Gloucester City Council, which sold a prestigious hotel development site to a group of conmen for just £1, have begun legal proceedings to reclaim the land.
According to a High Court claim that has just been made publicly available, former fraudster Michael Jacquiss, who claimed that he was Lord Selsdon and connected with the Selsdon Group, persuaded the council that he was a reputable and prominent businessman.
The council claim that Jacquiss’s proposal for the redevelopment of an NCP car park into a four-star hotel for the Holiday Inn Group failed to materialise. Moreover, they later discovered that, in the 1990s, he had been jailed for three years for defrauding a subsidiary of property company Speyhawk plc of £84,000.
Another man who was allegedly involved in the proposed redevelopment, Graham McMaster, was a solicitor, who, in 1988, was struck off after being convicted of seven offences of dishonesty, and jailed for 18 months.
A third man, John Shardelow, claimed to be the company director of architecture, although it was subsequently discovered that the company had no architectural department, and that there were no records of him ever having been registered as a qualified and practising architect.
The council allege that although the men claimed that they had a deal with Holiday Inn to build the hotel, and that they had arranged finance, this was not true, and they had never planned to build a hotel in Westgate Street.
The council are now seeking declarations that they have validly rescinded the agreements they made with the men, and that they are entitled to the freehold of the site, rectification of the Land Register, an account of takings from the car park, and damages for fraudulent misrepresentation.
The claim was issued by Nabarro Nathanson.
References: PLS News 7/4/03
