Good morning members of the jury.
You’ll recall Sunday Times a while back exposed the fact that West Ham and the OPLC were accused of shall we call it a conflict of interest. Specifically that WHFC they had commissioned the paid services of an OPLC employee to assist with their application to win the Olympic Stadium Raffle.
The Sunday Times were led to believe by the ‘investigators’ that they spoke to that payments were made into the back account of the OPLC employee, Dionne Knight. The payments came from an account operated by Naughty Knickers Of Newham Ltd T/A West Ham United Football Club.
The best bit was that the OPLC employee, Dionne Knight was in a relationship with… a Director at West Ham.
“My board were put under surveillance by Tottenham Hotspur and the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur felt confident enough to say that in the Sunday Times several months ago, that all 14 members of my board were put under surveillance. The Metropolitan Police are now conducting an investigation into that surveillance.” Baroness Ford
Now, due to old Rupe’s pesky pay wall and a poor memory I cannot cut and paste the admission by Levy & Co that Baroness Ford is insistent the article contains.
The Baroness needs to get a good solicitor. The issue of the law being broken by private eyes is likely to be pretty black and white. If bank statement information has been obtained it is vital to establish precisely how this was done. The issue of the OPLC process having been corrupted is already proved. Dionne Knight admitted the payments when doorstepped by a Sunday Time journo.
I question as to what the Baroness actually has to throw at Levy & Co. If someone had put me under surveillance I wouldn’t be delighted about it, but I would be stark raving outraged if my bank account activity was leaked or stolen. And it wasn’t the Baroness’ account remember. So she’s getting very shirty whilst we hear zip from Ms Knight.
Perhaps the Baroness has been so immersed in Birtspeak she is incapable of speaking normally anymore. If bank statements or whatever were unlawfully obtained, then why not say so? Why whine about ‘surveillance?’ This is like people who wander around decrying things as being ‘inappropriate’ what they are actually doing is masking what they really want to say.
“Our job now is to narrow, as far as we possibly can, the scope now for legitimate legal challenge in this next process. That is all that we can do. If people want then to be vexatious, frivolous and vindictive or whatever they want, they will do that.” THFC
What the hell is she on about? I thought her job was to weigh up bids and pick the best one. It seems I was wrong. It’s her job to make a fist of everything she touches and speak like a magic eight ball that was programmed by a half cut public school boy.
So what have Levy & Co to say from deep within the bowels of their volcano lair? Well they are denying involvement in any law breaking. They are quite specific saying that THFC:
“…did not undertake, instruct or engage any party to conduct surveillance on any member of the OPLC committee”
All that remains is the glaring fact that somebody blew the whistle on the West Ham manipulation of the OPLC process. And I wonder if the damning information wasn’t simply tossed into to the public domain by someone who simply couldn’t resist sitting on it any longer. Which would be ironic of course. Don’t forget that the Porn Barons suffered from a similar fit of being unable to keeping schtum when they began celebrating their success in landing the OS the night before the decision was formally announced.
Let’s hope that all the useless players and all the crooked players in this farce are removed from the field of play as swiftly as possible and common sense is given an opportunity to elbow its way into proceedings. When Baroness Birdbrain has finished clucking the entire future of the stadium needs to be reevaluated.
The vanity of Lord Coe and his cronies in wanting this ridiculous structure to be kept going after the games is breathtaking. Trying to pass off a Championship football club plus a few dozen folk running, leaping over things , jumping and chucking stuff about as a legacy is a joke and a not very funny one. Has the OPLC been guilty of collusion? Did West Ham rig the deck? Was Daniel Levy the bloke from the 1970’s Milk Tray adverts? What we do know is that so far stupidity has been the OS’ first tenant and maybe, just maybe this is a good opportunity serve it an eviction order.
What makes me laugh is all you spuds deciding that WHU were crooked in their bid. Tell me what we did that was crooked and before you speak, you had BETTER know the REAL facts before gobbing off.
THUFC are guilty as sin in hiring undercover dicks to do their work and with a bit of luck the guy arrested will spill the beans. Remember, he has been bailed so he has been charged, this sort of action isn’t taken lightly by the police for no reason is it….watch out Levy, not only are you going inside but Harry will be joining you on tax evasion as well….how I will laugh at the scum who think they are a cut above the rest.
Not a ‘cut above the rest’, but definately a couple of cuts above WHU.
What league do you play in?
You left an ‘N’ out I think?
“A Cut above the rest”, by that, I take it you meant a whole league, a few million quid,a better run club and a transparent board of directors? As for Harry? nothing to do with us. try Portsmouth and Peter Storey, maybe looking even deeper at your own club-Tevez, Sheff Utd, Iceland, geeze, that’s a long list isn’t it?
A transparent board of directors?
Please tell me your joking?
Duh! look up PLC… PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY, all transactions HAVE to be SUBJECT to the LSE (That’s the London Stock Exchange), BEFORE any approval can be granted. for heavens sake, We’ve been one for an awfully long time!
Hey cOL, your’e a real little tinker, you and Hammer make a lovely pair of chavs just like your joint chairmen bodgeit and scarper.
“Remember, he has been bailed so he has been charged”, – WRONG. People get bailed everyday by the police so that they can make further enquiries into the allegations or their explanation. You do NOT have to be charged to get bailed.
Get it right.
@col.
Contrary to your stupid comment, nobody has yet been charged, and bail pending enquiries is not a guarantee that anyone ever will be charged.
Regarding illegal conduct, LBN offered a loan to one party only, and under EU law this is classed as “illegal aid”. If they had made the same offer to all parties, it would not have been illegal.
I take it in view of your manifest ignorance of the law, you will be resigning your membership of the Association of Kerbside and Barrackroom Lawyers.
Col? When were spurs THUFC? Well played fella.
“Our job now is to narrow, as far as we possibly can, the scope now for legitimate legal challenge in this next process. That is all that we can do. If people want then to be vexatious, frivolous and vindictive or whatever they want, they will do that.” THFC
Dont mean to be fickle but people on here are always commenting on others mistakes in post’s, I take that THFC was not meant to be there?
Only reason the scummy spuds got involved was so they could kick up a fuss and get a back hander £17millon from the tax payer to move their stadium
I don’t think police arrest people if there is no substance but only time will tell who is right. All I know is it is Spurs being investigated not WHU
That’s business and not really very dodgy is it?
However having a paid insider on a board is definately dodgy.
And it’s not Spurs who are being investigated, it’s a PI, and nobody ITK has actually linked this guy to Spurs. And another thing he’s being investigated for fraud, not surveilance.
Nobody (not the police, not the media) has said that the arrested man has any affiliation to THFC.
Trying to get the PUBLIC coffer to assist in the cost of improving PUBLIC transportation in an area that desperately needs it? Scandalous.
Building your bid on an illegal £40m loan from local government (without the approval of the voters of said locale) you have no problem with, then?
Oh, yeah. And incessantly lying in the media to skew public opinion in your favor? No problem for you I guess.
@Hammer
You might recall the recent case of Jo Yeates, where they arrested her landlord, and later arrested the real murderer. Of course we all know the police never arrest the wrong person. Nore to the point, we don’t even know why he has been arrested, or who he works for?
go pee in a crisp bag
Just half listened to Key’s and Gray who had Sullivan as their guest. When asked about the stadium he gave the most telling answer to the move. I suggest anyone who thinks the original deal wasn’t fraudulent should listen to his exact words carefully-very carefully. If I were Levy and I were prepared to invest millions on the move to the OS,I too would’ve used private investigators to look into the dealings of these people. It was clearly a ‘dodgy’process and even more evident we were being used as a patsy-unfortunately for them, Levy is far more clued up than they thought and now everyone loses-mainly the London tax payers
Is there anywhere i can get that broadcast? I missed it. Cheers Bud
Normally they have a podcast-really worth a listen to Sullivan’s hesitancy and lack of belief in his own answer compared to the jingoistic showmanship only a few months ago
Just listened. He’s sounds quite worried about the situation. The running track staying for 99 yrs, suddenly WH having doubts about unresolved issues.I think that running track would have been gone after the Olympics had Spurs and Orient not appealed.
It was Gold, not Sully.
Sounds strange though!
As I said-I was half listening but a cnut is a rose by any other name-fact is hardly ‘up for it’ was he?, so where’s all the bravado gone-probably the same way as the future of the OS with a track! 99 years eh?, bet they didn’t think of that at the time-Levy did though!
The bidding process was always flawed because of the European Community rules on State Aid were being contravened in this public sector procurement.
Newham’s £40m loan to WHU should have been offered to all bidders – or none at all – to establish an equal competition.
The anonymous letter to the EU was the most damning (and best value for money) indictment on the procurement exercise. It makes you wonder what the lawyers were doing and how they could advise on a public procurement package without State aid experience.
The OPLC would have had to have paid compensation and punitive interest had they signed over the Stadium to WHU on those arrangements.
Perhaps we should have let that happen and then gone to the EC afterwards!
The running track is now an irrelevance. Whoever wants the stadium can have it. Boris has even predicted that WHU will get it. What a hell of an invite to prospective bidders!
Idiots in GLC and OPLC would have all been disciplined for their role in this fiasco. Public Procurement must be seen to be fair, transparent and without prejudice.
As for the “investigators”…
Can you imagine DL writing a specification to an agency with the words “put them under surveillance”?
PIs work on their own initiative and have the insurance to cover their practice…though not their excesses.
Cannot understand the old girl. She might get sued for defamation.
You clearly know what you are talking about and are spot on as far as the aid issue is concerned.
I have been posting similar messages on other sites, so if you have read this elsewhere, sorry if I am boring you:
Regarding Baroness Ford as well as Sullivan and Gold are annoyed about the anonymous complaint. It is not an anonymous complaint. It’s a confidential complaint, as are all complaints to the European Commission. Anyone, including contributors to this site can complain to the EC, and receive the protection of their confidentiality. In one particular case, the EC failed to protect someone’s identity and he was jailed by the Swiss for five years, and his wife went on to commit suicide.
There can only be one reason why the Brady Bunch and Ford are annoyed about the protection being offered to the informant(s, and that is because they are powerless to take reprisals if it should turn out to be an insider of theirs.
Baromness Ford is a member of the House of Lords and therefore a lawmaker in this country. She has yet to say one word about the fact that what the informant was doing, was illegal. If LBN and the Brady hadn’t sought to break the law, there would be no grounds for a complaint. But how often do we hear the noble lady saying it is wrong for the Police to use informants or an anonymous tip-off?
It is a disgrace that a law-maker in this country can condemn someone for bringing illegal activity to the attention of the powers that be.
What normally happens if a decision is overturned on Judicial Review, is that the court tells the relevant public body that they have reconsider there decision and eliminate any illegality. This means that LBN can no longer offer the loan to te Brady Bunch, unless of course they make a similar offer to us.
What would normally happen is that the OPLC would say, you can still have the stadium, but you can’t have the £40 mill. Of course we all know that unless they get that money, they cant move to the OS. So instead of reconsidering the original decision, the OPLC are going to change the rules so that the running track is kept. They are not reconsidering the decision, they are re-writing the rules to get the desired result which makes a mockery of the whole review procedure.
If you read the reports of how the loan was dealt with by LBN on the BBC website, you will see that Councillors were given minimum information, and presented with details at the last possible minute. It was only after persistent questioning that the LBN CEO admitted that the loan was unsecured. If you were a charge-payer in LBN, how happy would you be with recent cuts in services, guaranteeing an unsecured loan of £40 mill to two of the UK’s wealthiest men?
The whole thing has been a stitch-up from start to finish, and continues to be so. There is nothing better I would wish to see than the bollocks of Sullivan, Gold, Johnson et al, hanging up in the trophy cabinet at WHL.
Well said Spurred, your comments reflect my own views on this distasteful matter. I must disagree with your last paragraph though, it seems to be a load of bollocks.
Bruxie
This may be of interest and give you the facts.
This is from Newhams Councils website prior to the bid.
A Newham Council spokesperson said: ” Newham Council will not be lending to West Ham United or its owners. A Stadium Company would be set up to run the Stadium and this company would loan from Newham Council. West Ham United would rent the stadium from this company.
“Local government finance rules only allow us to borrow for investment so we would not be able to use this for spending on services as this spend would not be repaid. The funding we will provide for the Stadium is a commercial loan provided on the basis that it will be repaid with interest.
“Any borrowing the council undertakes to finance the loan for the Stadium will not cost our taxpayers a penny, nor will it impact on services. It has nothing to do with our revenue budget, which is for the council’s day-to-day spending because repayments from the stadium company will cover the cost of council borrowing.
“Newham Council provide services to residents all year round, which is why we’re best-placed to ensure they get the most from the stadium bid. In the case of the proposed loan to the Stadium Company the borrowing would be supported by repayments plus interest from the company. There would be no impact on our day-to-day spending or on council tax to meet the cost of financing it.”
That may well technically be correct. When I first read about this on the BBC news website, it was revealed that LBN were not lending the money, but guaranteeing an unsecured loan.
To offer to guarantee a loan to one party only who is competing with others still makes it illegal aid, and even more so, because the loan is unsecured.
So Newham Council had proposed to set up a Quango Stadium Company to operate between themselves and the new tennant (West Ham)even though they were concerned about the saving of taxpayers money.
Who was going to finance this Quango if not the taxpayers, the plot thickens!!!! Seems like an attempt to circumvent the legality of the bidding process yet again.