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When Page now came off post at Buckingham Palace, he walked into the canteen like a man no longer uncertain about his role and relationship with the more experienced hands on A Relief. He’d take his lunch over to the television area and ask to change the channel.
‘What’s on?’ an older colleague would enquire.
‘Alan Greenspan.’
‘Alan who?’
‘The chairman of the Federal Reserve and he’s about to make a speech,’ Page replied as he turned the channel over to Teletext without waiting for objection.
Greenspan had been US Federal Reserve chairman since 1987. International politicians and bankers treated the monetarist like a sage and were persuaded by his total belief in the self-correcting power of free markets. The decision to lower interest rates in an effort to boost the US economy was his and the sage was about to announce a further adjustment. These televised pronouncements moved markets up or down and to a savvy investor they presented an opportunity to make money in stocks and bonds.
Page no longer saw his job at BP in royal protection terms. Security now meant financial security for his family and the labour conditions at the palace were perfect to supplement his police salary with some educated share dealing using the pot of cash he had kept back.
He could often be found in the BP canteen studying the pink business pages of the Evening Standard. At home in Chafford Hundred he would scan share sites and chat rooms on the Internet or listen to pundits on Bloomberg and CNBC for analysis of the economic conditions and its impact on the rolling digital strip of share and commodity prices at the bottom of his laptop.
‘It’s not rocket science, love,’ he explained to Laura in an effort to get her signature on some documents. The paperwork was for a joint Halifax bank account he opened on 4 December 1998 to deal in shares.
Page’s first foray into the world of stocks and shares was a punt on Halifax itself, which had recently floated as a public limited company. The demutualization of the former building society began with the so-called Big Bang in 1986, a deregulation of the UK financial services industry under Margaret Thatcher. By 1997, Halifax had floated on the London Stock Exchange and was buying up smaller building societies.
Within days of buying the Halifax shares, Page was bragging to Laura that he’d made £800. She noticed how happy and cocksure it made her husband feel. The winnings, which he loved to spend on his family, were also welcome.
Page’s punt on Halifax shares was not exactly shooting fish in a barrel, but neither was it intelligent, high-risk trading. What mattered is that it stirred in the 27-year-old a new sense of himself.
He enjoyed his role as family protector, and although disillusioned with royal policing he still believed in the police protecting normal society from ‘the dross’. However, the buzz of share dealing gave Page an opportunity to be more of a family provider than his £33,000 salary, even with overtime, allowed.
More worryingly, it also fed an alter ego he was developing as a City trader, albeit one with a police warrant card working at Buckingham Palace. ‘I was starting to find my feet with the stock market and that proved more fruitful than doing two days of overtime on a rest day when I was away from my family,’ he explained. ‘I could earn £300 at a punch of a button in five minutes.’
The first five months of his Halifax statements show that from December 1998 to April 1999 Page earned a staggering £241,530.35 from share dealing. The self-taught trader was mainly buying shares in privatized utility companies, banks, and a lot of tech stocks, especially computer-game manufacturers.
Around this time, Page became friends with a fellow SO14 officer also interested in playing the booming markets. The identity of all the key Royal Protection officers involved in this story are known, but Page would only refer to this man as ‘Harry’.
He said they struck up a conversation one day when Page was in the palace canteen studying the business section. Soon the pair were discussing the markets and sharing tips. Before long they started trading together on a laptop Page was now bringing to work. When one was on post, the other was monitoring share prices in his down time.
The story goes that the pair struck big on a tip that came from Harry. A software company was going public and Harry recognized the owner from his previous job body-guarding a senior British politician during a visit to a defence research establishment. The software company was apparently run by a very clever man and was involved in recognition systems used in identity cards and airport security.
‘We piled in,’ said Page. ‘I put in £80,000 and fuck me it went up. But the first four days were the worst of my life.’
The pair would regularly check the laptop but the shares just weren’t moving. Then, the digital flicker across the screen started to rise. The bet was coming good.
A month later Page and Harry were sitting in the BP canteen, the glare from the laptop illuminating huge grins. Page said his shares were by then worth over £400,000. Harry had also cleaned up, but not as much as Page, who had secretly gambled more than they each agreed to risk.
The success was not unnoticed by SO14 colleagues. Page liked the feeling. But more importantly, Halifax had been also watching the large balance on his ‘sharexpress’ account. He came home and told his wife with obvious pride that as a reward for his risk taking Halifax had increased his credit limit to £500,000.
The bank also gave him a personal broker. No longer would Page have to deal with a call centre to place his bets. Having his own broker made him feel superior and smarter than the common punter. He was like the guy at the casino table whose name and favourite tipple were known to the croupier and waitress.
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By June 1999, the anniversary of his first year at Buckingham Palace, Page had earned under £40,000 in police wages and ten times that amount from share dealing.
The largest win that year – a staggering £168,204.53 – hit the Halifax account on 10 June, just days before James’s fourth birthday.
Although a joint account, it was Page who managed the money. He never let these big windfalls remain in the Halifax share account for more than a few days. Large five and six figure sums were regularly transferred to his other UK bank accounts, which he used to finance further financial gambling but also for immediate and highly conspicuous spending on his family.
Page described his attitude to money as ‘easy in, easy out’. He wanted to spend it enjoying life with his young wife and family on weekend trips and eating out. The couple were not natural savers. Their parents had brought them up to respect money, fear debt and avoid credit – the exact opposite message coming from government economists around the world on the eve of the new millennium.
‘My parents were the war generation where you saved for a rainy day,’ explained Laura. ‘I remember my dad would always say “Don’t spend a pound if you haven’t got a penny.” When I was a teenager I’d ask to borrow a pound and he would say this to me.’
The Pages liked to treat their parents. But Laura’s mum and dad would often tut at her conspicuous consumption, especially when she dropped in at their Grays council house following a spending spree at Lakeside with the boys dressed in DKNY or Dolce and Gabbana.
‘It was a good life we had,’ Laura recalls. She was unashamed, proud in fact that her three boys wanted for nothing. ‘They always had the latest games and we went on a few good family holidays. But they weren’t spoilt,’ she is quick to point out.
As a joint account holder, Laura had her own debit card. The Halifax accounts show her spending was not excessive but consistent with a mum of three young boys. At Lakeside she would shop at Marks & Spencer, the budget chain CostCo, First Sport, Toys‘R’Us, Boots, Woolworths, Tesco and Safeway, when she could have afforded Waitrose.
‘I was not flash,’ she said. ‘I would only have my nails done every two weeks.’ The most upmarket stores she patronized were House of Fraser and John Lewis, where she indulged in the new national pastime o
f home and garden improvement.
Not for a minute did she fear that one day their bubble would burst. Why would she? The government economists and TV pundits that her husband avidly listened to were all talking up the economy.
Laura loved that residents of Chafford Hundred referred to their property as ‘the police officer’s house, always with nice cars on the drive’.
Just before a family holiday to Florida in March 1999, Page had bought his wife an A Class Mercedes. She was the first to have one on the estate. Her friends loved it but Laura thought it looked like a disabled car. She told Page to take it back to the dealer. He didn’t argue after remembering a previous complaint when he returned a Shogun Jeep because his wife had seen a ‘Pikey’ family buying the same model. The Mercedes was exchanged for a more suitable model costing £45,000. It made no dent, as Page’s incredible financial success from share dealing with Halifax continued into 2000. Between 2 February and 2 March that year he pocketed £577,638. 08.
‘It was a very cocky attitude I had. But at the time it was rock ’n’ roll,’ said Page. His six-monthly appraisals were very short and he wasn’t interested in honing his job skills by going on weapons courses and the like when all he wanted was to be a millionaire.
Given his success in a shadow career as an amateur share dealer, it was a curious choice to remain in uniform. But Page explained that although disillusioned at SO14 he still wanted to be a policeman. The camaraderie and new canteen culture at BP made it fun. He also enjoyed the respect of his colleagues and the Royal Protection department who he represented when he won the heavyweight boxing title at the prestigious inter-Met Police Lafone Cup.
Page liked having people around who trusted him and in turn who had his back. His £33,000 police salary represented stability, while his boxing bouts and trading bets gave him the adventure and risk no longer to be found on the beat as a royal protection officer.
One of his most satisfying bets in 2000 was on Abbey National shares, the first building society to demutualize. Like Halifax, Abbey went on a spending spree and bought up smaller building societies and financial services companies until its shares peaked at £14 in 2000.
Page used his winnings in March to take Laura and the boys, Thomas, 9, James, 4, and 18-month-old Matthew for a luxury holiday on the Venezuelan island of Margarita. However, the Caribbean resort was not child friendly, the food was odd, two of the boys had the runs and the general consensus was they should have gone to Florida.
It didn’t help matters that Page was frequently disappearing to the hotel room to call his Halifax broker or speak to Harry at Buckingham Palace. Soon he had run up a £1500 phone bill. But there was a silver lining. His broker had just deposited £8885 in the Halifax account. It was a dividend from the Abbey shares.
When Page caught up with Laura in the hotel lobby, she was browsing the expensive boutiques. A large diamond ring with a £1500 price tag had caught her eye.
‘It can be the wedding ring I never had,’ she implored, reminding him of the £29 Argos special he had slipped on her finger two and a half years ago with a promise to do it properly when they were flush.
‘Love, my credit card is maxed to fuck,’ Page tried to explain.
‘Well, ring up and get them to extend your limit for fuck’s sake,’ she snapped back.
An international phone call later, Laura was free to shop. She also bought a pair of Gucci sandals.
Yet despite how much Page did what his wife asked, and no matter how good she felt about her own appearance, the green-eyed monster was never far away, waiting to explode. At the hotel pool, Laura was getting worked up thinking her husband was eyeing up the scantily clad and topless Latina beauties. He wasn’t. He didn’t want to. He wouldn’t dare. But when they got back to their room, she let him have it.
The row was so noisy, so Essex and very vicious – keys she threw caught Page in the face – that hotel security let themselves into the room unnoticed. As normal when outsiders interfered in their domestics, the couple united and turned on the bewildered goons. Anyone spending the sort of money this holiday was costing should be entitled to go at it hammer and tongs in the privacy of their room, they rationalized.
Towards the end of the holiday, Laura was still annoyed. She had forgiven her husband but not the hotel. So when her boys demanded chicken nuggets for their tea and the kitchen said ‘Que?’ she let them have it.
The night they arrived back home in early April, the Pages took the boys for dinner at their favourite Chinese restaurant in Lakeside. Order and peace was restored, for now.
Within weeks, Laura was pregnant again. All Page had to do was look at her and she was up the duff, Laura’s mother would joke. But she was happy to be pregnant, and to encourage Page’s shadow career as a City trader because the results where undeniable and his behaviour acceptable. She moaned occasionally that he was spending too much time on his laptop watching the flicker of figures and fractions. But at least he was spending the profits on making a home for her and their growing family.
Page envied the City culture that rewarded risk taking, impulsiveness, getting away with it and styling out one’s failures. But Laura was reassured that her husband was not one for the out-of-office hours culture of champagne, cocaine and hookers that characterized the City’s big swinging dicks. Page was more laptop than lap dance. He had the swagger, the chat and the balls but he kept them for the wife he loved, desired and sometimes feared.
Some of his winnings were invested in a hairdressing business for Laura called Clippers. She was tired of child minding and wanted something more than her boys to nurture and feel proud about. The salon in Grays belonged to her oldest sister, Christine, who had been looking for a buyer for some time. Keeping it in the family made sense, even though Laura had no business experience. As a self-starter himself, how could Page refuse?
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The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636, that regular marts for their sale were established in Amsterdam and other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first time, apparent. The stock-jobbers, ever on the alert for a new speculation, dealt largely in tulips, making use of all the means they so well knew how to employ to cause fluctuations in prices. At first, as in all gambling mania, confidence was at its height, and everybody gained. The tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks, and made large profits by buying when prices fell and selling out when they rose. Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honey pot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last forever … Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid-servants, even chimney sweeps and old clothes women dabbled in tulips. People of all grades converted their property into cash, and invested it in flowers …
… At last, however, the more prudent began to see that this folly could not last forever … It was seen that somebody must lose fearfully in the end. As this conviction spread, prices fell and never rise again. Confidence was destroyed, and a universal panic seized upon the dealers … The cry of distress resounded everywhere, and each man accused his neighbour. The few who had contrived to enrich themselves hid their wealth from the knowledge of their fellow citizens; and invested it in other funds. Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of life were cast back into their original obscurity.5
This brilliant description, by nineteenth-century chronicler Charles Mackay, of the bubble in tulips and the insane betting on the colour of a bulb has great resonance with the froth in tech stocks 364 years later.
Financial delusion and human madness are essential ingredients of a bubble, and like all bubbles the dot.com one had to burst and deluded investors had to take a cold bath.
At the peak of the tech boom in 1999, Page felt he was cock of the walk, a big City trader in police uniform at Buckingham Palace. It was as good as it got. ‘I
was a 28-year-old Royal Protection officer driving around in a £55,000 Mercedes.’
The only knock to his confidence came following one afternoon nap when he woke from a nightmare so frightening he couldn’t even tell his wife. ‘I dreamt that I had lost everything.’
The dream started to come true in the spring of 2000 when the dot.com bubble began to burst. Between March 2000 and October 2002, an estimated $5 trillion was wiped off the market value of hundreds of over-inflated tech companies.
Like many ordinary investors, Page’s portfolio was overexposed in tech investments. Staring at his laptop in the locker room at BP or at home in his office he started to panic as share prices kept falling. The mask never slipped at work, where he had a reputation to maintain as a successful stock-market player. His Royal Protection colleagues never knew that he was taking a rather cold bath. In contrast, Page’s private phone calls with his Halifax broker were increasingly frantic as they watched thousands of pounds being wiped off the stocks he held.
Halifax agreed to hold his positions on certain of them to see if there was a ‘dead cat bounce’. In other words, a rally in the shares after reaching rock bottom because savvy investors had started buying them up cheaply which, in turn, gave others confidence to do the same.
The cat bounced a little but Page calculated his losses from the dot.com bubble bath at anything from £80,000 to £100,000. ‘We went from 10–15k per month to just wages,’ he recalled.
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The volume of money that had passed thorough Page’s bank accounts in these early Halifax years from 1998 to 2000 was extraordinary. In 1999 alone, he had won almost £1 million tax free from share dealing.
It begged the question: was anyone watching and wondering how a police constable in a sensitive post, earning £33,000 a year, could have six-figure sums – £100,000, £200,000, even £300,000 – regularly hitting his account and then being moved to others?
For Queen and Currency: Audacious fraud, greed and gambling at Buckingham Palace Page 5
