‘Yes, mate, I know. I’ve been out on the tiles with a possible investor; he’s an Arab from Dubai. He’s thinking of putting in two hundred and fifty grand, Gerry.’
‘Look, Paul, me and the girlfriend, we are concerned about our money. She’s invested £50,000, all her savings from selling her house for Christ’s sake.’
Page nodded.
‘People at work are also extremely concerned. They need to hear it from you that their money’s safe. There’s all sorts of rumours flying around,’ McCallion added.
‘Like what?’
‘Like that as well as us lot at Royalty, two soldiers in Africa have invested fifty grand each.’
‘Look, Gerry. Lots of other investors’ money is coming in. Not just the Arab. Tell everyone at work their money is safe and everything is going well. It is, mate. Trust me.’
McCallion left with an uneasy feeling. He passed on the message to mutinous colleagues at Jimmy’s but when nothing changed, weeks later he returned to confront Page with Phil Williams, another concerned Royal Protection officer.
This time no one was home. But the pair bumped into an officer from the Met’s Special Escort Group, the motorbike outriders and drivers that protect politicians and dignitaries. Page had arranged for him to collect a return but hadn’t shown up.39
Laura was getting used to seeing men parked in the cul-de-sac outside the house. On her way out or back from the school run, shopping and various errands for her husband she would nod at the occupant, or on occasion offer to bring them tea and biscuits. But the surveillance detail had usually come prepared with flasks and Tupperware of their own.
Laura was starting to worry about her husband’s excessive drinking. It had started during the 2005 winter of discontent. Like the music from CNBC business news, Laura had come to dread the sound of a beer can being opened. If it was early in the morning, Page would wrap a tea towel around the can hoping his wife upstairs was too stupid to recognize the unmistakable sound.
Before leaving the house to take the kids to school and play group she would secretly count how many cans of Stella were in the fridge or in the crate next to it.
‘How many have you drunk?’ Laura asked her husband when she returned.
‘I’ve only had one.’
‘You liar! There was five or more in the fridge.’
‘Alright. You caught me out. So what? Don’t treat me like a fucking kid,’ he spat back.
Page’s capacity for deception was no longer just hiding gambling losses from investors. He was also hiding his descent into alcoholism from his wife. Initially, he came up with the idea of putting the empty beer cans at the bottom of the crate to give the impression it was still full. But Laura got wise to that. It was only when she persuaded him that the kitchen needed redoing that his most successful hiding place was discovered.
Laura had asked the husband of her best friend Kelly to put in a new kitchen. Those ingrates, the Mahaffys, had one, why not us, she thought. When the old fridge was pulled back to start the work, over one hundred crushed cans of Stella fell to the floor. There was also a bottle of vodka under the bed.
£ £ £
Page had been trying to return to work at Buckingham Palace since his official extended leave period came to an end in late July 2005. He wanted to be a paid SO14 officer again because the syndicate was collapsing around him and, with no savings, he needed the wages and security.
However, unknown to him, SO14 management had decided to cut Page loose but leave him in police limbo, a Royal Protection officer without a palace to protect.40 The decision was a strange, cynical response by SO14 to the March 2005 report by anti-corruption Detective Sergeant Jim Wingrave of the Met’s DPS.
Wingrave’s four-month covert financial inquiry had discovered prolific gambling, prolific losses, large sums moving through officers’ bank accounts and a concerning amount of county court judgments against Page and his wife for unpaid bills. His report recommended to SO14 management that their boy may not be guilty of criminal wrongdoing but should be risk assessed because of a ‘potential vulnerability to corrupt approaches that may seek to take advantage of his financial situation’.
Wingrave was engaged for the remainder of 2005 on a terrorist inquiry after home-grown jihadists bombed the London transport network on 7 July. With no pressure from the DPS to follow through on his report, SO14 decided to put as much distance as possible between the palace and Page’s syndicate. No steps were taken to consider his welfare or that of the other Royal Protection officers involved with him. The fraud ran on while it was quietly decided that Page would never return from his extended career break to Royalty Protection.
In January 2006, Wingrave met with Chief Superintendent Steve Grainger, the second in command at SO14. The anti-corruption detective was back on the case and wanted to clarify information about Page’s relationship with Jimmy’s officers Richard Humby and Surinder Mudhar. Wingrave later recalled in court that Grainger had told him there was no further information to be given. That was probably true, because no one at SO14 appears to have investigated further.
The same could not be said of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Police, whose officers guarded sensitive military establishments. MoD plod, as it is known, was concerned about a complaint from a new recruit. Mike Tinsley, a former SO14 officer, had claimed he lost £135,000 in Page’s syndicate.
All defence installations were on high alert after the terrorist attacks the previous year and the MoD was concerned about the vulnerability of its staff to compromise. On 27 February 2006, a MoD police official contacted the DPS to ask about Page. Wingrave went to see the official. ‘Tinsley doesn’t want to make a criminal complaint,’ he was told. ‘He’s content to go down the civil route to recover his money. But are you investigating Paul Page? Because if you aren’t, for whatever reason, we will,’ the man from the MoD explained. Tinsley was one of four former SO14 officers now serving with the MoD police who had been involved with Page’s syndicate.41
Wingrave assured the MoD official that the DPS was on the case and shared some, not much, information about Page. Control of the investigation, however, was to rest very much with the Met’s anti-corruption squad.
Wingrave set about making further inquiries about the Tinsley matter. It turned out that in February Tinsley’s wife had obtained a court order against Page for £22,231 and £71,000 against Laura as charges on the barns.
The Tinsleys had also taken to turning up unannounced at Laura’s shop, Wicked Wardrobe, in the afternoon.
‘You can’t sit here all day,’ Laura told them, as if their presence would put off passing trade, when the business was weeks away from shutting down.
‘Yes we can,’ replied Susan Tinsley, ‘and when we leave we’ll come to your house.’
True to their word, when Laura got home the Tinsleys were parked in the cul-de-sac.
‘You can’t come in. I’ve got to give my kids their dinner,’ she told them.
‘That’s all right we’ll wait in the car. All night if necessary.’ A bright glow emanated from their BMW as the couple watched television, drinking tea and eating sandwiches.
Surveillance of the Pages, however, was not for Jim Mahaffy. He had warned Page at the end of 2005 that he would go down the legal route to recover his £112,000.42
On 26 March 2006 the pair had a remarkable email exchange on the matter in which a belligerent Page warned that if Mahaffy didn’t cease and desist with his ‘silly court action’ the royal house of cards would come tumbling down. ‘I ask you to put it on hold for your colleagues’ sake. If you insist, my backers’ money will be used to fight you in court all the way and your colleagues [at St James will have to attend court] as witnesses.’ Page added: ‘Don’t forget all the cash in envelopes. £80,000 over four years. Have you declared that to the taxman? I’ve got witnesses to back that up. I wonder who?’
The email was another gamble and exaggeration by Page. Mahaffy had only received a little over £30,000 by thi
s time. But Page believed, and with some reason, that his colleagues at Buckingham Palace would hold the line and not wash their laundry in court. It was only the mannequins at Jimmy’s who were bottling it, he thought. But Page had no intention of defending himself publicly in a courtroom. He hadn’t contested one of the many county court judgments for unpaid bills and was not about to start now. Besides, he had no defence and would only be leaving himself open to possible criminal proceedings.
Mahaffy was unmoved by the threatening tone of Page’s email and placed a charge on the barns and the Pages’ family home. Also in line were police couples the Copleys (who lived in one of the barns) and then the Tinsleys.
All this activity had reached the covert intelligence-gathering arm of the Met’s anti-corruption squad. The Intelligence Development Group, known by the rest of the force as ‘The Dark Side’, had received details from a victim of Page’s fraud. The intelligence was passed to bosses at the DPS, who decided on 20 April 2006 that it was time to launch a formal operation codenamed Aserio into Page’s activities.
Wingrave was sent to brief Lord Loughborough, the head of SO14, because the operation had the potential to impact on his command and possibly embarrass the Queen.
For that reason, Operation Aserio should have been referred to the new police watchdog for supervision. The Independent Police Complaint Commission (IPCC) had been set up exactly two years earlier to quell public concern about the police investigating themselves. However, although a civilian element ran the IPCC, its investigators were largely former officers, many of whom had come from the Met’s DPS.
Even then, the DPS didn’t see the need for the limited external accountability offered by the IPCC and instead shut them out. There was precedent here. The watchdog was effortlessly pushed aside in July 2005 when an innocent civilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead on the London underground on suspicion of being a terrorist.
The failure to refer Operation Aserio to the IPCC ensured that this highly sensitive investigation into fraud at the royal palaces remained an internal matter for the Met and SO14. The DPS would liaise very closely to ensure it remained that way.
Page, however, was aware within days that the anti-corruption squad was looking at him. An unnamed SO14 officer, he said, had tipped him off.
£ £ £
Four days after the launch of the corruption investigation Operation Aserio, on 24 April 2006, Jimmy’s officer Richard Humby rang Page. Humby secretly recorded the conversation.43
‘Hello, Paul, Richard.’
‘Hello, mate.’
‘I haven’t pestered you much because I couldn’t see the point and I haven’t sent any shitty texts like I know you have received.’
‘I’ve had to change my mobile so many fucking times it’s unreal. But on a personal basis I’ve had a shit time with health problems with family, but on a business side things are looking very upbeat in the coming weeks, mate.’
‘Really, Paul? All I need to know is, I mean, I gave you a hundred grand last May and you’ve given me twenty back on it. I know you promised me forty. I know things have not been good.’
‘I’ve had two particular dickheads who are causing me major problems and I have had to sacrifice my own shit for your well-being and some of the others. I’ve had to rest and not go to court and kick off because I couldn’t have everything exposed, but that is something I will deal with once I’m back on top, which will be very soon and I will deal with it harshly. Mahaffy, he’s fucking done me up. But he’s not the one I’m talking about. Tinsley, that’s the one. That cunt will pay because he has more or less jeopardized it for all of us. Now, I don’t want to keep anyone’s money, you know what I mean?’
‘Mahaffy bores the shit out of me,’ replied Humby. ‘The only person I speak to is Copley, who tells me there’s blokes who need paying down at the Barns.’
‘Well, they’ve been paid. No. They’ve been laid off. Don’t take any notice of that.’
‘I know you’ve spoken to Lenny [Thiel, another SO14 officer who had moved to the MoD Police] and he talked about paying people back at the end of the month.’
‘Without cutting my throat we are looking good. Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve burnt a lot of paperwork mate, as you can probably appreciate, because of being paranoid my door’s being fucking kicked in.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I burnt a fuck load mate. But you know for all the reasons, thinking that it was all gonna go mega, mega tits up. So I need bank details from you and I can give you full and frank dates, erm, and amounts of money that will come to you.’
‘I don’t want any hopeful figures. I believe you spoke to Lenny and said you can’t promise the interest rates.’
‘No, not immediately. What makes sense is that I start filtering out the money as soon as my balls are out of that vice.’
‘I don’t know how much you owe people, it must be quite difficult to calculate. If you said, “Look, Richard, I can’t pay 40 per cent on that hundred grand, I can only pay 10 per cent”, I wouldn’t be fucking crying, Paul.’
‘I appreciate what you are saying. I mean once I get myself back on my feet I can, erm …’
‘If you give me 10 per cent I’m not going to slag you off or think you’re a cunt, because that’s 6 per cent more than I’d get in the bank. I mean you’ve put a few grey hairs on my head, Paul!’ Humby added, laughing. ‘You know, my marriage is fucking sort of on the rocks. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but things have been a little difficult. You know it’s not good when your wife thinks you’re a cunt. So I’m asking, Paul, for complete and utter clarity with me.’
‘Now there’s things that obviously I’m not forthcoming with, which isn’t in my interests to do so. You know I’ve got problems with Dubai money.’
‘I’m on a mobile, Paul, that’s why I didn’t phone you from my home number.’
‘I’m on my landline so I won’t go into too much detail. Once we get over this, you are one of the people, and I’m not just saying this, but I’ve appreciated their common sense and patience. Because I’ve had headless chickens about my feet that have caused me fucking major grief. Had they kept their nerve they wouldn’t be getting a kick up the arse when this is resolved. I’m very reasonable, but it’s not helped that people have lost faith in me. Now, I can appreciate people’s concern, their frustration, and I’ve got to base it on the fact that I had a fucking history of good business for a long time.’
‘That’s why I went into business with you and invested quite a lot of money. I heard you had a good track record, I asked certain people and they said, “Yeah, he always come up with the dosh’. And you know what you offered in interest rates.’
Mahaffy had recently told Humby that Page’s name was not on the official Land Registry records as the owner of Meadway, the Esher property in Surrey that he had punted to both of them. Humby used the call to inform Page that Mahaffy was telling everyone the money had been ‘spunked on gambling’. Page tried to lie his way out of it by claiming that while there was another company on the Land Registry, he had put £550,000 into the Esher property. Then came this whopper.
‘But I don’t gamble, Dick. I don’t gamble on anything.’
‘Well, gambling on the oil markets is a gamble, innit? I know you got your trigger stops on your computer,’ Humby replied, recalling the quick guide to spread betting that Page had shown him on his television one afternoon.
‘I’ve got four accounts, mate, and you hedge. You buy on one and you sell on the other, then you don’t get killed.’
‘Copley said you are not the sort of bloke that’s gonna lose a million quid fucking gambling on the oil prices. But the bottom line, Paul, is when are you going to pay? We are majorly concerned Paul, and Lenny probably more than most, him and Surinder. I mean, I’m a little bit more sort of philosophical about it.’
‘My mum’s seriously ill and I can’t help her if I can’t get this resolved. Now in the coming fourteen days you will s
tart to see money flowing.’
‘I know from a personal point of view my contract is worth something but from a legal point of view I don’t know what.’
‘I haven’t disputed this crap in court. Because would you really want me standing up in court telling all our business. I certainly don’t, you know what I mean, because that would blow things out the water. Now, I’ve got away with shit by the skin of my teeth, and I shit you not on this, but I’ve been lucky. But I’ve made sure, as things are gradually coming to the point where we gonna get paid out, I’ve got things lined up that are totally legit and that are in people’s own names and I’m just taking a cut from them.’
Page felt his blarney had reassured Humby enough to be able to suggest a new property deal on the up-and-coming south-east coast of England. He knew Humby owned rental properties in Margate and Herne Bay. But the Jimmy’s officer was no longer willing to be the chump and said all his money was tied up with Page.
‘I do need to start seeing some money, Paul. I’ve got rents coming in, but unfortunately I mean rents coming in and my police wages don’t, I haven’t got my fucking security blanket anymore and I feel cold, you know what I mean?’
‘I am not gonna to say a word to any fucker about who is getting what. I’m gonna make sure that I look after you. Mahaffy’s gonna be picking up crumbs after everyone is sat there full. I’m sorry but he’s fucking cunted me.’
‘Every time I speak to him he’s fucking slagging you off. And I’m thinking, “Well, hang on, I’ve only been in this caper a year with Paul and you’ve been in it five years plus and you must have done pretty well over the years, otherwise you wouldn’t be near him”.’
‘He ain’t hard done by, he’s had his money back. He’s not like you. That’s your cheese, mate, you know what I mean? That is one fucking cunt, ’cause he’s greedy, mate.’
‘Basically Tinsley and Mahaffy, you are gonna put them to the bottom of the pile?’
‘Tinsley’s jeopardized us all in what he said in the court letter. He does not give a fuck.’
For Queen and Currency: Audacious fraud, greed and gambling at Buckingham Palace Page 18
