judgment, disingenuous attempts to disassociate himself from any responsibility for these statements whenever any uncomfortable (for him) inconsistencies have been brought to light.

Moreover I have been struck throughout how the detail given in subsequent statements - absent from if not inconsistent with his 2005 statement - has been tailored to meet matters relied upon by the prosecutor in support of its case on beneficial ownership, revealed in papers served on Mr Lawrence since 2005. One immediate example goes to the circumstances in which Mathew Orton came to be living at the property. The difference between the circumstances set out by Mr Lawrence in his 2005 statement and that set out in his statement of November 2009, and subsequently, is telling. In the 2005 statement he says that he had been approached by Mathew whom he had met at UCE College in Birmingham where they had been students, who said he had nowhere to live so he agreed to rent him the property, he moving in about September 2002. In his subsequent statement of November 2009 the account now is that he was placing an advertisement for the letting of the property on the board at his local university in Birmingham (University of Central England), when he bumped into the grandson of his by now estranged wife (Honnyvar) whom he knew as Mathew Orton who was looking for a room to rent and who started living there in October 2001. This reference to an advertisement would appear to be a direct response to the by now disclosed extracts from the Mathew Orton interview in which he said he found the room because he had responded to an advert at the university (although the distinct impression given in that interview was that he didn’t know Mr Lawrence at all other than as landlord and then meeting him only a couple of times).

Another example is the need to explain away (albeit not very convincingly) in his November 2009 statement that which was now apparent (through service of the prosecutor’s statements) could be established by the prosecutor, namely that covert recording of the defendant Mark Liscott prior to his arrest had disclosed him discussing in January 2003 arrangements for work to be carried out at the property on a window including by inference the replacement of the frame which suggested it was the defendant who had control over the renovations to the property. I set out the material extract of that recording of 27 January 2003 to demonstrate the flavour of what is there disclosed (‘Pine’ is the code used for the defendant):

It is the disclosure of this extract which can in my judgment be the only explanation why in his November 2009 Statement Mr Lawrence should have decided to descend to the detail in paragraph 27 describing how although he, Mr Lawrence, was the sole person responsible for refurbishing the property, Mathew had taken responsibility for the breaking of a window following a party at the property as a result of which either he or his father paid to replace the window, or why in the annexes to his statement of November 2011, Mr Lawrence decided upon the need to exhibit (p180) a statement purportedly from the defendant in which although he confirmed he had never had any interests in the Scarsdale Road property, he did recall ‘a maintenance incident referring to the house. My son hosted a party for his friends who by accident caused some damages inform of broken windows.(sic) He asked for my assistance to fix the windows (sic) which I did on his behalf.’

The Applicant at the outset made clear that it was relying upon the evidence contained in the witness statements of Belinda Lewis (nee Hanson), senior officer of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and an accredited financial investigator; John Elliot, Crown Advocate attached to the Central Confiscation Unit of the Crown Prosecution Service; Yvonne Henry, caseworker employed by the Proceeds of Crime Unit of the Crown Prosecution Service; Roger Parker, officer of SOCA; Mathew Busk also an officer of SOCA.

These statements in the round sought to collate information from various sources designed to test the credibility of Mr Lawrence’s various accounts as to how he funded the purchase and renovation of 2 Scarsdale Road, including analyses of the available banking records of Mr Lawrence and, Mr Lawrence’s known employment history and tax and benefit records. Mr Busk in particular went through the telephone communication records which were gathered through Operation Axial so as to identify records of contact between the defendant and other known conspirators such as one Nicholas Goodall, with certain telephone numbers said to be attributable to Mr Lawrence and to link the record of contact with evidence of covert recordings of the outgoing conversations taking place in such contacts. This was all designed to demonstrate that contrary to Mr Lawrence’s denials, Mr Lawrence was very much closer to the defendant in 2002 and 2003 than he would admit, and in all likelihood was the ‘Larry’ referred to in some of those conversations, and was employed as a driver for the company (‘M and N Transport’) run by the defendant and Nicholas Goodall, there being evidence (which Mr Lawrence accepts) that Mr Lawrence would work for agencies as an HGV driver.

Mr Lawrence had the opportunity to cross examine Ms Lewis, Mr Parker and Mr Busk who were called before me to confirm their respective witness statements.

Within the exhibits attached to these various statements is evidence that Mr Lawrence in January 1997 changed his name from Lawrence Martin Ibreck–Ssenyonga to that of Lawrence Martin Lawrence; that Mr Lawrence was enlisted in the Territorial Army and in particular (from Ms Lewis’ examination of the Army personnel file held on Mr Lawrence) that by a letter dated 4^th February 2003 sent to his address at 42 Church Green, Handsworth Wood Birmingham he was compulsorily mobilised on 16^th February 2003 but not deployed until 1^st March 2003 and returned from theatre on 24^th May 2003 although his actual demob date is given as 03/07/2003 and the last day of service 21/07/03. This is all relevant to the Applicant’s case that notwithstanding Mr Lawrence’s denials, he was the person involved in telephone calls with the defendant/Goodall on telephone numbers said to be attributable to him, Mr Lawrence, (the mobile ending 330 and registered in Mr Lawrence’s name; and the one ending 942 registered in the name of one Sham Lawrence at an address given as 43 Church Road) and where the records (B2 982–3) show contact by the defendant/Goodall with those numbers up until 24^th February 2003 following which there is a gap with no contact until such begins again in May 2003.

Some of these May calls predate 24^th May 2003 (the 330 calls begin again on 15^th May) but evidence is also exhibited by Mr Parker designed to show that the Mr Lawrence was indeed back from duty by such date. This is evidence that some £188.63 was credited to Mr Lawrence’s bank account on 23^rd May 2003 from an organisation Winner Recruitment, a recruitment agency whose Managing director Vishal Jain by an exhibited s.9 statement dated 13 May 2011 confirmed that Mr Lawrence had worked for them and any payment received on 23^rd of May 2003 would have been for work completed during the previous week, i.e. 12^th May 2003 and who further stated that no advance payments were ever made to employees. Despite Mr Lawrence’s submissions, I have no reason to doubt the reliability of this evidence or the evidence of Mr Parker in his witness statement of 12 May 2011 that he contacted Winner Recruitment in order to obtain their confirmation of these matters. Mr Parker gave evidence before me to confirm his witness statements and I accept him as a truthful witness. In contrast I should record my gravest doubts as to the genuineness of a copy of an informal statement purportedly from Vish Jain attached to Mr Lawrence’s statement of 14^th November 2011 and dated 15^th December 2011 in which he purportedly states that no one from or on behalf of the CPS had contacted him in the last twelve months.

Nor have I any reason to doubt the accuracy of the information provided by Mr Parker that in relation to the ‘Sham Lawrence’ in whose name the 942 telephone was registered at an address given as 43 Church Road, that same name is shown on the electoral register as having been registered for the address 42 Church Road between 2002 and 2004 along with ‘Lawrence M Lawrence’ and ‘Stephen Ssenyonga’. The last two names are patently referable to Mr Lawrence and his son Stephen whom Mr Lawrence concedes was living with him at some time at 42 Church Road; I accept that the evidence of Mr Parker that this is the state of the electoral register is based only upon an ‘Equifax’ report obtained by him and the contents of an email purportedly sent to him from a Steve Haskey at Birmingham City Council on the day Mr Parker gave evidence before me on 27^th February 2012 (now appearing at p 1048a of bundle B1) but the overall circumstances are such that the evidence that this was the state of the electoral register for those years is compelling. Those same searches showed no trace of a Sham Lawrence at 43 Church Road (which as Mr Lawrence points out is round the corner from No 42).

Further, although Mr Lawrence claims he has no knowledge of a ‘Sham Lawrence’ and has no idea to whom that could be a reference, the circumstantial evidence is strongly to the contrary. Mr Lawrence conceded that his former girlfriend/partner who did live with him at some point at 42 Church Green and who was the mother of three of his children (although he says they were separated by 2003 before the birth of their child Hannah in September 2003) went by the name of ‘Shansa’, her full name being Shansa Haskim and had a date of birth in June 1970. The 942 phone was registered in the name of Sham Lawrence with a date of birth of 14^th June 1970. The evidence in my judgment is overwhelming, and I so find, that Mr Lawrence knows full well that ‘Sham Lawrence’ is and was a reference to his then girlfriend Shansa. Given the evidence of Mr Busk, which I accept, that the 942 phone number was stored in Nicholas Goodall’s mobile phone as ‘Larry Driver’ and in the memory of one of the defendant’s mobile telephones as ‘Larry’, and that both telephones were used to contact this 942 number several times between November 2002 and 17^th May 2003, and further given the content of the covert conversations emanating from the telephones linked to the defendant (referred to as Pine in the transcripts) and/or Goodall (referred to as Maple), I am quite satisfied on the balance of probabilities, and so find , that the 942 number although registered in the name of ‘Sham Lawrence’ was in reality at all material times being used by Mr Lawrence who indeed was the ‘Larry’ referred to in those conversations and was being employed as a driver for the conspirators’ company. As Ms Lewis highlighted in paragraph 5 of her witness statement of 13 May 2011 Vol B2 991):

I shall return to the extent of my findings of Mr Lawrence’s true links with the defendant further into this judgment but I make these particular findings at this stage because they highlight the general lack of credibility which I have found in so much of Mr Lawrence’s evidence. He was not in my judgment an honest witness.

It is convenient if I now state my final conclusion in the light of the evidence, before explaining how it has been reached. I have reached the firm conclusion that it has been established on the balance of probabilities that the purchase of 2 Scarsdale Road in the name of Mr Lawrence was indeed a sham, designed to hide the truth that it was the defendant’s monies and not Mr Lawrence’s which were funding the purchase, and that the true beneficial owner is the defendant.

I have reached this conclusion in stages.

I first accept the Applicant’s submission that on the evidence primarily identified through Ms Lewis, it is clear that the defendant was highly sophisticated when it came to money laundering and hiding his illicit gains from the authorities. I accept that covert recordings of his conversations with other conspirators demonstrated that he was astute to anti-money laundering tactics adopted by the banks and other financial institutions and he knew how to put property into a third party’s name so as to avoid asset tracing for the purposes of confiscation.

Attached to Ms Lewis prosecutor’s statement of 10 June 2005 is an Appendix J (see Bundle B1 113-120) containing the transcripts in which the defendant Liscott (Pine) is recorded as referring to the making of lump sum payments off mortgages, and avoiding alarm bells, which appears to relate to placing cash into accounts and getting a history regarding who you are and what you have done. Of further note are the transcripts highlighted by Ms Lewis in her statement of 13^th May 2011 and exhibited thereto, in which there are references to the purchasing of property in other person’s names, running businesses to provide an audit trail for income and the use of property in hiding money obtained by the defendant and Goodall. Of particular note is a conversation of 6^th February 2003 (B2 1038) in which Maple (Goodall) speaks to Pine (Liscott) of ‘getting things into our own names. No good having property in other peoples names’ whereas a further transcript of 10 February 2003 (B1 1043) shows a telephone call made by the defendant to one Dave Holloway about purchasing a house and wanting to give the details of a Mr Maxwell. I have no reason to doubt Ms Lewis’ explanation (at paragraph 6) that Holloway is a mortgage advisor, and that it would appear that a house purchase was to be made in the name of Maxwell who Ms Lewis explains ‘was another conspirator who pleaded guilty to his part in the conspiracy as a courier’.

Next I reject as untrue Mr Lawrence’s account as to the circumstances in which he came to acquire the property and the means by which he was able to acquire it. I have to say I found his account incredible and riddled with inconsistencies. I will explain this conclusion by reference to key features of his evidence.

In his original statement of March 2005 Mr Lawrence makes no mention of Mr Wadhams being involved in the mechanics by which the property was purchased. He does mention ‘a man from Great Barr called Gary’ who did a lot of the renovation work on the property but whose surname ‘I don’t know’. By the time of Mr Lawrence’s witness statement of 5^th November 2009 he had remembered the name Gary Wadhams and remembered that he had known him for some 15 years. In paragraph 14 he explains how it was Mr Wadhams who told him about the property 2 Scarsdale Road and that it was going for auction at Bigwood Auctioneers:

By the time of Mr Lawrence’s statement of 14^th November 2011, Mr Lawrence’s account had become that it was his ex wife Honnyvar (the mother of the defendant) who had introduced him to the property:

Mr Lawrence then for the purposes of the resumed hearing of 27^th February 2012 produced what purports to be a signed statement from his ex wife (Honnyvar Ssenyonga) dated 8/11/2011 (i.e. before the hearing of November 2011) confirming this second account that it was she who had alerted Mr Lawrence to the property.

No satisfactory explanation was given to me by Mr Lawrence for this change in account other than to blame the incompetence of his previous solicitors in drawing up the November 2009 statement for him to sign. The reality is in my judgment that Mr Lawrence late in the day has seen the need to distance himself from Mr Wadhams as far as possible given the strength of the evidence that Wadhams was intimately connected with a number of the Operation Axial conspirators and was their ‘builder of choice’. I refer in this context to the statement given to the police by Wadhams dated 2/12/03 (B1 508) in which he conceded carrying out building works for both the defendant and Goodall. Moreover the contents of that statement sits uneasily with even the first account of Mr Lawrence in that Wadhams speaks of knowing Mr Lawrence through the Scott Arms Pub (the pub which Mathew Orton also told the police in interview that the defendant also frequented (B2 739)) and suggests that the purchase was initially to be a joint venture.

I find the explanation given by Mr Lawrence as to why the property was originally bid for by Mr Wadhams and the contract put in his name, before being transferred into Mr Lawrence’s name, utterly implausible. His explanation to me was that he hadn’t known that a deposit would be required there and then, so that when he discovered this to be the case he asked Mr Wadhams to provide the deposit monies which he did however repay him. However none of this explains why Mr Wadhams’ involvement on the day extended to completion of all the relevant paperwork as the purchaser of the property and did not disclose that he was bidding as an agent. It is of note that in his witness statement of 5^th November 2009 Mr Lawrence at paragraph 15 did claim that he, Mr Lawrence, had in fact been registered at the auction, and the purchase and the bidding was in his name:

Although Mr Lawrence claims to have repaid Mr Wadhams the deposit monies of £4,950 and produces at page 102 of the documents exhibited to Mr Lawrence’s statement of 14 November 2011 an alleged statement from Mr Wadhams dated 08/08/2011 confirming that he was repaid, there is in fact no documentary evidence of any sort of that repayment before the court and no sign of repayment being made from Mr Lawrence’s available bank records. Mr Lawrence now says he repaid Wadhams in cash and produces the purported statement from Wadhams to confirm this, but he could not assist the court as to where he got the cash from other than ‘I can’t remember because I normally had money at home and I had other accounts that are not here with us today.’ I reject this evidence. I do not consider that Mr Wadhams was ever repaid by Mr Lawrence as he contends. It is of note that at this stage of his evidence Mr Lawrence did not claim to have repaid Mr Wadhams from the alleged inheritance monies (as to which see below) and it has not to be forgotten that at all material times Mr Lawrence on the face of it, was a man of limited income such that he was in receipt of jobseekers allowance. The Midshires Account attached to his statement of 14/11/2011 shows that the day after attending the auction (24 March 2000) he had only £587.35. I reject his evidence that there were substantial funds in undisclosed accounts which are no longer available to be disclosed (such as his oft referred to MBNA account).

On the face of such evidence as there is as to Mr Lawrence’s means as at March 2000, he could not have had the means either to pay the deposit or the completion monies on 2 Scarsdale Road. Mr Lawrence was in no position to dispute the evidence in the statement of Ian Thackeray of the Inland Revenue that the only income disclosed to the Revenue for the year ending 5^th April 2000 was modest in the extreme and as indicated he apparently qualified for job seekers allowance. There is no documentary evidence to support Mr Lawrence’s suggestion that at the time he was in receipt of income from the Army as a HGV Class 1 driver. According to Mr Thackeray, Mr Lawrence’s declared income for the year ending 5^th April 2000 was limited to that from an organisation Best Connection Group in the sum of £10,745; as far as the year ending 5^th April 2001 and subsequent years to 5^th of April 2003 the only recorded income was from working for Allied Bakeries West Bromwich with the recorded amounts being £10,981 (year ending 05/04/2001) and £18,287.00 and £15,429.00 respectively for the subsequent years. I have already recorded that which is known for the year 2003 as to Mr Lawrence being called up by the army.

It is in this context that the court has had to weigh up the credibility of Mr Lawrence’s account which first emerged in his statement of 5^th November 2009, that he had the benefit of monies inherited under his father’s will following his father’s death in Uganda in 1995, his varying accounts as to the purposes to which he put the monies, and his evidence as to how the money was brought into the country and where, if anywhere, he deposited the same for safe keeping pending its disposal.

It is instructive to set out the different accounts first in his witness statements and then in his oral evidence to the court.

In his statement of March 2005 there is no mention of any inheritance monies. That statement speaks only of his purchasing the property via a Barclays mortgage and as to the renovations on the property, that this was funded by a further loan from Barclays in the sum of £9,500, (‘Itook out further loans from Barclays in the sum of £9,500 in order to make home improvements’). In his witness statement of the 5^th November 2009 Mr Lawrence’s contention was that he was trustee for the Estate of his late father and that he had invested monies from the Estate into the property for the benefit of his late father’s grandchildren. Exhibited to that statement was said to be a copy of a letter of 15 July 2005 from Muhimbura and Company Associates in Uganda explaining the intentions of his father’s will. No true copy of the will was however exhibited and indeed has never been exhibited. He further expressly made clear that the inheritance money was used both to go towards the purchase of the property and to pay for the refurbishments now put at £22,000 and which took about 1½ years to complete. He also claimed to have retained the remainder of the inheritance moneys in a Barclays savings account:

Mr Lawrence’s witness statement of 16 December 2010 suggests that he used a very precise sum, namely that of £16,926.88 of the inheritance money, towards the purchase price as well as explaining that he obtained the money in stages from his sister Grace Tabu in Uganda:

When however Mr Lawrence came to give oral evidence, he at one stage resiled completely from the contention that the inheritance monies had been used to contribute to the purchase monies for the property, although he subsequently reverted to his original stance. He could not in any event explain where the figure of £16,928.88 as a contribution to the purchase price had come from, given it did not coincide with the known amount of the completion monies (£10,116.14), save to blame his former solicitors in drawing up the statement. When the passage relating to the £16,926.88 was put to him he expressly said ‘it wasn’t for purchasing, it was for renovations and stuff like that’, and to the question ‘Is it your evidence that you used the inheritance left after your late father’s death to contribute to the purchase price of 2 Scarsdale Road?’ his immediate answer was ‘It was not used to purchase’ although he did not long after say this was a slip of the tongue.

Mr Lawrence then in his oral evidence had no explanation, if he had indeed used part of the inheritance towards the purchase, for the fact that according to the affidavit/declaration of Grace Tabu, relied upon by him, the first instalment of the inheritance money was not given to him until 18 April 2000, after the date of completion, other than to suggest that there was an error in the declaration. The material part of the purported Declaration reads as follows:

When moreover Mr Lawrence was cross examined as to how he came into possession of that purported first instalment of 55 million Uganda shillings, which he conceded was in 2000 the equivalent of some £22,000, he gave an utterly implausible account that he would have brought the money back into this country in cash and did not recall depositing it in any bank account and may well have just put it in his safe at home given he could not identify any payments into the bank statements exhibited to his witness statements, which could be attributed to receipt of the inheritance monies. There were other highly implausible aspects of this account not least that if he was indeed only a trustee of the inheritance monies, by using the monies in this informal way, it was difficult to see how he could properly account to the beneficiaries under the will. There were many other difficulties with this account not least that according to his sister’s purported declaration one of the grandchildren beneficiaries was the youngest child Conrad, and (at declaration para 8) under the will ‘the property bought with the money so collected would devolve amongst the above mentioned grandchildren in 2015 upon Conrad Zziwa Tabu, attaining the age of majority …’. Yet as at the date of the father’s death (be it 1995 or 1996) Conrad had not yet been born. This rendered somewhat suspect the assertion that shortly before his demise, the father had created a trust for amongst others ‘Conrad Aziwa Tabu aged 13 years’. These parts of the declaration also did not fit easily with Mr Lawrence’s evidence that his only obligation to the grandchildren was to repay the money perhaps with interest rather than account to them for any property bought with the monies.

I have already set out sufficient to explain why I reject as untrue Mr Lawrence’s account that he had access to inheritance monies in order to fund both the completion monies and any refurbishments on the property. However I can not leave this topic without rehearsing several features of the documents produced by him in support of his alleged inheritance which cast into doubt their authenticity, and which certainly has meant that I can put no reliance upon them.

Mr Lawrence’s evidence under this heading was neither consistent nor supported by any independent evidence of any weight. As indicated he originally (statement of March 2005) asserted that he took out a bank loan in the sum of £9,500.00 to make home improvements, although he was unable to identify any bank account in which such sum is to be seen going through the account in 2000-2001; his next account was that Gary Wadhams did all the work to whom he paid £22,000 (to be contrasted with Mr Wadhams’ account to the police that he was paid only £15,000) with the inference being he used the inheritance monies for this purpose; (see Mr Lawrence’s statement of 5^th November 2011 at paragraph 26; and paragraph 8b of statement 16/12/2010). In oral evidence he said that he spent no more than £25,000 on refurbishments of which £22,000 was paid to Mr Wadhams and the balance to others who carried out non-building works, in particular to a Mr Paul Dickens who carried out electrical works. Mr Lawrence could produce no documentation in respect of any of these payments or the work themselves. He could produce no invoices; no receipts; no quotations/estimates; he could not remember how Mr Dickens was paid. Mr Wadhams it seems was paid in cash. Mr Lawrence produced attached to his statement of 14 November 2011 at page 102 a purported copy statement from Mr Wadhams, dated 08/08/2011 which he said he had obtained by contacting Mr Wadhams through his ex wife. That statement is typed and in ringing terms:

As with all the purported authors of the supporting statements attached to his various statements Mr Lawrence has chosen not to call Mr Wadhams as a witness to be subject to cross examination. Curiously the typed name of the signatory of the Wadhams statements is misspelt ‘Gary J. Wardhams’. Curiously, the renovation works which Mr Lawrence says took 1 and a half years to complete, i.e. until sometime in late 2001, according to Mr Wadhams took 2 and a half years.

I reject the authenticity of this so called Wadhams statement. I can give it no weight at all. I likewise reject as untrue Mr Lawrence’s account as to who paid for any renovation works on the property. I am confident that it was not him and that he did not have the independent means to pay out any such sums as he identifies.

I again reject as highly implausible that Mr Lawrence had independent means to make the payments off his mortgage account which are known to have been made, and his other commitments, before any tenant came on the scene. On his own account Mathew Orton, the defendant’s son, was his first tenant and on his first account came into the property in September 2002, later changed to October 2001 (statement 16/12/2010 para 5 ‘I started renting 2 Scarsdale Road to Mathew Orton in October 2001’). On any view there was no income coming from the property throughout 2000 or the first 8 months of 2001, yet during this period Mr Lawrence had to find the rent on his housing association home at 42 Church Green as well as the monthly mortgage payment of £318.25p. Furthermore the records show that a significant capital sum was paid off the mortgage (£8,000) on the 14^th December 2000. Mr Lawrence was unable to give any convincing explanation as to how he was able to find such a significant sum. At the time he was working for Allied Bakeries but as already indicated the Inland Revenue records indicate only a modest annual income. Mr Lawrence’s evidence to me that he had other sources of income at the time including the buying and selling of cars as a hobby and access to substantial credit through credit cards was wholly unsupported by any independent evidence and again I reject it as untrue.

The evidence surrounding how Mathew Orton, the son of the defendant, came to move into the property and as to whether any rental payments were made by him is wholly unconvincing as evidence that it was Mr Lawrence who entered into some kind of tenancy agreement with him. It must never be forgotten that Mathew Orton was the son of the defendant, Mark Liscott, and the grandchild of the lady (Honnyvar) to whom Mr Lawrence was still married if separated from in 2000, and from whom he was not divorced until 2002/2003 and that Mathew Orton, according to Mr Lawrence, was the one child of his wife who he would see on a regular basis during his marriage to Honnyvar. However Mr Lawrence would have the court believe that it was pure coincidence that ‘the first person who responded’ when he, Mr Lawrence, after the renovations were completed, started to look for someone to whom to let the house, was his wife’s grandson. I have already set out the differences between the account given to the police by Mathew Orton (responding to an advert at his university, UCE, and giving the impression of not knowing Mr Lawrence at all save as landlord), and that given by Mr Lawrence to the police in his March 2005 statement (following renovation of the property he had been approached by Mathew Liscott who he had met at college where they were both students and who had nowhere to live); the subsequent change of description to be found in Mr Lawrence’s November 2009 statement where reference is made to his bumping into Honnyvar’s grandson when at the local university (UCE) putting up an advertisement about the property. This account culminated in his version of the 14^th November 2011 at paragraph 10 from which it appeared that Mr Lawrence had never attended UCE but had gone there on the occasion he met Mathew ‘to check out what courses they offered’ albeit he subsequently took out a course at Aston university. To quote that paragraph ‘We had an appointment and met at the house and agreed on a monthly rent of £480’.

There is then complete confusion in the evidence as to when Mathew Orton moved in, what the amount of agreed rent was and how the payments of rent were paid, if any ever were. Mr Orton told the police he moved in around January 2003 whereas as already indicated Mr Lawrence originally suggested September 2002 (his March 2005 statement to the police) which was subsequently altered to October 2001 (statement 16/10/2010). No tenancy agreement has ever been produced although Mr Lawrence claims that he drew up one which Mathew however never signed. As to the amount of rent Mathew told the police that it was agreed he would pay Mr Lawrence £450 per month which money was (after the first month) paid directly to Mr Lawrence by Mathew’s maternal ‘Nan’ Barbara Watts by cheque. In contrast Mr Lawrence’s account has been that the amount agreed was £480 a month, which (according to his March 2005 statement) would be paid into his personal Barclays bank account and which according to Mr Lawrence’s subsequent statement of November 2009 para 24 he, Mathew, would pay by ‘making cash payments into my bank account’. That statement then explained that it was Mr Lawrence’s ex wife, Honnyvar, Mathew’s paternal grandmother, who would assist if Mathew were struggling to make payments. By the time of Mr Lawrence’s witness statement of November 2011, this account had become one of the payments routinely being made in cash through the grandmother sending Mr Lawrence cash in an envelope:

Leaving aside these confusions, there is then a complete dearth of documentary evidence to support the contention that rent of £480 or £450 was ever paid into Mr Lawrence’s bank account. There are in fact no regular payments of either sum by cash or cheque into any of his accounts over the period he says Mathew Orton was living as his tenant at the property. Mr Lawrence did serve an Analysis Document with his 2010 statement (C25-30) purportedly identifying sums paid into his accounts attributable to the rent at 2 Scarsdale Road (C23-30). As Ms Lewis demonstrated, none of the payments matches either £450 or £480. The payments identified as rent only begin in February 2003 even though the Analysis Document goes back to 2002. Mr Lawrence moreover first said that Mathew had moved out in November 2004 (statements March 2005; November 2009) which became November 2003 by the time of his witness statement of December 2010.

Mr Lawrence could give no credible explanation for any of these inconsistencies.

Yet again I have been driven to the conclusion that his account as to his letting of the property to Mathew Orton lacks all credibility and I reject it. As the Applicant submitted, it is highly improbable that a landlord involved in a commercial arrangement with a tenant such as Mr Lawrence suggested was operating here, could get so much of the detail of the tenancy agreement wrong.

The far more likely scenario, which I so find, is that it was the defendant Mark Liscott who decided that his son should go and live in the property. It would be the natural consequence of a father deciding to buy a property for his son to live in.

I should add that I have found none of the statements, produced by Mr Lawrence, purportedly emanating from persons who according to Mr Lawrence, have become his subsequent tenants, to have any credibility whatsoever, again absent Mr Lawrence choosing to call any of them as witnesses.

It is for all these reasons that I have found Mr Lawrence to have given an untruthful account as to the circumstances in which he came to acquire the property 2 Scarsdale Road and the means by which he was able to acquire it and the truth is that he had no independent means by which to fund either its purchase or the renovation. This finding of untruthfulness coupled with the finding of lack of means is in itself a strong piece of circumstantial evidence that Mr Lawrence’s involvement in the property was indeed a sham. To this must be added the following circumstantial evidence (in addition to that I have already identified at stage 1), all of which in my judgment leads to the unerring conclusion that his involvement was a sham on behalf of the defendant.

Mr Lawrence sought throughout the proceedings to down play his relationship with the defendant. In his statement to the police in March 2005 he said that he was aware that Mark Liscott was Mathew’s father but ‘I do not know Mark very well nor do I have a lot to do with him’. Moreover he said that he was not aware if Mark ever attended 2 Scarsdale Road. His oral evidence to this court was that he could not recall meeting the defendant or speaking to him. He knew what he looked like but only because when he was married to his mother he used to view the family albums.

There is in fact considerable evidence to suggest that the defendant and other members of the conspiracy were much better known to each other than Mr Lawrence would have the court believe.

One starts with the telephone evidence, and the contents of the call transcripts produced by covert surveillance, deposed to by Mathew Busk, and commented on in evidence by both Mr Busk and Miss Lewis. I have already given some of my findings in relation to this in paragraphs 24 to 28 above. But in summary:

Mr Lawrence could give no insight into this apparent and sustained telephone contact between himself and the defendant and Goodall, at most conceding that he may have had contact with a ‘Nick’ of Winner Recruitment. I have already set out my findings that the 942 number was in reality one used by Mr Lawrence, notwithstanding his denials, and that he was indeed the ‘Larry’ referred to not only in the stored memories of the defendant’s and Goodall’s phones but in the transcribed conversations involving the defendant (‘Pine’) and Goodall (‘Maple’) and the 942 number (see for example the transcriptions at B2 913 and the telephone records at B2 982), and that he was being employed as a driver for the company of the defendant and Goodall (M & N Transport).

Had Mr Lawrence conceded this contact or involvement as a driver it may be no adverse inferences for present purposes could be drawn against him. As Mr Lawrence himself submitted and drew out in his questioning of Mr Busk, the transcribed conversations do not in themselves disclose any explicit criminal conduct being contemplated. It is however the fact of his, Mr Lawrence’s, denials in these proceedings of having any such contact or involvement in the face of such compelling evidence that his relationship with the defendant was far closer than he would admit to, which strongly contributes to the sum of circumstantial evidence to support the present application. I am compelled in the circumstances to draw the inference that in order to defeat this application Mr Lawrence has deliberately and dishonestly sought to down play the extent of his relationship with the defendant which is evidenced not only by the telephone material but also the common familial connections between Mr Lawrence and the defendant and Honnyvar Ssenyonga (the ex-wife of the one; the mother of the other), the common links with the Scott Arms Pub, and the common links with Mr Wadhams. Mr Lawrence had no credible explanation why the defendant should have chosen to place himself on the electoral register of 2 Scarsdale Road along with Mr Lawrence.

I accept the Applicant’s submission that if Mr Lawrence were, as he says, a wholly innocent third party there could be absolutely no reason for him to cover up the fact of his relationship with the defendant in the way I find he has. This in my judgment is strongly supportive of his having throughout been acting as nominee for his relation, the defendant.

There is also the added feature of an apparent continuing relationship between Mr Lawrence and the defendant evidenced by his, on his case, being in the position to obtain from him during and for the purpose of these proceedings, two letters in support of his resistance of this application. These letters, both typed, are to be found attached to Mr Lawrence’s statement of 14 November 2011 at pages 180 and 181 of the bundle of documents exhibited to the statement. One is dated the 3^rd September 2011 and directed to the High Court. This is the statement already referred to in which the defendant purportedly confirms his lack of interest in the property and gives an innocent explanation both for his general involvement with the property through visits and being put on the electoral register for business reasons, and for his organising the window works on the property. The other dated the 5^th September 2011 is addressed to the defendant’s solicitors (Henry and Co) in the criminal proceedings and seeks to correct a statement made by them on his behalf in a letter of 18 October 2007 to the CPS (see B1 198) referring to the defendant’s belief that he had an interest in 2 Scarsdale Road of £80,000.

I should add that the circumstances in which Mr Lawrence apparently obtained these statements was never properly explained to me. He says he did not himself type them up for the defendant to sign. According to him they were obtained through his visiting the defendant’s estranged wife (Wendy Orton, mother of Mathew) and getting her to obtain them for him from the defendant which she did. He claims he never spoke with the defendant directly. How the defendant was to know precisely what was to go in these statements, and why one is addressed to the High Court and the other to the solicitors, is not at all clear. Although not determinative of their authenticity, it is, as Miss Crapper pointed out to Mr Lawrence during cross examination, noteworthy that the purported signature of the defendant at the bottom of each bears little resemblance to that appearing on a copy witness statement given by the defendant to the police dated 6^th October 2004 to be found in the court bundle (B1 at p 39). Whatever be the true position as to their authenticity, I can in any event give little weight to their contents for present purposes, given, again, the decision of Mr Lawrence not to call their author (the defendant) as a witness to give direct evidence to the court and to be cross examined upon them.

The final strand of the circumstantial evidence which has led me to find in favour of this application lies in the evidence already alluded to of the defendant’s involvement with the property, leaving aside the coincidence that it was his son and Mr Lawrence’s former wife’s grandson, who on the evidence was the first person to move into the property (whenever that was).

I have already identified the main features of this evidence:

There can, as the Applicant submitted, be no proper explanation for the defendant purchasing white goods in January 2001 and goods worth £1,700 for 2 Scarsdale Road in summer 2001 at a time when his son was living elsewhere and not to move in (on his account to the police) for a further year and a half, other than that the defendant was the true owner of the property and it was he who was renovating the property. I found Mr Lawrence’s attempts to explain these matters away as wholly unconvincing - in particular his suggestion that as Mathew Orton was also known as Mathew Liscott (in support of which he produces a statement from Mathew’s mother) any such documentation labelled by initials (M Liscott) could just as easily apply to him. This can not explain the invoice in the name of ‘Mark’ in January 2001. Further the notion that Mathew, the student living elsewhere, who himself could give no explanation to the police for these documents, was busily ordering goods in the summer of 2001 is patently beyond belief. All this does however throw into doubt the honesty of the defendant’s decision to change the date of when Mathew moved into the property from September 2002 to October 2001 (see above).

It is for all these reasons that I have been compelled to the conclusion that this application must succeed. I make clear that before reaching this conclusion I have taken into account the submissions made to me by Mr Lawrence in his ‘Outline Final Submissions’ document’, none of which however have led me to a contrary view.

In other words I am satisfied that that the inference is properly to be drawn from the entirety of the circumstantial evidence that on the balance of probabilities the registering of the property 2 Scarsdale Road in the name of Mr Lawrence was a sham, that it was the monies of the defendant which funded the purchase of the property, and the true beneficial owner is the defendant. I agree with the Applicant’s submission that the likelihood here is that the original intention had been that Mr Wadhams would act as the defendant’s nominee in the purchase of the property but was then substituted by Mr Lawrence.

Subject to any submissions as to the form of the order, I shall on the handing down of this judgment make an order in the terms sought by the application.