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

by Michael Gillard

  ‘Have you made a witness statement? The DPS are trying to stitch me up.’ Page asked.

  ‘I don’t know where you got that information from,’ said Baree, unconvincingly.

  ‘If you’ve bubbled me, you’re dead,’ Page told him.

  Baree made a bolt for the front door of his mum’s house. With the Sun incident fresh in his mind, he wasn’t going to take the risk even with an old school friend.

  The pair scuffled at the front door causing Baree’s older brother, Fahid, to intervene. The commotion had interrupted a phone call Mrs Baree was having in her bedroom overlooking the street. She came downstairs barefoot. Pushing herself between her sons, she now saw Page looking very angry.

  ‘Go inside, Fahim,’ she said. He obeyed. ‘What’s wrong, Paul? What is happening?’ Mrs Baree asked.

  ‘Do you know what Fahim has done to me?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘He’s bubbled me.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘He’s made a witness statement to the police. Let me go inside,’ Page pleaded.

  ‘No, Paul. You are angry, Fahim is angry. This is not the right time for you to be together. Stay here and talk to me.’

  Page noticed that Mrs Baree was carrying a phone and asked why the light was on.

  ‘I was talking to my niece,’ she replied. He took her hand and inspected the phone. Satisfied there was no recording he folded his arms and said: ‘Do you know £10 million is involved?’

  ‘No. But I know you have problems.’

  ‘Fahim is finished,’ Page added. ‘Let’s go in,’ he asked again.

  ‘No, Paul. Listen, darling, whatever has happened we need to sort it out calmly,’ she replied holding his hand and stroking his face.

  At that point, a concerned neighbour asked Mrs Baree if she was OK. Page told him to go away. He wouldn’t swear in front of his surrogate mum. ‘It’s a family matter,’ he added.

  Mrs Baree reassured her neighbour and then putting her hand on Page’s chest, she said: ‘Paul, I’ll talk to you later, darling, calm down. I’m not sure what is happening.’

  Baree’s brother came out as his mother went inside. The two men moved to the street.

  ‘I want Fahim to speak to my solicitor. If I am going to be in a prison cell I’ll make sure he’ll be in it with me. If my kids suffer so will his.’

  ‘Look, the police are coming, you should go,’ he was urged. Laura was also calling her husband to get in the car. Page returned, they argued and left.

  The next morning officers were out looking to arrest Page for witness intimidation. A warning on the police computer read: ‘Suspect is an ex [police] instructor and karate expert so officers please take care in dealing with him if located/arrested.’

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  Page knew that this second witness intimidation incident within one month meant he would probably not get bail, but would now have to spend a few months behind bars on remand until his trial in June for the gun incident with the Sun photographer.

  He was still desperate for money and selling his story seemed like his best punt, despite the recent knock-back from the Mirror.

  Investor Mubasher Hussain believed the disgraced Royal Protection officer had cut an exclusive deal for £300,000 with Fleet Street’s famed chequebook. Anjam Khan thought it was £450,000. Such figures were wildly beyond what any tabloid would ever pay for any story. Page of course was talking it up to pacify certain hungry investors.

  At the time he was trying to sell his story, there was a growing atmosphere of caution in the tabloid press following a successful Met operation into the News of the World for accessing the phone messages of Prince William and Prince Harry and their private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton.

  Operation Caryatid began after a series of exclusives in late 2005 by royal editor Clive Goodman caught the attention of the palace. Officials suspected voice messages left on the phones of the princes and their private secretaries had been accessed. Lowther-Pinkerton took his concerns to SO14 boss Lord Loughborough who brought in the anti-terrorist branch. Detectives set up surveillance on Goodman and Glen Mulcaire, a private detective on the tabloid’s payroll.

  The police would later suspect that the News of the World also had SO14 officers providing information for cash, including copies of the palace staff phonebook or Green Book kept in the control room, which the tabloid bought for £1000. This was on top of regular cash payments to two supposed SO14 officers given the payroll pseudonyms ‘David Farish’ and ‘Ian Anderson’.72

  Operation Caryatid eventually arrested Goodman and Mulcaire in August 2006. They pleaded guilty and were sent to jail in January 2007.

  Weeks later, Page reached out to the tabloid through a former SO14 officer and Currency Club investor. Constable Andy Beck had done most of his service in SO14 or Diplomatic Protection. Beck had recently transferred from St James’s Palace to the House of Commons when he agreed to introduce Page to a journalist contact at the News of the World.73

  The meeting was set for Monday, 2 April 2007. Page was still wanted for the Baree incident. On his way to meet the reporter he took a call from Aunty Pat. ‘The DPS have been here looking to arrest you for threats to kill,’ she told him.

  Page aborted the meeting with the tabloid and headed for his in-laws house where Laura and the children had gone to stay after a nasty row.

  ‘Love, the police have been round to Pat’s. They’re after me. We need to fuck off quick,’ he told her by phone on the way over. Laura’s parents were horrified that she was going to stand by him again. But Laura had resolved to tell the boys they were all going on an adventure knowing, like Page, that it may be a long time before they saw their father again.

  Meanwhile, Page called his father to borrow some money. They agreed to meet in the toilet of Terry’s local pub. It was Page’s turn to receive an envelope of £3500 in cash. Unknown to his father, Page was savouring the idea of getting one over on the DPS and going on the run for a week. After picking up the family they went to Lakeside shopping centre. Page gave Laura some cash to buy what they needed for a week in Cornwall. She returned with toothbrushes, pyjamas, clothes for the boys, pay-as-you-go phones and some make-up.

  The evening was spent at the Hilton in Brentwood, Essex, from where the family headed for Padstow, a Cornish fishing village made famous by TV chef Rick Stein’s eateries. On arrival, they couldn’t get into his posh restaurant so opted for fish and chips at Stein’s takeaway.

  ‘That’ll be £7.50 each,’ the man behind the fryer said.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell! For that money I’d expect Rick Stein serving it to me,’ Page exclaimed.

  The family spent a lovely week in a rented five-bedroom house in another part of Cornwall larking around on the beach, fishing and swimming. ‘We lived it up,’ Laura recalled.

  When it was time to face the music, Page rang his aunt to borrow some more money. She agreed but told her nephew that they would have to find somewhere else to live from now on.

  In a hotel breakfast room on the outskirts of London, Laura urged her husband to eat well before handing himself in to the DPS.

  ‘I’ll have toast,’ he said stoically.

  Just before 6 pm on 10 April, Page parked the Range Rover outside Dagenham police station. He said bye to his boys and kissed Laura then went inside where he was charged with threats to kill and witness intimidation of his former best friend.

  ‘Love, they are not letting me out,’ he told his wife from the police phone.

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  DPS detectives Mark Beckett and James Howells arrived at the Avon George Hotel overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge on 20 April 2007. They had come from London to take over the Bristol fraud investigation from Avon and Somerset Police. It had been decided high up within the DPS and without any consultation with prosecutors or the police watchdog that Page’s Bristol agent, Steve Phillips, would from now on be treated as a witness not as a suspect.

 
; At the hotel, local detective Gemma Bradford was waiting to hand over her investigation to the Operation Aserio detectives and introduce them to Phillips. Just three weeks earlier, Phillips had contacted Bradford offering information on Page. He presented himself as a victim of crime who had lost £60,000 and told her that he possessed files on fifteen investor victims in the Bristol area.

  Bradford had already taken witness statements from several Bristol investors who suspected Phillips of involvement in the fraud. Adrian Marsh, for example, had just made a criminal complaint against Phillips, who he felt had held back information and payments. Phillips was about to be arrested by Avon and Somerset Police but the action was put on hold while the DPS lobbied to take over the case.

  Soon after Beckett and Howells interviewed Phillips, who denied acting fraudulently but under Page’s instructions, his name was ‘removed’ from the crime sheet even though Marsh had never withdrawn his allegation that he was part of the deception. In fact, Marsh was expecting to see Phillips in the dock holding hands with Page. But the DPS had other ideas and was carefully building a ‘rogue officer’ case.

  Page knew he had to get Phillips on side with his solicitor. In the days following the incident with Baree, he sent his Bristol agent texts saying it was in his interest to make a statement to his solicitor about ‘all the money you took from your people’. The second text in early April, which Phillips also gave to the DPS, said: ‘I have some good news regarding the idiots that are investigating me. Call me when you can mate. Also my contacts in the press would like a meet with you totally confidential.’

  Meanwhile, Page was telling his other agent, Adam McGregor, who had introduced Phillips, to ‘keep his trap shut’. The DPS had spoken to McGregor. But as with several other SO14 officers from Buckingham Palace, McGregor was still refusing to make a witness statement against Page.

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  The bubble burst for Page when the prison door slammed behind him. ‘It was not when I had my house repossessed or when I was lying on the floor in my aunty’s house, it was when the door shut in [Pentonville] prison and I realized I was not with my family anymore and I’m a police officer in prison.’

  Six days later, on 17 April 2007, his 36th birthday, Page received cards from his boys which lifted his spirits because he was worried for Laura. She was being formally interviewed on his birthday about the alleged threats to kill Baree. She made no comment.

  That night Page wrote back to his sons. He promised his eldest James that they would go over the park for a game of football on his return and told Samuel and Matthew to study and eat their dinners if they wanted a trip to the toy shop. Harry, his youngest, who he called his ‘little diddy man’, was also promised a toy for good behaviour.

  Days later, after a prison visit from Laura, he penned her a letter. Page told his wife how much he missed her and how good she looked, which made him feel proud. He was cheery having received a food parcel: six packets of chicken pot noodles, a tin of bean sprouts, sweet corn and three tins of tuna, six packets of long-life milk, some milk powder, a packet of tomato Cup-a-Soup and a bottle of Heinz ketchup. He wrote:

  It felt like Christmas. To appreciate such basic items felt strange, I will probably faint when I get the radio. I seem to have adapted to this very basic existence very well. I think I am using the intense training and eating regime to keep my mind busy because if I think about you and my boys for too long I know I will snap! I have become stronger both mentally and physically. I couldn’t give a stuff about those bastards anymore and never want to see or hear from them ever again when this is all over … all the bitterness and attention wasted on those pathetic individuals has now left my system and I see now that I must concentrate solely on my family! Therefore when I get out we will sort out a business plan like I was working on before I left, this we will both agree on, and follow to the letter, if we do this I am convinced with you by my side we will rise up and be the success in our own right without hangers on.

  A further letter on 24 April displayed confidence that he was going to be found not guilty over the Sun incident, which was coming to trial in June. ‘I know how difficult things are for you. You know I love you and will always love you … they will not break us ever so chin up love,’ he wrote echoing Lord Snowdon’s last words to his suicidal lover.

  ‘I know I can succeed doing something, also if things go right we will have money from newspapers plus a large claim on the Metropolitan Police. My story in prison coupled with all that other stuff will be dynamite so I’ve been told. See you tomorrow and remember I am your husband, I am a strong man and will survive with you at my side.’

  Laura had been battling on the outside to find a home for her boys and money to feed them after Page’s police pay was stopped as soon as he was remanded to prison. In the past, she had pawned items such as her £15,000 Rolex, which raised £3000, and given it to Page for gambling. This time, any money she got was going towards renting a small flat in Chafford Hundred.

  She resolved to pawn the jewellery gifted to her from the period in their married life when Page was making huge sums gambling with just his own money. A gold bracelet with diamond chips, £1000 earrings, her £1300 engagement rings and £1500 wedding ring. The last item raised just £225 but Laura would never see it again because months later when she went to redeem the wedding ring it had been sold.

  Her father had agreed to help out with the deposit on the flat. But he made her wait, which she felt was his way of reminding her of the error of her easy come, easy go attitude to money.

  The flat was unfurnished. However, Laura had seen an item on the news about legal claims against banks that overcharged customers on overdrafts, transfers and other fees. She recovered her bank statements and calculated an overpayment of £13,000. After a lot of pestering, the bank settled with her for £10,500. When the cheque arrived it was straight down to Argos to furnish the flat.

  Laura had also been to see local Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay, a tenacious parliamentarian who wrote to the Met Commissioner Ian Blair asking him to review the stopping of Page’s pay. However much the Met wanted to play ‘hard ball’ with one of their officers, the MP wrote, the family shouldn’t have to suffer. The DPS wrote back saying Page’s pay had been restored and backdated.

  On 28 April, Laura got a letter from Page telling her not to lose any more weight. As well as some drawings for the boys he included a sketch of a tattoo he wanted his wife to have just above her bottom, but only by a female tattooist. Page wrote that he too was going to get the same one on his arm like they had talked about years ago.

  ‘I really miss you, love. I hate being locked up 23 hours a day and told what to do. I wish I was at home with you and the boys, even if Pat was snoring her head off that would be heaven right now.’

  While on remand, the first witness intimidation matter was dropped. Mrs Mudhar had refused to give a witness statement rendering an already weak case even weaker.

  Days later, in early May, weeks before his trial over the Sun incident, Page was released on bail. At the insistence of the DPS he was given an electronic tag around his ankle and put under a curfew. Page had to present himself daily to his local police station, not go inside the M25 area unless it was to see his lawyers, and must surrender his passport.

  ‘They’ve trussed me up like a Christmas turkey,’ he told Laura. ‘I think the DPS think I’m a flight risk. They’ve probably found that New Zealand emigration form stuff on my computer and the Internet searches I did for new identities.’

  On at least one occasion, Serco, the private company monitoring the tag, were called to the new flat thinking Page may have tried to abscond. It was some metal compound in his favourite cereal packet that had triggered the alarm.

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  The trial for the assault on the Sun photographer, Scott Hornby, at Basildon Crown Court was supposed to last only ten days but ended up taking four weeks. Page was facing five charges: possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear;
possession of a Section 5 firearm (CS spray); false imprisonment; dangerous driving; and impersonating a police officer, a charge he was very guilty of since joining SO14.

  The prosecution had successfully applied to the trial judge for reporting restrictions. Page thought there would still be a lot of media interest. On the first day, photographers were outside the adjacent Magistrates Court. Page laughed when he told his barrister, John Cooper, how he had outwitted the stupid snappers who’d gone to the wrong court.

  ‘Not quite, Mr Page,’ said Cooper. ‘They aren’t here for you, they’re here because Jade Goody is up for a driving offence.’ Playing second fiddle to an ex-reality TV contestant turned tabloid fodder was not what Page wanted to hear.

  It also annoyed him that there were a series of secret hearings between the judge, the DPS and the prosecutor. So-called Public Interest Immunity hearings are ways for the state to discuss sensitive material with the judge concerning informants, intelligence material, phone taps and bugs, and matters of national security, which they don’t want to disclose to the defendant.

  In the end, the DPS never disclosed to Page’s legal team the intelligence material naming Anjam Khan as a suspect behind the kidnap plot.74 The minutes of the Gold Group meetings were also kept secret. It was never established whether this was done with the agreement of the trial judge or whether the DPS simply never disclosed the material to the Crown Prosecution Service in the first place.

  Such material was important to Page’s defence as his barrister aimed to show that his client’s actions on 21 November 2006 were a reasonable reaction to the Osman warning he had received days earlier in a less than orthodox manner.

  The barrister suggested that the DPS had left the family scared and feeling unprotected. It was also suggested that the Osman warning was a pretext to get into the house and inquire about Page’s business activities. The prosecution countered that further protection was offered to the Pages but they had declined and made out that Laura was now lying to help her husband.