Former Close Brothers employee involved in HBOS Reading fraud

London court hears of ex-HBOS banker’s ‘corrupt relationship’ with business consultant

Alison Mills, who once worked for Close Brothers, knew all about her husband’s business activities, the trial was told. Her 40th birthday trip to Barbados was attended by Mr Scourfield and Michael Bancroft, another QCS consultant, the jury heard.

A “corrupt relationship” between a senior HBOS banker and a business consultant and their associates led to the bank writing off losses of £245m because of their “wholly dishonest and fraudulent actions”, a London court has heard. Sample the FT’s top stories for a week You select the topic, we deliver the news. Select topic Enter email address Invalid email By signing up you confirm that you have read and agree to the terms and conditions, cookie policy and privacy policy. A jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court heard that between 2003 and 2007, Lynden Scourfield was a senior manager in the impaired assets division for HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group. Mr Scourfield required struggling business customers within his banking portfolio to use the services of David Mills, a business consultant, and his company QCS, to act as a turnround adviser so the companies could obtain further bank lending. Huge sums were then advanced to the businesses by Mr Scourfield even when it was “obvious” that the bank debt could never be repaid, prosecutor Brian O’Neill QC alleged. Mr Scourfield acted in this way to enable Mr Mills and his associates to be paid “very high fees” for their consultancy services and then to allow Mr Mills and his associate Michael Bancroft the chance to take over the struggling businesses and run them for their own benefit, the trial heard. Mr Mills provided “huge” rewards to Mr Scourfield including money transfers, expensive gifts, cash, use of an American Express card for personal spending and “inappropriately lavish hospitality” as well as foreign travel and high-class escorts, the court heard. HBOS incurred losses of £245m in respect of customer lending managed by Mr Scourfield, the trial heard, which later had to be written off. Mr Mills and his wife Alison and four other associates including Mark Dobson, a HBOS banker and accountant Jonathan Cohen, are all on trial at Southwark Crown Court. They all deny wrongdoing. “The motivation was greed,” Mr O’Neill told the jury. “The police investigation which took place uncovered evidence of huge rewards provided by David Mills to Lynden Scourfield to effect his corruption,” he added. Large amounts of money were paid in fees by HBOS customers classed as “high risk” to QCS and QCS then transferred money into the bank accounts of David Mills and his wife Alison, the prosecutor alleged.

 https://www.ft.com/content/62bfaeea-8400-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5