For Queen and Currency: Audacious fraud, greed and gambling at Buckingham Palace

by Michael Gillard

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  12.30 pm, Wednesday, 15 November: In another non-descript meeting room, this time in Jubilee House, the south London home of the anti-corruption squad, detective inspector Michael Orchard was getting a briefing from his boss about the resignation offer and Osman warning to be given later that afternoon to Page at his Essex home.

  Detective Superintendent Tony Evans was being very specific about the exact wording to be used when delivering the Osman warning.

  Orchard discounted the idea of using the local police even though they could be at Hatton Close in no time. At 4 pm, he briefed Detective Sergeant Jim Howells before sending him across London at rush hour to Page’s house.

  ‘I’ve tried calling him but nobody is picking up the home phone,’ said Orchard, the perfectly named detective for the business of plucking rotten apples. ‘If Page is out when you get there but his wife is in you are to give her the Osman warning as the threat is also against her and the family,’ he added.

  Detective Sergeant Howells was told not to deviate from the carefully worded script and to update Orchard, who would pass on developments to a SO14 superintendent just appointed to take charge of looking after Page’s welfare.

  At close to 6 pm, Howells and two detective constables walked up the drive of Hatton Close. It was dark but they could see Laura, who was standing in the doorway with Harry on her hip and saying goodbye to a girlfriend whose child she’d been minding.

  Laura clocked the three men walking towards her in suits and overcoats. ‘Here we go again,’ she thought to herself. ‘Three more greedy bastards after their cheese.’

  ‘Are you Mrs Laura Page?’ Detective Sergeant Howells asked.

  ‘Yeah, who are you?’

  Laura’s friend was now in her car and about to leave but stopped when she saw the men at the door.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she mouthed through the car window. Laura nodded and her friend drove off.

  ‘Can we come in? It is very urgent,’ Howells said as he and the two other detectives displayed their warrant cards. Laura was starting to worry that something had happened to her eldest son, Thomas.

  ‘We are Metropolitan Police officers from the Professional Standards Command, Specialist Investigations. Is your husband in?’

  ‘No. My husband’s at a meeting in Slough. He is not contactable. I don’t expect him home until much later tonight.’

  ‘We need to talk privately, Mrs Page. Can we come in?’

  Laura showed the detectives into her lounge and plonked herself on the sofa. Howells and another officer sat on either side of her. The boys were running around playing with toy guns. One of them had trained a laser on the third anti-corruption officer, an irony that was lost in the tense moment. The boys kept coming back into the room with all manner of pretexts, which was annoying for Howells, who was no expert in Osman warnings.

  ‘Can we please have some privacy, Mrs Page?’ the detective said. ‘I have some very important information to tell you.’

  ‘I can keep these outside, but not Harry. He’s tired and needs his bath. You know what they are like. You can say it in front of him,’ Laura explained putting her youngest on her knee.

  Howells produced the typed Osman warning letter meant for Page and started reading from it. ‘I am Detective Sergeant James Howells from the Metropolitan Police Professional Standards Command Specialist Investigations Unit based at Jubilee House. You are not under arrest. You are not under caution. You’re free to leave if you wish. I’m here to inform you that I have information that indicates your wellbeing may be in danger. Police have received specific intelligence, which suggests that you and your wife or family are in danger. Threats have been made that you may be subjected to violence to recover debts that you apparently owe to persons. I believe that you too are aware of this fact and that the situation may have arisen as a result of your lifestyle and/or business activities.’

  ‘I half expected this,’ Laura interrupted.

  ‘Why?’ asked Howells.

  ‘Paul owed some money to people in relation to his business. Well, to say he owed them money is not right. He invested their money and like all investments the value goes up as well as down. Paul has given them some of their money back but they want more.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Paul.’

  ‘Have you had any concerns or issues in relation to yours, Paul’s or your family’s safety?’

  ‘We’ve had a few police call but they said they would be trying to get their money back through the civil courts.’ Laura named Humby, Molen and Pearce.

  Howells was not across the detail of the case so he continued reading from the note: ‘I must advise you now that you should take appropriate measures to ensure your own safety but must warn you this does not entitle you to break the law. If you do then you will be liable to arrest and prosecution. Do you understand that?’

  The other officer on the sofa noted that Laura agreed and got her to sign the letter at 6.38 pm.

  ‘Do you need any help from the Met?’ Howells asked.

  ‘I’ll wait for my husband to return,’ she replied calmly.

  ‘Don’t open the door to strangers and call the police if you have any concerns,’ he advised her. Before leaving the house, Howells handed over a sealed letter for Page.

  Back in the car, Howells phoned Orchard and told him the Osman warning had been given to Laura in Page’s absence, that she was calm and didn’t require any police assistance.

  Meanwhile, Laura rang her husband after opening the letter.

  ‘Hello, love,’ said Page, who was driving.

  ‘I’ve just had a visit from three intelligence officers saying our lives are in danger, Paul.’

  ‘What? I can’t hear you very well. Call me on Anjam’s phone, my battery’s low.’

  Page pulled Anjam Khan’s BMW X5 into a nearby petrol station and waited. Khan was in the passenger seat and when Laura called he put her on the car speakers.

  ‘I’ve just had a visit from three intelligence officers saying our lives are in danger, Paul.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound right, love.’

  ‘One of them, Howells, left a letter for you with his number. It says you should call him.’

  ‘Love, hang up and call 999 then ring me straight back,’ Page told her. He believed that if the threat was genuine then his old force, Essex Police, would have been briefed and there would be an unmarked car parked outside his house.

  Laura explained to the emergency operator about the strange visit to her house.

  ‘They said threats had been made against our lives and we had to move out. My husband is a Met Police officer and he’s on his way home. They said there was a serious threat against our lives. It was to do with the lifestyle we are living.’

  She was put through to an inspector at Chelmsford police station. He was puzzled by the story, had no idea what an Osman warning was and checked to see if any death threats to the Pages had been logged on the Essex Police computer. There were none because the DPS had left it to SO14 to tell the local force about the threat to Page but they hadn’t done so. The inspector took down Howells’s number and a description of all three men.

  ‘Lock your doors and don’t panic. I will make some inquiries and call you back in thirty minutes,’ he advised her.

  Laura immediately informed her husband that Essex Police had no knowledge about the threats. This made Page even more agitated and wonder whether he was being set up for a hit by one of his police investors.

  By now in a complete rage, he called Howells and let rip, with Khan still listening through the car speakers.

  ‘Who the fuck are you? What you doing coming round my fucking house and frightening my wife and kids? I am going to fuck you up if you don’t tell me who you are.’

  ‘PC Page, calm down. Where are you? I’ll tell you …’

  ‘Fucking calm down, you cunt!’ Page interrupted. ‘Come round my fu
cking house and tell my wife some bollocks that our lives are in danger, fucking calm down. If it was real you wouldn’t have left my wife and kids alone. There’d be a police car outside the house, you cunt.’

  ‘Your wife didn’t want us to stay until you returned …’

  ‘If anything happens to my family it will be on your fucking head, I’m telling you now.’

  ‘Paul. Please listen carefully. The Osman warning I gave your wife is no hoax. It is real and we have specific intelligence of a threat against you and your family to do with debts you owe.’

  ‘What’s the source of that intelligence?’

  ‘I don’t know. And even if I did I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘I’m taking my family to a secure location, and then I’m going to get a team together and start rattling a few fucking doors.’

  ‘You may be on a career break, Paul, but you are still a police officer. I’m warning you to act within the law at all times.’

  ‘Fuck the law! I’m gonna sort this out and get to the source of it and bash the fuck out of them.’

  Howells managed to calm down Page, who was starting to believe the DPS detective may be genuine by the time he arrived at Chafford Hundred.

  ‘I’m taking my family to a hotel tonight.’

  ‘I need to see you tomorrow, Paul. Where can we meet?’

  ‘Come to my house at 11 am.’

  Howells agreed and said he would also get a message to superintendent Sean Walters at SO14 to call Page. He was the senior put in charge of Page’s welfare.

  ‘OK. I’ll call you in fifteen minutes when I know what the score is with my wife.’

  Page rushed inside the house. Laura told him the boys were fine and that Essex Police had just called to say Howells and his two colleagues were anti-corruption officers for the Met.

  Just then Howells called and Page offered him a possible explanation for who was behind the threats.

  ‘I think it’s coming from a family problem when I had my gun taken away at SO14. There are members of my wife’s family who are jealous of our lifestyle. Last Sunday it all kicked off again at a car-boot sale.’

  Howells listened and reiterated that he could give no insight into the intelligence, but warned him again to stay within the law.

  Page put down the phone, grabbed a small black case and jumped into the car.

  ‘They’re going to get it,’ he told Khan, who was shocked to see Page remove a silver Beretta handgun from the case. He had no idea it was an air-powered weapon as they drove around the Chafford Hundred estate looking for would-be assassins.

  None were found and back home, at 9.10 pm Page took a call from Superintendent Walters.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ said Page.

  ‘I’m ringing about the Osman warning the DPS have just given you. I know you had doubts they are genuine but you can take it from me they are DPS and you should take the threat seriously. The DPS are there to help you and your family.’

  ‘Thanks, sir, but I don’t trust ’em. I think I know where the threat is coming from. I’ll deal with it my way.’

  ‘You mustn’t do anything that would worsen the situation. I am here to offer you welfare support. Have you got my mobile?’

  ‘Yes. DS Howells gave it to me tonight.’

  ‘Well, you can call me anytime. I will call you tomorrow.’

  Page had decided against taking his family to a hotel. Instead, he told Laura to put all the boys in their bedroom and lock herself in. She put a broom under the door handle for extra protection.

  Meanwhile, Page assembled an array of weapons he had in the house and garage. Two swords and a bulletproof vest with CS gas were positioned by the front door while Page stood guard all night with an imitation handgun and rifle.

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  Page had been on his way back from a successful meeting with another hapless investor when Laura had called with the news of the Osman warning.

  Anjam Khan had driven Page to meet the new investor, Abishake Gill, a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport. Gill had initially gone to Bimal Lodhia for mortgage advice, but the financial adviser suggested he could increase his deposit for a house by investing in a get-rich-quick-scheme with a guaranteed 20–25 per cent quarterly return.

  Gill didn’t ask and wasn’t given much detail of the scheme before handing Lodhia £20,000 in cash in October 2005. A year later he rowed with his financial adviser after receiving nothing of what had been promised. Lodhia told Gill for the first time that his money had been pooled with others and invested with a police officer called Paul Page.

  Weeks before the Osman warning, Gill had contacted Page who said he knew nothing of the £20,000 investment. If Gill re-invested Page pledged to recover the £20,000 and make more money for the baggage handler.

  Gill didn’t know who to believe. Lodhia and Paresh Solanki advised him to demand some collateral before re-investing. They knew Page was desperate for money and privately joked that the once cool cop would now walk down the high street in women’s clothing for a pound note.

  Page had no collateral to give Gill. He was the proverbial busted flush. But with the perverted logic that only a hopeless gambler or drug addict could find acceptable, he found the courage to ask Laura if she would loan him her wedding ring. This was the £1500 band of silver and diamonds that he’d bought her during their Venezuela holiday six years ago to replace the £29 Argos wedding ring.

  ‘You’ve had everything else, my Louis [Vuitton] and all that. But you can’t fucking have this,’ she initially told him. The £700 Louis Vuitton bag he’d bought her from winnings on stocks and shares had been sold already on eBay. That left only one of the designer’s purses, which Laura wouldn’t let go. But when he persisted about the ring she relented, removed it from her finger and put the symbol of their love in her husband’s pathetic outstretched hand.

  Page went straight to Solanki’s office on 28 October. Solanki was surprised to see him looking so unkempt when he usually turned up looking ‘very slick’ and driving a fancy car. On this occasion, Page was in a shell suit driving an old banger.

  Solanki drew up an agreement between Page and Gill, which valued the ring at £9000. Gill then agreed to meet Page after work on 15 November at the Marriot Hotel near Heathrow to discuss a further investment.

  Khan picked up Page from his home and waited in a nearby café while Page and Gill met. The baggage handler was shown property plans but of course Gill didn’t know that by now the barns had been repossessed and ULPD was dissolved. Page, sporting a baseball cap and sweatshirt, confirmed he was a police officer and assured Gill that his scheme was pukka. Gill was offered commission on any other investors he could attract. The meeting ended with Gill agreeing to invest £14,000 in return for holding Laura’s wedding ring as collateral.

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  11 am, Thursday, 16 November: Page showed anti-corruption detectives Orchard and Howells into the living room. The house was empty and his demeanour was calm and polite.

  ‘I’d like to apologize for my behaviour last night on the phone,’ he told Howells.

  ‘That’s quite alright. It must have come as a shock and you were understandably concerned for your family’s safety.’

  Apology accepted, Orchard turned to Page and said: ‘We are here to tell you something very specific. That is all we will be allowed to tell you around that. Therefore please listen and we will go through it.’

  That was Howell’s cue to start reading the same Osman warning letter. At the end of it, Page confirmed he understood it and signed the form at 11.10 am. He calmly tried to downplay the threat as historic, in the same way that the night before he had suggested to Howells it could be family related.

  Orchard told him that SO14 was responsible for his welfare and Page said he would also be speaking to his federation representative, Mick ‘the Don’ Hickman.

  That was Howells’s second cue to formally notify Page he was now going to serve him with official notification of an investigation in
to his finances. The news sent Page into a rage.

  ‘Why wasn’t I informed about this? Why wasn’t I allowed to have my solicitor present?

  Howells didn’t reply but instead read from the Regulation 9 Notice:

  It is alleged that whilst on a career break from the Metropolitan Police Service you have amassed a large financial debt, which is now subject to county court judgments. Further that you failed to notify the MPS of this. Your business interest and financial status is now subject to investigation. The actions described are in breach of Criminal Law, code of conduct 12, general conduct and code of conduct 6, disobeying a lawful order.

  Howells then cautioned Page, who made no formal reply. But when the formalities were over, he spoke cautiously about what he thought had gone wrong since the Currency Club.

  ‘I haven’t done anything criminal. There used to be about twenty to forty officers who I invested money for on the stock market. I know about them. It was going well but when I hit some difficulties and the gravy train dried up all of a sudden they wanted their money back,’ Page explained without admitting to any criminal act. ‘I had no idea I had to tell you about the county court judgments. I want to come back to work, my application to return is being processed, and I’m willing to assist with your inquiry.’

  ‘Do you want to tell us anything?’ Howells asked.

  ‘No. Look this isn’t right.’

  This was Howells’s last cue to deliver the Machiavellian resignation offer that he and Orchard had discussed on the way over from south London.

  ‘What do you really want out of all this, Paul?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Page replied.

  ‘Most of this will just disappear if you resign.’

  On hearing this, a chill went through Page. At that moment he started to believe that something serious was going to happen to his family from somewhere in the police. He now knew he was in trouble, alone and his own people had turned on him and he could no longer seek help there.

  ‘I will take whatever steps are necessary to protect my family,’ Page responded. The reply appeared incongruous because he thought that the DPS meant the threat to his life would disappear if he resigned from the police.