Fraudster Daniel Snelling ordered to pay £714,588.28

Daniel Snelling

Many thanks to Mr Gilchrist for bringing this to my attention. Daniel Snelling convicted in July 2013 for fraud and money laundering for running the Nouveau World Wines and Finbow wine investment scams. 

'Last week (15th May 2015) Daniel Snelling was treated to an excursion from his prison cell. He was brought back to Southwark Crown Court to appear in front of the judge, who sentenced him to jail in 2013. The judge's message to Snelling was clear - "Cough up the rest of the loot or get banged up for longer!"'

Court News UK (15th May 2015):
“ SNELLING: FINE WINES CONMAN ORDERED TO PAY BACK £700K 

A crooked businessman who persuaded hundreds of elderly investors to hand over their life savings in a £4.5million fine wine scam has been ordered to repay £714,000.

Daniel Snelling, 40, seduced investors into ploughing thousands of pounds into Australian plonk billed as 'the best money could buy' from Nouveau World Wines. 

Working with his sister Dina Snelling, 37, and their cousin Rebecca McDonald, 44, he promised to sell the wine at huge profits after three years in 'premium' storage.

Daniel Snelling used his ill-gotten gains to enjoy an 'extravagant' lifestyle including renting flash cars and luxury homes and enjoying numerous holidays to Australia.

Dina indulged in cosmetic surgery and received 'travel expenses' for trips to Oz.

Daniel Snelling, jailed for seven and a half years in September 2013, returned to Southwark Crown Court for a confiscation hearing.

Judge Michael Grieve QC said: 'I make a finding by agreement that Mr Snelling's overall benefit arising out of these proceedings under the confiscation order, proceedings following his conviction, is £1,814,248.

'The realisable amount is £714,588.28, of which £100,000 constitutes hidden assets.' Judge Grieve ordered the confiscation amount of £714,588.28 should be paid in compensation to the victims of the fraud.

Snelling must now cough up the cash within six months or face a further three and a half years in jail.....”

The full script of the court report can be found on this link:

http://courtnewsuk.co.uk/newsgallery/?page=5&news_id=40869

Nouveau World Wines/ Finbow sentencing fiasco

Daniel Snelling

In a surprise development the sentencing of Daniel Snelling on all four counts in the Nouveau World Wines Ltd/Finbow Wines Ltd fraud and Rebecca McDonald in respect to conspiracy to defraud in relation to Finbow Wines Ltd has been adjourned until tomorrow afternoon – around 2pm at Court 3.

A crowded Court 3 at Southwark Crown Court was stunned when His Honour Judge Grieve QC announced around 3.45pm that sentencing would have to be delayed because all Southwark courts could not continue beyond 4pm today due apparently to a community event. There were shouts of "you must be joking" from the public galleries, which included some 20 family and friends present to support Rebecca McDonald.

The sentencing hearing started a little after 2pm and by just after 3.30pm the Judge had heard submissions from the Crown and pleas of mitigation from counsel for Daniel Snelling and Rebecca McDonald. The court then rose for the judge to consider these submissions. His Honour Judge Grieve returned ten minutes later to make his bombshell announcement. He apologised profusely for the anguish this delay will cause the defendants but the circumstances were beyond his control.  

This very unfortunate delay was obviously particularly distressing for Rebecca McDonald. 

Dina Snelling was not present in court – she has been suffering from severe depression and was admitted briefly to hospital last week. She will be seeing a psychiatrist on 19th September. Dina Snelling will be sentenced once the judge receives the psychiatrist's report –  the sentencing date has been fixed for 11th October.

In relation to Daniel Snelling the Crown has applied that he be banned from serving as a UK director  – the maximum ban is 15 years. Also that a Serious Crime Prevention Order be issued against him and for this to apply from the time of his release from prison. Under a Serious Crime Prevention Order Snelling would have to reveal all of his financial transactions to the police. 

The process of issuing confiscation orders against the Snellings and McDonald has been set in train. 

The trial date for 32-year-old Kelly Humphreys, Daniel Snelling's girl friend. It is estimated to last three to four weeks. Humphreys is charged with three counts: conspiracy to defraud in relation to both Nouveau World Wines Ltd and Finbow Wines Ltd as well as money laundering (Count 3 – see charges here). 

Humphreys was originally due to stand trial with the others but was severed from the trial as she was pregnant.
             

Nouveau World Wines Ltd/Finbow Wines Ltd: the details of the verdicts

Update: 17.30, 17th July 2013
The jury has been unable to reach a majority verdict on Rebecca McDonald regarding Count 1 –  conspiracy to defraud in relation to Nouveau World Wines – see details below. Previously I listed McDonald as guilty on this count. In fact she is guilty with regard to Count 4: conspiracy to defraud in relation to Finbow Wines Ltd. My apologies for this error. 

***

Here are the details of the charges with the verdicts returned yesterday. The jury is still considering Count 1 in relation to Rebecca McDonald over the Finbow fraud. I understand from Southwark Crown Court that His Honour Judge Michael Grieve has now allowed a majority verdict for this count.
 
Simon Dempsey was found not guilty on the two charges he faced – Counts 2 and 4. Daniel Snelling was found guilty on all four counts, Dina Snelling guilty on the two counts she faced and Rebecca McDonald guilty on Count 1. 

Count 1: Conspiracy to defraud, contrary to common law

Particulars of offence:

Daniel Thomas Snelling, Dina Louise Snelling and Rebecca Louise McDonald, between the 1st day of January 2007 and the 30th of August 2009, conspired together and with Kelly Louise Humphreys and others to defraud such persons as could be persuaded to make transfers of funds to Nouveau World Wines Ltd for the purpose of investment in good quality wines on their behalf by dishonestly 

a) making false representations that the funds provided by the investors would be directed to the purchase of such wines as represented;

b) failing to direct the funds provided by the investors to the purcahse of wines as represented;

c) providing documentation to investors about their respective purchases which falsely represented the position, and 

d) diverting funds received from investors from the company bank account for their own purposes.

Verdict: Guilty – Daniel Snelling and Dina Snelling
Update (17.00, 17.7.13): Jury unable to come to a majority verdict with regard to Rebecca McDonald. Julian Christopher, the prosecutor, has decided that it is not in the public interest to hold another trial as McDonald has been found guilty on one count.  The charge will remain on 'file', so cannot be resurrected without leave of Southwark Crown Court or the Court of Appeal.   

Count 2: Converting criminal property, contrary to Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Particulars of offence:

Daniel Thomas Snelling and Simon Robert Dempsey between the 21st day of April 2009 and 21st day of May 2009 converted funds to the value of £35,000 which were transferred into bank account number *******  with the National Westminster Bank plc in the name of Simon Robert Dempsey from bank account *******  with the National Westminister Bank in the name of Daniel Thomas Snelling and which, as they knew or suspected constituted or represented Daniel Thomas Snelling's benefit from criminal conduct.

Verdict: Guilty Daniel Snelling; not guilty: Simon Dempsey

Count 3: Converting criminal property, contrary to Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Particulars of offence:

Daniel Thomas Snelling between the 17th day of August 2009 and 2nd day of October 2009 together with Kelly Louise Humphreys converted funds to the value of £107,948 which were transferred from the bank account number ***-******-*** with the Hang Seng Bank Ltd in Hong Kong in the name of Daniel Thomas Snelling to the First Direct bank account number ******** in the name of Kelly Humphreys, and which, as they knew or suspected, constituted or represented Daniel Thomas Snelling's benefit from criminal conduct.

Verdict: Guilty Daniel Snelling

Kelly Humphreys, Daniel Snelling's girlfriend, faces a trial at a later date. She has just had a baby.  

Count 4: Conspiracy to defraud, contrary to common law.

Particulars of offence:     

Daniel Thomas Snelling, Simon Robert Dempsey, Dina Louise Snelling and Rebecca Louise McDonald, between the 1st day of April 2009 and the 5th day of March 2010, conspired together and with Kelly Louise Humphreys and others to defraud such persons as could be persuaded to make transfers of funds to Finbow Wines Ltd for the purpose of investment in wine in bulk for the purpose of shipment to countries where they could be sold for a large profit on behalf of the investors, by dishonestly 

a) making false representations that the funds provided would be directed to the purchase of wines for re-sale as represented;

b) failing to direct the funds provided by the investors to the purchase of wines as represented;

c) providing documentation to investors about their respective purchases which falsely represented the position, and 

d) diverting funds received from the investors from the company bank account for their own purposes. 

Verdict: Guilty Daniel Snelling, Dina Snelling, Rebecca McDonald   

Not guilty: Simon Dempsey

Sentencing will be on 9th September not before 12 noon at Southwark Crown Court. Daniel Snelling, Dina Snelling and Rebecca McDonald are on conditional bail until then.

The investigation was carried out by the Metropolitan Police with major roles played by officers DC Andrew Bailey and DC Carl Hughes. Julian Christopher QC was the prosecuting barrister for the Crown. 

 

   

Nouveau/Finbow: breaking news - Daniel Snelling guilty

After more than five days of deliberation the jury has returned its verdicts. Daniel Snelling has been found guilty on all four counts, Dina Snelling on two counts and Rebecca McDonald on one count, while Simon Dempsey was found not guilty on all counts.

I am delighted that the jury took its task very seriously spending more than five days to reach its verdicts. I am also very pleased that fraudster Daniel Snelling has been found guilty on all counts. Although I wasn't in court to hear all the evidence, my impression was that his defence, particularly in relation to Finbow was wafer thin. Investors poured around £2.5 million into the hare brained Finbow scheme but only a maximum of around £45,000 was used to buy wine. Finbow purchased and arranged just three shipments of wine. Of these only two went to Hong Kong and one was sent to Nigeria for reasons that were never, as far as I know, explained. Some investors put staggering amounts of money into the Finbow scheme - £290,000 by one deluded investor.

Investors failed to realise that the guarantee given by Finbow that they would buy back the Italian white wine at the end of a year if it hadn't been sold was worth less than the paper it was written on. Cheap Italian wine will not have any resale value a year on even if Snelling  ever had any intention whatever to fulfil his promise. As Snelling's Finbow email persona indicates – Aston because he drove an Aston Martin – his primary concern was to trouser his clients money. 

It was clear that Snelling was planning further frauds. His sister, Dina Snelling, was sent out to Australia at the end of 2009 to set up an office in Sydney to sell eco-friendly investments. They didn't actually have any investments to offer but Dina knew how many staff were required for their new boiler room.

I hope that Snelling receives an appropriately severe sentence not least for wasting everyone's time by not pleading guilty when charged. Was it arrogance, over confidence that made Snelling think he could bluff it out? The cost of the two month was clearly of no more concern to him nor the disruption to the lives of the jury than the impoverishment of investors in Nouveau World Wines/Finbow Wines was. 

I wonder and will never know how much Simon Dempsey's brief but well delivered defence speech played in his favour with the jury. Towards the end of the trial Dempsey dismissed his legal team because of the rudeness of his barrister towards the jury. Equally I can't imagine that Dina Snelling's truculent and bolshie tone when cross-examined strengthened her case. 

Snelling worked for the Australian wine investment scam company, Wine Orb, and then for European Fine Wines Ltd (see also EFWines Ltd) in Bromley. Nouveau World Wines Ltd was set up in September 2004 but did not start trading until early 2006 when the company changed its name from Infinite Rockall Services Limited. Daniel Snelling became a director on 20th May 2006.    

The investigation was carried out by the Metropolitan Police with major roles played by officers DC Andrew Bailey and DC Carl Hughes.

Sentencing will be on 9th September at Southwark Crown Court. 

    

 

Nouveau World Wines/Finbow Wines fraud: the jury remains out.

The jury in the Nouveau/Finbow trial (Southwark Crown Court, London) is continuing its deliberations today. The jury has been considering its verdicts since 11am on Monday, although they did not sit on Wednesday. There are four defendants and four counts to consider.

Update: 14.7.2013: Jury will continue their deliberations on Monday. 

Update: 15.7.2013: Jury will continue their deliberations on Tuesday 

Nouveau World Wines/Finbow Wines: the charges

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. In the indictment there are four charges. The defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are:

Count 1: Conspiracy to defraud, contrary to common law

Particulars of offence:

Daniel Thomas Snelling, Dina Louise Snelling and Rebecca Louise McDonald, between the 1st day of January 2007 and the 30th of August 2009, conspired together and with Kelly Louise Humphreys and others to defraud such persons as could be persuaded to make transfers of funds to Nouveau World Wines Ltd for the purpose of investment in good quality wines on their behalf by dishonestly 

a) making false representations that the funds provided by the investors would be directed to the purchase of such wines as represented;

b) failing to direct the funds provided by the investors to the purcahse of wines as represented;

c) providing documentation to investors about their respective purchases which falsely represented the position, and 

d) diverting funds received from investors from the company bank account for their own purposes.

Count 2: Converting criminal property, contrary to Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Particulars of offence:

Daniel Thomas Snelling and Simon Robert Dempsey between the 21st day of April 2009 and 21st day of May 2009 converted funds to the value of £35,000 which were transferred into bank account number *******  with the National Westminster Bank plc in the name of Simon Robert Dempsey from bank account *******  with the National Westminister Bank in the name of Daniel Thomas Snelling and which, as they knew or suspected constituted or represented Daniel Thomas Snelling's benefit from criminal conduct.

Count 3: Converting criminal property, contrary to Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Particulars of offence:

Daniel Thomas Snelling between the 17th day of August 2009 and 2nd day of October 2009 together with Kelly Louise Humphreys converted funds to the value of £107,948 which were transferred from the bank account number ***-******-*** with the Hang Seng Bank Ltd in Hong Kong in the name of Daniel Thomas Snelling to the First Direct bank account number ******** in the name of Kelly Humphreys, and which, as they knew or suspected, constituted or represented Daniel Thomas Snelling's benefit from criminal conduct.

Count 4: Conspiracy to defraud, contrary to common law.

Particulars of offence:     

Daniel Thomas Snelling, Simon Robert Dempsey, Dina Louise Snelling and Rebecca Louise McDonald, between the 1st day of April 2009 and the 5th day of March 2010, conspired together and with Kelly Louise Humphreys and others to defraud such persons as could be persuaded to make transfers of funds to Finbow Wines Ltd for the purpose of investment in wine in bulk for the purpose of shipment to countries where they could be sold for a large profit on behalf of the investors, by dishonestly 

a) making false representations that the funds provided would be directed to the purchase of wines for re-sale as represented;

b) failing to direct the funds provided by the investors to the purchase of wines as represented;

c) providing documentation to investors about their respective purchases which falsely represented the position, and 

d) diverting funds received from the investors from the company bank account for their own purposes.      

**

Proceedings in the case have been delayed – closing speeches have been made on behalf of Daniel and Dina Snelling. The court will sit again tomorrow morning and hear closing speeches for Simon Dempsey and Rebecca McDonald. His Honour Judge Michael Grieve will then sum up and give directions to the jury, before they retire to consider their verdict.    

   

Nouveau World Wines/Finbow Wines trial: closing speeches

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.

The defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges. 

 

By the middle of last week the trial had moved into the closing speeches with just the judge's summing up and directions to the jury before the jury retires to consider its verdict. 

Prosecution: Julian Christopher QC

Starting his closing speech Julian Christopher invited the jury to take a step back and consider the overview. Was Nouveau World Wines a fraud or was it a question of theft by Sultan Trad and then Reset along with incompetence from Winevaults? Reset was based in Spain with its registered office in Cyprus, an island it couldn't spell correctly on its correspondence. Was it likely that Nouveau World Wines would have the misfortunate to be shafted by its suppliers twice in succession?

In his police interview in March 2010 Daniel Snelling spoke of a 15%-25% mark up on the wines. Now in his evidence to the court he claimed it was much higher – up to 50%. What he told the police in 2010 is more likely to be accurate. The higher mark up now cited by Snelling is an attempt to hide the huge discrepancy between the wine actually bought and the amount that was sold to the investors.

Over the period covered, Nouveau World Wines spent just under £450,000. If Sultan Trad was giving Nouveau credit then at a 20% mark up they would have been extending Nouveau £1 million in credit, while at 50% it would have been £1.5 million credit. 

Regarding the claims of wine lost through inefficiency at Winevaults, the wrong years for Mollydooker and the Greenock Creek Apricot Block "doesn't begin to explain what happened to the 36,000 bottles the investors thought they had bought".

There was a complete lack of any records of what had been bought, what had been sold and how many bottles there were left. Then the false paperwork - invoices from Global Cellars -  created at the end of March and beginning of April 2009 when Mr Streeter from the Companies Investigation Branch was looking into the company. The invoices were adjusted with the prices for the wines lowered. The second set of invoices were created on Dina Snelling's laptop, which had her name as the log in and her fingerprints were found on the laptop.

Christopher said that Dina Snelling and Rebecca McDonald were brought into the conspiracy because being family members they could be trusted by Daniel Snelling. His sister and cousin filled that role perfectly. Bringing in strangers to the administration would have meant that they would discover the truth.

Diana's account of sending two large packages of investors' documentation out to Winevaults in Australia was clearly a fabrication. There was no email traffic between Nouveau and Winevaults when the packages didn't arrive. 

Rebecca McDonald did not set up records when she joined in September 2008. The records were created when Streeter started his investigation. McDonald's account made no sense - she chose a ridiculous system that made amending and updating of the records very laborious.

Finbow

Simon Dempsey, Dina Snelling's boyfriend, was brought in to hide the trail of money from Nouveau to Finbow. The reason given for Dempsey being brought on board was that he could speak French. However, this skill was never used. Investors in Finbow paid out £2 million but only two containers of wine were sent to Hong Kong with each container carrying around £12,000 of wine, while the third container went to Nigeria. Investors paid for around one million bottles of wine.

Finbow was clearly Daniel Snelling's company - he owned it and ran it. However, when interviewed by the police Daniel Snelling claimed that he was only a consultant to Finbow employed because of his network of contacts in France, Italy and the UK. If asked, he would assist in the sourcing of wine and would give advice. Simon Dempsey and Paul Rees were running Finbow. He did not know the politics of the company. The reality was very different - Finbow was Daniel Snelling. 

With Finbow none of the lessons of Nouveau were learnt. No records were kept. If it had been a legitimate business they would have been. 

When Rebecca McDonald left in February 2010 Daniel had to call Dina back from Australia to run the office. He needed someone in place who he could trust.

Dorian Lovell-Pank - counsel for Daniel Snelling

Lovell-Pank began his speech in defence of Daniel Snelling by quoting Confucius "man, who skates on this ice must skate fast". He claimed that Julian Christopher had swept through the case in his closing speech. The prosecution's case was based on the ideal world not the real world that we know. Their case is based on businesses run in a particular way - an ideal model. In the real world there are business failures, mistakes are made, records are not always up to date.

"The whole thing unravelled into an awful mess." "Failure is not the same thing as crime. This was not a criminal enterprise. The defendants are never criminals. The people running these businesses are not crooks."

This took court proceedings up to the close of Wednesday 26th June. I have been unable to get to court since then and will not be back in court before Wednesday 3rd July. 

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. 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 xxxxxx 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 xxxxxx.

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. ‘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. 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 xxxxxxxx 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.