A surveyor – who narrowly avoided becoming part of an alleged conspiracy to dupe an investor into paying £1m on the promise of being able to buy the Ritz Hotel – has been giving evidence at the trial of the three alleged conspirators.
At Southwark Crown Court this afternoon, Christian Sweeting of Mayfair-based property investment and development company London & Central European Investments was asked by prosecution counsel Anuja Dhir QC about his relationship with two of the men – retired contracts manager Patrick Dolan and former HGV driver Anthony Lee.
He told the court that in early 2006 Dolan, who appeared to act as a property dealer and “intermediary”, approached him and asked if he knew of any large hotels in
Sweeting said that there had been press speculation that the Ritz may be for sale but that a suitable “headline” offer for the property, needed to get the attention of the owners, would be one of £600m.
He said that he repeatedly refused Dolan’s and subsequently Lee’s requests for him to give them a letter which said that he would get them a contract for the sale of the Ritz.
He said that after a previous failed property deal involving Dolan, which had been a “complete fiasco”, he had re-evaluated what he thought of Dolan.
Sweeting said that before he would get involved further on any deal he set Dolan and Lee “a stringent hurdle” that they had to show they had a third party who could demonstrate funds of £600m.
To show that the third party was serious, Sweeting said he would need a payment into a lawyers’ escrow account of a bond of £30m.
“Which was a requirement that I wanted to see before I would even pick up the telephone,” he said.
Asked whether he thought the men ever had a contract to buy the Ritz he said “never in my wildest dreams would I have expected that anyone would have had access to a contract to purchase that asset for £200m at that time, or at any time.”
christian.metcalfe@estatesgazette.com
