|
By Graeme Esson
BBC News Online Scotland
|
Manson's fraud trial was at the High Court in Edinburgh
|
Gordon Manson looked like he could have it all.
He came from a good family, attended a top private school and found work with a leading Edinburgh firm after securing his law degree.
One business magazine even tipped him as a future chief executive of a multinational corporation.
He managed to maintain the image of a high-roller - but it was funded by a chain of cons which ran for more than a decade.
Lothian and Borders Police's serious fraud unit spent almost three years investigating his activities.
And the detective who led the case admitted that Manson could easily have become a self-made millionaire.
Admitted frauds
"He doesn't do bad deals. He does good deals, it is just that he runs the companies into the ground," said Detective Constable Duncan Cullen, who led the inquiry into Manson's activities.
Manson eventually admitted carrying out frauds totalling almost £3m and £820,000 of attempted fraud.
He had originally been charged with about £5m worth of fraud and a further £20m in attempted frauds.
Now BBC News Online Scotland can reveal the full story behind the man who left banks, building societies, businessmen and his own friends and employees to pick up the tab for his lifestyle.
An early victim
The first businessman to rue his dealings with Manson was Ian Fotheringham.
In the early 1990s he approached the corporate finance department of Touche Ross, where Manson worked at the time.
He wanted to set up a new steel processing firm as British Steel prepared to close its Ravenscraig plant.
Manson left Touche Ross and told Mr Fotheringham that his new company could find the capital he needed.
However, the £100,000 put up by Mr Fotheringham was pocketed by Manson and the business eventually went bankrupt.
Detective Constable Cullen said Manson had set himself up with an Edinburgh office, drove a succession of expensive cars and bought £200 bunches of flowers for female employees.
"There was the whole veneer of a successful businessman, but all the while it was Mr Fotheringham's money that was being whittled away.
"Manson was just bleeding the company dry of any profits," he said.
Fish, sweets and alcohol
Manson then became finance director with fish processing firm Tarbett Fine Foods, which went bust in the mid 1990s.
He was disqualified as a company director for eight years and was sequestrated for the first time.
He next put together a rescue package for Lees Macaroon Bars by claiming to represent a number of prominent Scottish businessmen - without their knowledge.
Unusually, he persuaded businessmen to sign up to the scheme and the deal went ahead - although Manson eventually left after an allegation of impropriety.
Pay bills
Manson then became involved in an attempt to buy off-licence chain Whittle Wines in the English Midlands.
Owner Brian Hildick pulled out after discovering that Manson had used £30,000 of the company's money to pay his own bills.
Manson received £30,000 from Livingston firm Multex Engineering after falsely claiming to have a company manufacturing Harris Tweed.
He then picked up his second sequestration in 1998 after persuading an old school friend to loan him £40,000 which was never seen again.
Property developments
However, police were not alerted to Manson's affairs until he became involved with Emanuel Wittenberg - a dentist who dabbled in property development.
He bought a group of former Ministry of Defence flats in Rosyth, Fife, for £700,000 in December 1997.
Several months later Manson offered him £800,000 for the properties.
He claimed to own companies he had failed to buy or been involved with in the past, and passed off Mr Fotheringham as his multi-millionaire uncle.
Police investigated Manson's activities over a number of years
|
Manson then approached a leading building society claiming to act for three busy businesspeople - Mr Whittenberg, Mr Hildick and his own mother, Margaret.
He said he was also looking to buy properties in Dundee, Perth and Newcastle.
The building society agreed to lend £3.5m and Manson received the first draw-down of money in September 1998 - two months after being convicted of mortgage fraud against the same company.
Manson also persuaded Mr Wittenberg to lend him £40,000 while getting him to stay on as a "sleeping director".
Detectives said Manson was again bleeding the company dry, funding his lifestyle with the properties' rents.
By the spring of 2000 the mortgage payments had fallen hundreds of thousands of pounds into arrears.
Company 'hijacked'
It was only then that Mr Wittenberg learned he was actually the sole director of the firm which he believed Manson was running.
He approached the police to say that his company had been hijacked and he had been left on the verge of bankruptcy.
At the same time, one of Manson's employees approached the Department of Trade and Industry to raise concerns about her boss.
Manson was sequestrated again that year.
The police investigation uncovered attempted frauds totalling £14.2m against several other banks.
A capital business centre
In November 2001, as detectives prepared to bring Manson in for questioning, it emerged he had bought a business centre at 3 Randolph Crescent in Edinburgh using the alias of Graham Robinson.
The Georgian town house was owned by Edinburgh's Chamber of Commerce and its tenants included the Belgian Consulate.
The bank lending the £900,000 for the purchase wanted a personal guarantee.
Manson produced a forged letter from a solicitor saying that he was a multi-millionaire and claimed the electrician father of one of his friends was a millionaire living in Spain.
Manson bought 3 Randolph Crescent in Edinburgh
|
Manson used the same alias to seek a £810,000 loan to buy another property.
He was first interviewed by detectives from Lothian and Borders Police's specialist fraud unit in December.
He initially denied any wrongdoing, but by the end of the five-hour interview he started to come clean.
"I got the feeling that it was almost cathartic for him," said Detective Constable Cullen.
Manson was released and a report was sent to the procurator fiscal.
Manchester and Aberdeen
The following year Manson bought a business centre in Manchester's Deansgate.
He was able to pocket the £30,000 being paid in rent each month while running the business centre into the ground.
Eventually the centre collapsed, costing the staff their jobs and leaving firms with nowhere to go.
Manson was placed on bail in September last year.
Business centre
However, that same month he approached a leading bank seeking to buy a property on Union Street, Aberdeen.
He used the name of employee Niall Robertson, who quit the company shortly afterwards, thousands of pounds in debt.
Manson said he would turn most of the building into a business centre to join a chain he had established.
Manson found himself in the dock
|
In March this year a bank loaned almost £1.9m to a company Manson had created, again using friends' names without their knowledge.
It also handed over a bridging loan of £150,000 - which turned out to be a piece of luck for police.
Manson was caught after attempting to pay a £150,000 cheque from the company he had created for the Aberdeen purchase into a bank account which was frozen days earlier.
During one police interview Manson said he had been trying to make money to pay his debts to his creditors from 1995 onwards.
Detectives estimate that his activities cost lenders hundreds of thousands of pounds.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~54~RS~)
One-Minute World News
News services
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
Manson was just bleeding the company dry of any profits
