Nouveau World Wines/ Finbow 24th-25th June: Rebecca McDonald's evidence

24th June 2013

Rebecca (Becky) McDonald gave evidence to her defence counsel: Steve Bailey. She had started on Friday - I was not present in court for this. 

Much of her evidence was taken up with going through invoices and payments made by Finbow Wines with Rebecca McDonald giving details of the various payments. I assume that a similar exercise had been conducted by her counsel with payments made during McDonald’s time with Nouveau World Wines. She started there in September 2008.  

McDonald explained that she was involved with accounts covering sales and clients but not after-sales. She had no way of knowing how much wine had been bought, not involved in buying wine and she had no influence over company decisions.

 Among the invoices was one to Eurodirect in July 2009 for the purchase of 6000 leads to be used for the start up of Finbow Wines Ltd. 

McDonald believed that Finbow’s ‘Buy Back Guarantee’ was genuine. She was “horrified to hear a recording of ‘manipulative bullying’ sales tactics that was typical of Billy Davies’ style of work. Had she known of this in September 2009 she “would have walked away – would have resigned”.

 She was “horrified that some investors had paid in £150,000 and had nothing to show for it but had no idea” that this was happening. McDonald thought that enough wine was being bought – “thousands of bottles of wine sufficient to cover the wine bought by investors”. She had nothing to do with the brokers.

 McDonald was taken through a number of invoices and payments to Paul Kelly and his various companies by her counsel. The invoices showed that Kelly was arranged to pay the rent for some people in Finbow including Daniel Snelling and Billy Davies as well as for various cars including a Porsche, which she queried, a Range Rover, a Q 5 (Audi) and a TT Audi. Kelly charged a commission which varied between 10%-15%.

McDonald had a BMW, which she bought seven years ago in a one-off payment of £13,000 before she joined Nouveau/Finbow. Her mortgage payments came out of her salary of £30,000 a year and she received no bonuses.

McDonald explained that often she had to make the transfers before receiving an invoice from Paul Kelly and that she often had to chase him on several occasion to obtain and invoice. “I tried my hardest to keep a track of what was going out.” In October 2009 she created a series of spread sheets detailing payments for cars, rents etc and set them at the end of every month to Daniel and to Billy Davies.

 McDonald described on one occasion how Billy Davies hassled her into making a transfer for him. Davies made a series of phone calls to McDonald including calling her at home during the afternoon when she was looking after her young son who had a kidney problem. “Stupidly I did it going to the bank and kept my son for an hour and half in the cold car. Six weeks later I found out that the transfer was to pay Billy’s rent.”

 She described Billy Davies as confrontational. “I could have asked more questions of the payments to Billy but I didn’t feel that I had the back-up of Daniel and Dina” (Snelling).

Asked about a company called M to M Ltd, McDonald replied that this “was part of Daniel’s wider plans”.  She was acting under instructions from others in the company and in December 2009 had no concerns over the company’s credibility.  Bailey asked her about a series of duplicate invoices – one showing payments required for cars, rents etc. with a second one for wine for the same amount. McDonald said that she had not seen the invoices for wine. She had no idea who had put the second invoices into the file but that these invoices could have been filed by other people in the office. 

At the end of January 2010 McDonald decided that she could no longer continue to work for Finbow and on 29th January sent a letter to Paul Rees, then Finbow’s director, saying she was resigning with immediate effect but would work out her one month notice period. She was no longer able to work with the floor manager (Billy Davies). ‘It had been a real pleasure working with you’ (Rees).McDonald explained that she was not comfortable with the amount of money going out of the company. “I was spending more time in the bank than in the office. It was impossible to keep on top of it. Billy Davies was running the show. She had not spoken to Daniel because he was stepping back from the company.McDonald was then questioned by Simon Dempsey’s counsel. Her previous employment had been with KPMG where she had worked for 14 years as a PA to one of the senior partners managing his diary. She was line manger for support staff. There was no accountancy involved. She earned £34,000 a year. At Nouveau/Finbow her salary was £30,000.

In January 2010 large amounts of cash were going out Finbow. “Money was being spent like it was going out of fashion….so much cash was going out”. Back in October she hadn’t questioned it because there was “a lot of money coming in”. “The month to month bills were being covered.” In January 2010 much more cash was going out of the company than was coming in. McDonald became concerned – “this is not right”.      

Tuesday 25th

Cross-examination by Julian Christopher
McDonald explained that she started at Nouveau in September 2008 to help Dina Snelling with the admin. At the time “there were no records to speak of – no proper paperwork in place”. Her job was to sort out the paperwork. She shared an office with Dina Snelling and had a chat with Dina about recordkeeping but no detailed discussion.  McDonald dealt with the paperwork that was there. She did not deal with records of how much wine was bought and had nothing to do with the stock of wine. McDonald set up a system for recording investors’ purchases. 

Christopher asked her about the CIB (Companies Investigation Branch) investigation by Mr Streeter in March and April 2009. He suggested that the records had been created to answer Streeter’s questions about how much wine had been bought by investors and how much had been purchased by the company. Rather than being created in September 2008, they were created in March 2009. McDonald said that this was not correct. She had set up the system in September 2008 and that it was a work in progress. There was reference to a document that post-dated Streeter’s investigation but McDonald agreed that an earlier version would have been shown to him. Christopher asked why only clients with surnames A-K were recorded and that for many investors listed the column referring to stock in Winevaults was blank. McDonald did not know. She didn’t think that she had put those columns into the document and after she had created the template she had passed it over to Dina for it to be kept up to date. Christopher also asked her why the filing system adopted was so cumbersome for new names of investors.  

During Streeter’s investigation she had asked Daniel Snelling for details of inventory at Winevaults but he did not produce it. Only a few big investors had their own accounts at Winevaults. The rest of the wine was in the Nouveau World Wines account at Winevaults. When Daniel Snelling returned from Australia in early May 2009 he said that he had been shafted and that only half the wine that Nouveau World Wines had ordered had actually been purchased. McDonald said she believed that Daniel was referring to Sultan Trad here.She had no dealings with the Global Wine invoices. Dina Snelling’s evidence was that Becky had been involved. She had no dealings with Riddingtons (accountants in Sidcup), over wine stocks – Daniel Snelling handled this.

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McDonald was asked about a complaint from investor Peter Podmore that involved an exchange of emails on 4th and 9th March. Podmore was querying why some of the wines that he had bought were not in storage at Winevaults in Sydney, Australia. He was threatening to expose Nouveau through a blog post and was demanding a full return of his money. Podmore had been in contact with Winevaults.

On 9th March Dina Snelling sent an email to Winevaults that there was 'a discrepancy' over Podmore's paperwork. McDonald was copied into this email. The same day Dina sent an email to Podmore telling him that ‘there is a discrepancy’ in you wine stocks and ‘until I hear from Winevaults themselves I can’t give you the information you require’. McDonald was not copied into this email. Christopher said that Winevaults were being told one thing and Podmore another.   

On the advice of Riddingtons Nouveau World Wine was put into liquidation. McDonald explained that Finbow was always part of Daniel’s plans. Although Simon Dempsey was the director, it was Daniel’s company. He was running the company and owned it. The advice from Riddingtons was that Daniel Snelling might to barred as a director because of what had happened to Nouveau World Wines.

Use of false namesWhen Finbow was starting up McDonald was asked to change the name she used in the office in order to hide the connection with Nouveau World Wines - not to link Finbow and Nouveau.

She declined to use a false name but did use her second name Louise rather than Rebecca. Others in the company did change their false names for the changeover from Nouveau to Finbow. Michael Lancaster (Michael Snelling) became Michael Jones. Lucy Jones (Dina Snelling) became Harriet Harbridge, while Daniel Snelling was known as Aston. McDonald said the use of false names did not concern her - she was used to the traders using them. Christopher asked whether Dina Snelling was an opener at Finbow.  He remarked that Dina Snelling had kept the name Lucy Jones during the time of Nouveau World Wines for the sake of 'consistency'. Now the change of name was to "avoid consistency".    
 

Nouveau World Wines Ltd/ Finbow Wines Ltd fraud trial: Dina Snelling cross examined

Greenock Creek, Roennfeldt Road, Shiraz 

Label for 1999 shown but nb this case involves 2002 vintage
label from wine-searcher.com

Defendants:

Simon Robert Dempsey

Rebecca Louise McDonald

Daniel Thomas Snelling

Dina Louise Snelling

The case before His Honour Judge Michael Grieve QC  is in Court 8 at Southwark CrownCourt, London SE1. 

Dina Snelling: cross-examination on 19th June and 20^th June

with Jane Osborne prosecuting. 

Dina Snelling was asked when Nouveau World Wines Ltd started. Dina didn't recall when the company started. She explained that for much of 2006 she had been in hospital as she had a very difficult pregnancy. Nouveau World Wines started receiving money in the summer of 2007. Dina was not aware of the size of the company at that time or from where it was operating.  

When Dina joined Nouveau in March 2008 there were 10 people working there – three or four openers and two closers plus Daniel Snelling. Asked about Simon Jenkins, the finance director, Dina replied that he had left by the time she arrived. Dan Jackson was the business development manager. There was no finance director to replace Jenkins.

After a couple of months working as an opener, Dina moved to the back office to work with a Lucy Jones. When Lucy Jones left Dina took over managing the office and used Lucy Jones' name. Asked whether she got Lucy's permission to use her name, Dina said no she didn't think to ask. 

Osborne suggested that Lucy Jones and Simon Jenkins never existed that instead they were personas of Daniel Snelling. Dina disagreed saying that Lucy existed but she couldn't comment about Simon Jenkins as he had left before she started in March 2008. However, documents continued to be sent out in the name of Simon Jenkins, finance director, after Dina took up her role as office manager. For example, a receipt sent to Mr Ore on 28.7.2008 was signed by Simon Jenkins, although there was a pp, there had been no permission sort or given to use Jenkins’ name.

Dina agreed that at this point there was no real organisation of records etc.

In June 2008 she took over the running of the Globex account from Dan Jackson. This account was used to transfer money to Australia for wine purchases. Australia was the sole country where Nouveau was buying wine. In total just under £450,000 was transferred to Australia to pay for wine purchases. Of this total £100,000 was transferred before Dina took over responsibility for the Globex account. This responsibility ran for 10 months from June 2008 to April 2009. Over this period £350,000 was sent.

Osborne asked Dina Snelling whether she thought this was enough to cover all the investor trades being done by Nouveau when the individual trades were mainly for £5000 or more and sometimes as much as £30,000 to £40,000. Dina: “I thought £35,000 was a lot of money to cover the cost of the wine.” 

Peter Podmore

Dina was questioned at some length over a number of wines that Podmore, an investor, bought from Nouveau World Wines and should have been stored in his account at Winevaults in Sydney.  The questioning focused in particular on 144 bottles of Greenock Creek 2002 Roennfeldt Road, Shiraz, Barossa Valley, Australia. Asked why it wasn’t in Podmore’s account, Dina said that Podmore had not decided which wines from his portfolio he wanted to sell. Osborne asked what difference did it make – the wine could have been transferred into his account. Dina reiterated that Podmore hadn’t decided which wines to sell.   

In all there were only six or seven investor accounts opened at Winevaults in Sydney.

She was asked about the initial plan for Finbow Wines Ltd to offer Old World Wines. She said that there was a white board on the wall of the trading floor, which showed them which wines were for sale. No wines had been bought. The intention was to set up a storage account at London City Bond (a bonded warehouse) but one wasn’t in place at the time. Finbow Wines was a joint partnership between Simon Dempsey and Daniel Snelling. Dempsey speaks fluent French. 

Dina was asked about Green Leaf, the proposed eco friendly, ethical, sustainable investment – wind, water, Dina: “Australia has drought problems”. She explained that she went out to Australia in late December 2009 to start a new life and it was her role to set up the office in Sydney. The plan was for an office employing 12 people – openers, closers and a back office. It would have been the responsibility of Daniel Snelling and/or Billy Davies to source the green investments. She returned at the end of January 2010 at the request of Daniel Snelling to sort of administration problems at Finbow.

During the time of Nouveau World Wines Dina was paid by cheque or by bank transfer; during Finbow’s existence she was paid in cash. “This was how I wanted to be paid,” she explained. She denied that the arrangement was designed to hide how much money she was taking out of the company.  Regarding her salary with Finbow there was no written agreement, no pay slips or records totalling what she had been paid.  

Finbow: three containers
Once Finbow moved over to selling Italian wine to the Asia-Pacific market there were three containers sent – two went to Hong Kong and one to Nigeria. Asked why Nigeria as it had nothing to do with Finbow, Dina said that that was a question to put to Daniel.

The last shipment went in September 2009. Dina explained that after September she had said that she did not have time to arrange shipments due to pressure of work in the office. 

Two sets of invoices

Dina Snelling was asked about the two sets of invoices found on the laptop computer seized by police in Simon Dempsey’s car in November 2009 and on a USB stick found in March 2010 at Daniel Snelling’s home. The first set of invoices was from Dragon Tower, while second set is ‘purportedly’ from Global Cellars – the prosecution alleges that the second set of invoices was created in house at the time when the company was subject to an investigation by the UK Companies Investigation Branch (part of the Insolvency Service).

The alleged intention was to hide from Mr Streeter from the Companies Investigation Branch that Nouveau World Wines Ltd had bought nothing like enough wine to cover the amounts ordered by their investors. Thus a second set was created in March 2009 with amendments being made over 3 hours 35 minutes on 24th March 2009 – starting at 20.07 and finishing at 23.42. The total spent on wine in the second set is the same as the first set of invoices. The difference is that there is more wine and prices of the wine are less in the second set.

Dina Snelling denied that she had created the second set of invoices – she would not be working at ten o’clock at night! The computer was not exclusively hers there were other people in the office who had access.

Osborne suggested that: “she was best placed to do this exercise" (create this second set of invoices) as Daniel Snelling was useless at computers as Dina had already testified. Dina denied that she had created the files and said that Daniel knew enough about computers to save files.  

Dina Snelling’s case closed on Thursday afternoon (20th March).

Rebecca McDonald’s case was scheduled start on Friday morning. I did not attend court that day. Once McDonald's case is finished the trial will move onto closing speeches followed by the summing up and directions to the jury by His Honour Judge Michael Grieve.  

Nouveau World Wines/ Finbow Wines trial: Wednesday 18th June 2013 – Dina Snelling takes the stand

Dina Snelling took the witness stand and was questioned by her counsel – Nick Corsellis.

She told the jury that she was born on 4th December 1977. She is of previous good character, no previous convictions and this is the first time she has given evidence in a court. She left school with no formal qualifications and started work as a nanny/child minder looking after babes up to children aged 13. After doing this for some five years she became an air stewardess working for British Caledonian before moving into secretarial work where she stayed for around five years. She has no qualifications in business management.In January 2007 her daughter was born. The father provided no support. From late 2007 to early 2008 she worked as a painter, decorator and cleaner. 

Dina was asked how the Snelling family viewed Daniel's new business, Nouveau World Wines. "Daniel had been in the wine trade for three or four years. He had extensive knowledge about wines - he was for ever going on about wine." Dina agreed that he was an expert. "The family were proud that Daniel's new business was thriving and he was doing so well."

Dina: "At the end of 2007 I had no work and didn't know what to do. I had been left by my daughter's father." At Daniel Snelling's suggestion she joined Nouveau in early March 2008 as an opener, which involved phoning people up to introduce them to wine investment and to the company. She worked using phone numbers on an Excel spreadsheet and would arrange to send a company brochure if there was an interest.   

It was not a job she enjoyed nor was she very good at it – ‘it was quite deflating you need quite a thick skin”, so in May 2008 she moved into administration. Initially she worked with Lucy Jones, who Dina described as “around 5ft 4 with dyed ginger, blonde hair, needed a good wash and had a problem with her nose”.  When Jones left, Dina took over as office manager. She adopted Lucy Jones' name for the sake of “continuity and to save the expense of having new business cards printed”. 

She described the record and filing system at Nouveau as “just chaos – couldn’t find anything”. Lucy Jones “hadn’t filed anything correctly, had rewritten one document over another, meaning that it would indicate just one trade instead of multiple trades”. There was no one doing the books. “Daniel (Snelling) chaotic. His organisational skills? – none.” One of her roles became to sort out the filing and records. 

Asked about how much wine was purchased, Dina said “she didn’t have a clue – it was never mentioned. It was not her job to monitor wine purchases.”

At Daniel’s request Dina took over the Globex account – transferring money to Australia to pay for wine purchased. “We were buying a lot of wine – huge amount of money transferred.”
 
There were no board meetings – no meetings. She said that Daniel was “good at delegating – quite good”. “There was no-one in charge of accountancy – not aware of any records being kept.”
 
Turning to Winevaults, the storage company in Australia, Dina Snelling said she “was concerned about Winevaults’ efficiency”. She had “a few issues later in 2008, which increased in 2009”. She described how she and Rebecca McDonald had sent two large parcels of documents to Winevaults at the end of 2008. Winevaults denied ever receiving these two batches of documents.
 
Dina explained that in September 2008 Rebecca McDonald, her cousin, joined the company. Dina needed to assess how inaccurate the records were and this was a job she could not do on her own. Rebecca had no accountancy qualifications but she was used to managing up to 30 people. Becky’s task was “to put the back office in order”.
 
Regarding the laptop seized in Simon Dempsey’s car in November 2009, the computer had a log-in for Dina but it was a Nouveau company computer, which Dina sometimes used but was available for others.
 
Corsellis’ questioning then moved onto the setting up of Finbow. Dina explained that she first met Simon Dempsey in the Bar du Musée (Greenwich) in February 2009. Dempsey and Daniel were having discussions about setting up a new company, which would be selling Old World Wines (Bordeaux etc.) as Dempsey spoke good French. Dina was not involved in these discussions – “none of my business”.

Although Nouveau continued in April and May, Dina’s focus was increasingly on Finbow. Regarding using different names or persons, Dina explained that, although she had used Dina during her time as an opener, she thought it was “a natural progression” to stay as Lucy when she took over as office manager. “She didn’t see a problem with it.” She explained that at the time Nouveau was receiving a bad press from Jim Budd with the name Snelling attached to it – “a lot of bad publicity by Jim Budd”. Thus she did not want to use her surname Snelling – which could reflect badly on the company. Someone in the office suggested the name Harriet Harbridge, which she adopted. 

By July 2009 Finbow had an email account. Daniel Snelling used the name Aston. He wasn’t present at the time and this was chosen for him as he drove an Aston Martin. Dina said he would have been free to change it later on but never did.The plan to sell Old World French wines was short lived as in July and August 2009 they hadn’t sold any. So at the start of September 2009 there was a change of direction to buy cheap Italian wine and send it in containers to Hong Kong, China etc. Dina thought that the 12-month buy back guarantee showed the legitimacy of Finbow. “It insures the investor completely.”  

Dina Snelling was asked about a meeting with Mr Parsons, who was providing a new database called ACT. In his evidence earlier in the trial Parson had said that when he raised including suppliers on the database, he was warded away from the subject. Dina: "There was no need to have suppliers on the database. They had no wish for their suppliers to general knowledge. Didn't want to give out that information. Suppliers are the core of the business. Daniel guarded that information very closely. 

She was also questioned by her counsel about two companies: Merchant to Merchant and Greenleaf. Merchant to Merchant was to have been involved in containerisation, while Greenleaf would be for ethical investments – eco-friendly, pollution and water etc. It was to be based in Australia and at the end of 2009 Dina went out to set it up. However, Dina came back around February 2010 as Daniel asked her to come back to sort out the back office at Finbow. 

Corsellis closed his questioning by asking what effect this case had had on her. Dina: “devastating – both physical and emotional”. Through tears she explained that she had had to pull her daughter out of school because she had been bullied.

Cross-examination by the prosecution

This started in the last session of the day and will continue on Thursday. To be covered in the next report.

Nouveau World Wines/ Finbow Wines trial: Tuesday 18th June 2013 – Simon Dempsey cross examined

Defendants:

Simon Robert Dempsey

Rebecca Louise McDonald

Daniel Thomas Snelling

Dina Louise Snelling

The case, before His Honour Judge Michael Grieve QC  in Court 8 at Southwark Crown Court, is likely to conclude in some time in the first part of July. Evidence will probably finish this week or early of next. Speeches and judge's summing up will take up next week with the jury likely to retire in the first week in July to consider their verdict.

Tuesday AM

Simon Dempsey gave the first part of his evidence yesterday by answering questions from his defence counsel as well as Julian Christopher QC, prosecuting for the Crown, starting his cross-examination. I wasn't present for this part.

After a late start for the court, cross-examination of Simon Dempsey continued through the morning and into the afternoon.  

On the advice from his solicitor Dempsey made no comment to the two police officers when he was arrested and questioned at Limehouse on 4th March 2010. He was asked a series of questions – what he knew about Finbow, who was running the company and who owns it, who had control over the bank account etc.

The cross-examination was largely devoted to going through in detail various subsequent accounts given by Dempsey – in evidence to the court, a statement that Dempsey gave to the Insolvency Service (25.2.11), when he was interviewed by a Mr Stone, and his defence statement (25.10.12) that has to be prepared for this trial. Unlike when questioned by the police, the Insolvency Act requires that questions are answered. Furthermore the Perjury Act applies, so false answers could lead to a prosecution for perjury.

Before turning to his statement made to the Insolvency Service, Christopher asked Dempsey about how he came to be involved in Finbow and how he came to leave the company. Dempsey said that he had a series of meetings at Café Rouge (Bromley) with Daniel and Dina Snelling in the early part of 2009.

At this time Dempsey was unemployed as his building business had collapsed due to the economic downturn. He was declared bankrupt on 29th January 2007 and exited bankruptcy on 29th January 2008.

Dempsey explained that it was agreed that he would become a director of Finbow to assist with the general setting up of the company. In negotiation with Daniel Snelling he arranged to take a loan of £25,000 in the first instance, which was subsequently increased to £35,000. Romance with Dina Snelling blossomed in the bar of Café Rouge and he saw her most days.

Questioning then turned to how Dempsey left Finbow. He described a meeting on 9th October 2009 with Billy Davies in the square at the centre of Canary Wharf where he was given a ultimatum  to leave the company with a payment of £25,000 and a subsequent payment of £60,000 – a year’s salary as a golden handshake. Dempsey said that the £25,000 was for wages that he had not received. Dempsey said that his decision to accept was made in “a matter of seconds”. It was – “take it or leave it” – he took it. He and Davies went to a bank with the Finbow bank card and drew out the £25,000 with the Finbow bank card that Davies had brought to the meeting. Dempsey said that Davies then took the bankcard back to the Finbow office. 

Dempsey said that this was effectively the end of his involvement in Finbow. In subsequent evidence Dempsey agreed that he had been involved in subsequent payments and bank transfers. This included a transfer to Hong Kong of £10,000 on 30th October 2009. Dempsey was in Highgate when he was phoned by Rebecca McDonald, who asked him to make the transfer as she wasn’t able to leave the office. At that time Dina Snelling was in hospital. The company bank card was in the office. Snelling said he always carried photo ID with him – his driving licence. The transfer was arranged. Dempsey said he wanted to ensure “the smooth running of the business”. He was also invited to rejoin the business in early 2010 when Paul Rees, the director who succeeded Dempsey, decided to leave.
   
In Dempsey’s statement to the Insolvency Service (25.2.2011) he said that he was already in a relationship with Dina Snelling when “I was out in as a director of Finbow to learn the business”. A builder by trade Dempsey had no experience in wine. Although Finbow wasn’t a full time job, Dempsey said he visited the offices almost every day. He paid invoices and arranged the shipping. In his statement Dempsey said that, “he wasn’t keen on the man who had started the trading”.

Dempsey did not have his own office at Finbow. He used a spare, empty desk in Daniel Snelling’s office. Billy Davies also had a desk here for part of the time that Dempsey was involved in Finbow.
 
Asked why there is no mention of Billy Davies in his statement to the Insolvency Service, Dempsey said that at the time he considered Billy Davies to be “an insignificant party to the business” and “wasn’t aware how much Billy Davies had his feet under the table”.

PM
Dempsey was asked questions about his defence statement (25.10.12). In it he explained that ‘he was a married man with a daughter. He had fallen in love with Dina Snelling and that he had volunteered to become involved to cement relationship with Dina'. Christopher pointed out that there appeared to be a discrepancy in the accounts of how he became involved as a director in Finbow and whether or not his relationship with Dina preceded his involvement in the company.

The defence statement stated that Dempsey ‘had no office at Finbow' and was ‘an infrequent’ visitor to its offices'. Christopher pointed out to Dempsey that he had told the court that he was in the offices everyday (or nearly every day). Dempsey replied that he was saying that he was not full time but that he was in the offices “almost every day”. Dempsey said that his statement was “open to interpretation”.

The statement also said that he was responsible for “the organisation of wine shipments through ACE Freight Ltd”. Questioned on this, Dempsey said that he had effected the introduction of Edward and Deborah Merriman, directors of the freight company who were personal friends of his. Asked whether his statement suggested a greater involvement than an introduction, Dempsey said it was a question of “how it was interpreted".

Dempsey’s defence statement said he negotiated a parting payment with Daniel Snelling to buy himself out of the company. There is no mention of Billy Davies in this statement.

In a letter (1.2.2010) concerning the £10,000 seized on 26.11.2009 as part of an investigation into the ‘proceeds of crime’, Dempsey wrote that he ‘decided to sell interest back to Finbow. Following discussion a payment of £60,000 was agreed”. Christopher reminded Dempsey that he had told the court of his meeting with Billy Davies (9.10.09) regarding the ultimatum offer that  he had “weighed it up in a matter of seconds”.

Dempsey was asked about an envelope found at his flat when the police searched it on 4th March 2010. On the back of the envelope were a series of handwritten transactions from Finbow’s bank account. All except the first transaction listed are from after Dempsey’s departure from Finbow. The writing is Dempsey’s but he could not remember why it was complied. He could recall some but not all of the transactions listed. Some of the transactions were Royal Exchange (full title – Royal Exchange Investments Ltd), a company involving Billy Davies. Dempsey said that he did not know the level of Davies’ involvement at the time.

Dempsey was asked about the use of false names by Dina Snelling: Lucy Jones  during Nouveau World Wines and Harriet Harbridge during Finbow. Dempsey: "Not odd – she was in sales" adding it was "not a big issue". Christopher remarked that Dina Snelling was not in sales. She worked in the back office.

Christopher concluded his cross-examination by suggesting that Dempsey was the “official frontman for Finbow hiding the involvement of Daniel Snelling”. “This is what your role was – the name on the company notepaper.” Dempsey strongly denied this – “Not at all.” He had no suspicion that the proceeds could have come from crime.

Dempsey agreed that he had full access to the bank accounts. Christopher said that he could have seen that only three containers of wine were bought by Finbow – two going to Hong Kong and one to Nigeria. That all three containers had been paid for in September 2009, that no evidence exists of any wine bought subsequently and that from September 2009 “money from investors was coming in thick and fast".   

In conclusion Matthew Mcdonagh , Dempsey’s defence counsel, asked him some questions about the logistics of how the statement to the Insolvency Service was made – Mr Stone took notes. There was no tape recording of the two hour interview.

Dina Snelling will be giving evidence today. 

The investigation into the two companies was carried out by the Metropolitan Police. The defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges. 

Four on trial for Nouveau World Wines/ Finbow Wines double 'fraud'

Investors were 'defrauded' of £4.5 million through two companies run by 38-year old Daniel Snelling. Snelling is charged with two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. 

The first company was Nouveau World Wines, which operated between 2007 and 2009, offering investments in Australian wines. When Nouveau World Wines disappeared in 2009, Finbow Wines was set up using investors’ money from Nouveau. Finbow offered short-term profits in a five-month deal claiming to ship containers of cheap Italian wines in China for the Chinese New Year, to India, and to South Africa for the World Cup.

Investors were told that wines bought for £2 a bottle including transport could be sold in China for £3 producing a rapid profit. Investors were offered a buy back guarantee if the wine was unsold after 12 months. The guarantee proved to be worthless.    

Also in the dock at Southwark Crown Court are 35-year old Dina Snelling, Daniel’s sister and the office manager, Rebecca McDonald, the accounts manager, and Simon Dempsey, the director of Finbow Wines Ltd and Dina Snelling’s boyfriend. Dempsey was not involved in Nouveau.

Although Daniel Snelling was a director of Nouveau, he was not a named director of Finbow. The prosecution, however, alleged that he was fully involved in setting up and running Finbow, where he used the name Aston. It was Daniel Snelling was made the arrangements to buy the three containers that were sent. It was he who informed the telesales staff that they were no longer working for Nouveau World Wines and were now employed by Finbow.

Investors' money that should have been used to buy Australian wine through Nouveau World Wines Ltd was used to set up the Finbow operation.  

The court of told of two sets of invoices for Nouveau World Wines Ltd. The first set was drawn up over the period that the company was active, while the second ‘bogus’ set was produced on a single day 2009, when the Companies Investigation Branch started looking at the company and designed to show that the company had bought more wine than it actually had.
Both companies failed to buy all the wine purchased by investors. Finbow bought £34,000 worth of Italian wine, while taking some £2 million from investors. Instead substantial cash payments were made to the defendants disguised by false invoices. Handwritten annotations on the invoices told a different story and showed which of the defendants the cash being paid. The prosecution said notes were written by Rebecca McDonald - evidence that she was aware that Finbow was a fraud from the outset. One of the cash payments was for a deposit on a Range Rover. 



Prosecutor Julian Christopher QC told His Honour Judge Grieve and the Jury how one Finbow investor lost over £120,000 by making five purchases, while another lost £67,000. 
The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The case opened on Thursday at Southwark Crown Court and is expected to last around 10 weeks with the prosecution’s case being completed by early June. 

Finbow Wines Limited/Nouveau World Wines Limited: URGENT ACTION REQUIRED: Grant Thornton a candidate to be appointed liquidator

I'm happy to post this notice at the request of Grant Thornton. See also here. 

"Finbow Wines Limited - In Liquidation & Nouveau World Wines Limited - In Liquidation


URGENT ACTION REQUIRED


30 March 2011 - Meeting of creditors to appoint an insolvency practitioner to act as liquidator


The Fraud Insolvency Division (FInD) at Grant Thornton UK LLP have been approached by in excess of £1m in value of investors to act as joint liquidators in the matter of Finbow Wines Limited at a meeting of creditors to be held at The Official Receiver's offices in London at 10.30am on 30 March 2011.  

Nick Wood and David Ingram are also happy to accept nominations to be appointed as joint liquidators of Nouveau World Wines Limited, a company connected to Finbow Wines Limited in order, at the Official Receiver's request, to allow the two liquidations to be dealt with by the same firm. We have successfully dealt with a number of wine investment companies making good recoveries for investors. There is likely to have been movement of monies and stock between the 2 companies and it would be more cost efficient for creditors to have both companies dealt with by the same liquidator.

Nominations must be lodged with the Official Receiver by noon today, however late nominations will still be lodged with the Official Receiver and may still be accepted.

Should you be an investor in Nouveau World Wines Limited and wish to discuss this process and the forms required or wish to nominate Nick Wood and David Ingram of Grant Thornton UK LLP please contact Samantha Locke at Grant Thornton UK LLP as a matter of urgency on 0207 728 2651 or alternatively email her at samantha.j.locke@uk.gt.com.

There will be no charge to investors in making this nomination and a report of the outcome of the meeting will be provided at no cost.

For further information regarding Grant Thornton's insolvency investigation services please visit http://www.grant-thornton.co.uk/intermediaries/fraud_insolvency_division.aspx FInD's fees can be conditional upon recoveries made and therefore creditors may not need to fund recoveries and spend further money thereby throwing 'good' money after 'bad'.

FInD specialise in tracing and recovering assets and are a national team together with an international reach with a presence in all offshore financial centres. They have recovered assets from many jurisdictions and are currently successfully recovering monies for victims of various investment scams, including off plan property developments, mortgage fraud and boiler room fraud, in the UK, Spain, Caribbean, USA, the Middle East and other overseas jurisdictions.

They have a proven track record and sector expertise and are currently running over 600 asset recovery cases. They regularly work with various police fraud squads, the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Prosecution Service."

Nouveau World Wines Ltd and Finbow Wines Ltd: creditors meeting 30th March 2011

I'm posting a letter from Mark Hendrick of RSM Tenon, a corporate recovery firm, to one of the creditors. Tenon is one of the companies in the running to be appointed liquidator of Nouveau World Wines Ltd and Finbow Wines Ltd. This will be decided at a creditors meeting  starting at 11.00am on 30th March 2011 at the offices of the Insolvency Service, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3SS (near Bedford Square).

A proxy forms have to be lodged with the Official Receiver not later than 12 noon on Tuesday 29th March 2011 to entitle creditors to vote by proxy at the meeting (together with a completed proof of debt form if they have not already lodged one).  
 

Please note that I will happily post similar letters/notices from other companies looking to be appointed as liquidator for Nouveau World Wines Ltd and Finbow Wines Ltd.  

••

Mark Hendrick:  

I write further to our telephone conversation of today concerning the above and can confirm that Mr Trevor Binyon of this firm has been asked to accept an appointment in acting as Liquidator in both of these matters further to the winding up orders obtained against them on 20 October 2010 further to a petition presented by the Secretary of State for Business Innovation & Skills on the basis it was in the public interest to do so.

For your information, I attach further copies of the Official Receiver’s report to creditors in both cases. (Not included in this post - Jim)

Suffice to say, the reports themselves do not make for very good reading.  Clearly, it will be for any appointed Liquidator to undertake a detailed investigation into the demise of the businesses in order to ascertain the quantum of any recoveries to be made from third parties associated to both businesses.

It should be noted that in the Official Receiver’s report, reference is given to recoveries for a Liquidator to consider given the quantum of money received by the companies and the fact that very little was spent on wine.

It is in this regard that Mr Binyon has confirmed his willingness to act.

You may not be aware that it is the intention of the Official Receiver to convene a meeting of the company’s creditors which is due to take place at their offices at 21 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3SS on 30 March 2011.

I will be in attendance at this meeting representing various clients/investors who will be nominating Mr Binyon to act as Liquidator as mentioned above.

For your information, the purpose of the meeting is purely to allow creditors to nominate an Insolvency Practitioner of their choosing in dealing with the winding up of the company. It may also be possible to form what is known as a Creditors’ Committee to assist the Liquidator in his dealings.

We discussed how a firm such as my own comes to be involved in these matters.  In simple terms, we are either known in our specific field, or we are instructed direct by clients. In this instance, both situations apply.

Insolvency practitioners within RSM Tenon have been appointed to act in cases such as Churchill Wines and Wine Traders International. In those cases, we successfully recovered funds in excess of £2m to date, but in addition with we recovered over £500k in additional assets. Wine Traders is ongoing and we are confident of a return to creditors. This is all being done with the knowledge and support of a creditors committee.

We have been able to make a success of this through our resources and ability to incur costs up front, to second staff from other departments, our ability to utilise RSM Tenon resources such as tax and forensics, and creditors will benefit from the RSMi network in due course. We have also worked without the benefit of cost protection, meaning it is our risk that we take for our clients.

In any event, as requested, I attach for your attention the applicable forms of proof of debt and proxy for your use in relation to the meeting on 30 March 2011.

I can confirm that I would be delighted to assist in relation to the meeting, answer any questions you have at this point and perhaps you can contact me at your convenience to take matters forward.

With kind regards

Mark Hendrick

Associate Director / Corporate Recovery
RSM Tenon
T: 020 7448 8115
F: 020 7448 8105
mark.hendrick@rsmtenon.com
www.rsmtenon.com

Nouveau World Wines Ltd and Finbow Wines Ltd: bail extended

Those arrested in connection with these two companies have been bailed until the last full week of March 2011. 

Anyone concerned at the apparently slow progress of this investigation should be aware that investigations into alleged fraud are often lengthy, especially where it is necessary to obtain evidence from abroad. In this case the investigation needs evidence from Australia. I realise that for investors who have lost money the delay is frustrating but I would urge patience.  

 

Making a complaint to the police

I received this message on Thursday from FG who invested some £20,000 with Finbow.

'I went home last night, I rang my local police who were extremely disinterested to say the least and told me that if a company has gone bankrupt, it’s nothing to do with the police. I also rang Clare Bracher and left a message, and I rang the Trading Standards number and spoke to a lady who said there was no record of any other complaints regarding Finbow. She took all the details from me, but basically just told me to contact my solicitor.

 

I intend to ring Scotland Yard later today when I can access a phone with some degree of privacy. However, all the other people writing on the blog seem to have been a lot more successful with their complaints than I have been – so where am I going wrong????'

*

Although it is disappointing that FG's local police were 'extemely disinterested' it is perhaps not surprising as they may well not have had any complaints about Finbow Wines Ltd before. The fraud alert advises you to contact your local police but it may well be worth contacting the police where company you are filing a complaint about has its registered office and its trading address. In many cases this is likely to be either the Metropolitan Police or the City of London Police. 

Fortunately FG did later contact the Met he was put through to a policeman who knew about the investigation and so when FG goes back to his local police station to file a complaint they will be more up to speed.

It is crucial not only for people who think they have been victims of a scam to be able to make a complaint to the police and get proper attention but for the police too so that they are aware of the scale of the problem. Unless reports are collated the police will not be sure whether there is the odd isolated incident or that there is a widespread problem. Clearly, however, from comments that have been made by David Cross about Operation Iceman the Met are aware that this is a subtstantial problem. 

Given that companies like Nouveau World Wines and Elite Wine Portfolios are likely to have had clients in various parts of the country it would surely make sense if there was central website where complaints could be filed.