short report

Grossly unfair English laws condone corruption and

protect, unfairly, its perpetrators within the legaL

 profession and amongst officers of the court.

A major part of my life has been ruined by these injustices.   It could happen to anyone.

My background. 

Born on 16th February 1927, in a Hull workhouse, I was taken, as an infant, from my 16 year old, unmarried mother, and reared by her mother and stepfather.    I was very successful at school but  couldn’t afford further education.         I volunteered and was accepted for air crew, by the RAF in November 1943.     Invalided out in 1947, I then borrowed £200 and started a pickle business with four employees. 

For many years, I worked over 80 hours a week and by the mid seventies, had a small but healthy business.     When a competitor, Hazlewoods Plc was in difficulty in 1976, I borrowed £50,000 from my bank to invest in that company to try, with a fellow pickle manufacturer, to save it.      The company recovered and became highly successful whilst I became a majority holder of shares, re-floated at 17p, reaching over £8 within the next decade.          I thus became a millionaire, director of the greatly expanded and diverse Hazlewood Group with 6,000 employees.       Due to a lifetime of hard work and good fortune, starting with nothing and never being given a penny, I became wealthy, though the money, as such, was not important

Peter Barlow

I was approached by an insurance salesman Peter Barlow, seeking both my company’s and my personal business.     He was very convincing and succeeded on both counts.          He quickly

became my financial advisor and suggested ways in which I should invest my money.         He invested for my wife and myself, over half a million pounds in endowment policies and he advised us to make him a trustee, telling us that this was the wisest thing to do in case we should both die together suddenly. Foolishly, we did so and at his request, for that same reason, we signed blank surrender forms and share-transfer forms.    Being a very busy man, I’d had no time to form close friendships and      Mr Barlow soon became my best and most trusted friend.   My health was very poor by the mid eighties, both physically and mentally and I became a patient of Sir John Nabarro,  Prof. Rodger Williams,     Dr Peter Harvey and    Dr Maurice Lipsedge.          I spent weeks in a mental hospital, plus five years of counselling during a long, serious mental disturbance, from 1987 until 1993, which caused me to have a complete memory loss of important matters.  

             During this time, Mr Barlow cashed over half a million pounds worth of the endowment policies he’d organised for me and used most of the proceeds for himself without my knowledge or permission.   He also took over £100,000 which he’d advised me to accept in lieu of half my pension, misappropriated a further half million pounds that I’d lent him for a building venture and used part of this money to buy houses for his sons and an office for himself !

I obtained High Court judgement for £967,000 in 1994 and later discovered, a further £300,000 that was unaccounted for.

Mr Barlow was tried, in 1999, found guilty of stealing another clients money but cleared of a charge concerning over a million pounds of my money, whilst four other charges  concerning me were placed on record. His case was that I’d said he could help himself to whatever he wanted at any time and that he’d intended to pay me back one day !

During a recess, I asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Barrister, Mr Dallas, to put to Mr Barlow a simple question - -

 “If Hickson said you could help yourself to any of his money at any time, why did you ask for and receive from him,   eleven loans totalling £58,000,  during the period in question ?”

Mr Dallas dismissed me tersely, saying

“Sorry, I’m not allowed to speak about the case to witnesses!” He never posed that vital question.  

The Jury seemed out of its depth, having to listen for eight weeks to complex financial matters which, mostly, they didn’t understand; without proper thought as to the merits of the case or any sympathy for the victim. 

 Having obtained a conviction on one count against Barlow, the CPS and/or the Judge felt satisfied enough to end the case without considering the other major charges.  

During the trial, Mr Barlow admitted having obtained legal aid by fraud, involving his sons,   who also lied,   using false names and addresses but he was allowed to carry on and was never punished.    The C.P.S. has twice refused to bring a charge against him for this.   Yet further injustice !

Many worse injustices followed.

Anthony J. Sleight (Bankruptcy Trustee)

As the largest creditor, I sought someone to recover the stolen money and was recommended by a partner in solicitors, Walker Morris, a Leeds firm,  to a Mr Anthony J. Sleight, partner in Geoffrey Martin & Co, a neighbouring bankruptcy specialist . After I gave Mr Sleight a list of Mr Barlow’s assets, he suggested that he should be paid according to the set Dept of Trade scale and the creditors agreed.   Appointed in April 1995, within a few months he presented an account of the receipts and payments, showing he’d recovered £390,000 (rounded figures) of the assets but only £97,000 remained for distribution to creditors.

The difference consisted of £17,000 to the Official Receiver, £28,000 in legal fees,    £25,000 for his own fee,         £61,000 to pay off the mortgage on the Barlows’ house     and                 £161,000 given to Mrs Barlow with which she bought back the house.      This meant, in effect, that after depriving me of £1.2 m,      Mr Barlow still had his home, with the mortgage paid off!!    

Mr Sleight used Walker Morris as his solicitors and agreed their fees were very high, so said he’d have them taxed.       I noticed that a large, sum had gone to the Official Receiver who had done virtually nothing.   This is an unfair routine levy against creditors who, already having been deprived of their assets, are thereby, having to pay twice more---- the Official Receiver,  plus a costly private practitioner.            Thus Mr Barlow’s creditors, who’d been badly wronged once,     were penalised again,   unfairly,   by the state.

By 15/11/ 95 Mr Sleight said he’d recovered some £390,000, against £293,000 expenses, of which he claimed £24,339 (+VAT) as his fees 

In December 1995 the first Creditors’ Committee meeting was held, with just two of its three members present, who were told that the Trustee had agreed to pay the solicitors fees and it was therefore impossible to have them taxed.   This was confirmed by a partner of Walker Morris, Mr Taylor, who was present.      It was deliberately misleading.         they must have known, as experts, it is clearly laid down (rule 7.34(2) and both men, had a duty to tell the Creditors         that    “if the Creditors pass a resolution seeking taxation, it MUST be sought.”

Mr Sleight had deliberately refused to do what he said he would do as the creditors had asked.       His duplicity was glaringly apparent.

At the same meeting, he sought approval to be paid on a time basis instead of on the official Scale, which he’d agreed, and the committee refused.         I confirmed this in writing, early in January 1996, together with a repeated request for taxation of the solicitor’s fees.         Later that month, Mr Sleight wrote to the other two committee members and  not to me, asking again for permission to be paid “on the clock” and    threatening to resign if his wishes were not met. Halsbury’s Laws Vol 3(2) para 325 requires postal resolutions to be sent to “EVERY “ creditors committee member and to be set out in a way that “agreement with” or “ dissent from” each separate resolution may be indicated.     It was not set out thus.        Not wanting to delay the winding up and not having heard from me, they agreed, under his threat.       Mr Sleight broke the law to try to get what he wanted by acting secretly behind my back.

During the following year, virtually nothing was done in spite of repeated requests from the creditors for several agreed tasks to be undertaken.  Creditors made repeated complaints about Mr Sleight’s deliberate delaying tactics.   

Distribution of dividends was unnecessarily delayed for years by Mr Sleight,     causing creditors to lose a very substantial sum of interest on creditors’ money awaiting distribution,  in my opinion, unfairly confiscated by the State.

By 29/11/96 Mr Sleight claimed to have recovered £506k and he claimed £54k as his fees but only showed £39k in the accounts, with £15k tucked away in a covering letter.

 In December 1996, he asked creditors to agree a number of things that were quite wrong and which they, therefore, found unacceptable:-

1.  The minutes of the Dec 1995 meeting were totally misleading false and needed seven amendements.

2.     Mr Sleight was claiming for himself more than double the amount to which he was entitled and trying to hide the fact by keeping it out of the Receipts and Payments account.

3.    He continued to ignore creditors’ constant requests to have legal charges taxed.      

4    He’d wrongly included  an amount of £161 k   in the ‘Amount Recovered’. This was the value of   Mrs Barlow’ s share of the couple’s property and its inclusion would be to his benefit on the  D. of T. scale at the time.        Years later, his successors conceded this point about which we’d  argued, constantly.

A second Creditors’ Committee was held in Jan 1997 when the only two creditors present, complained  they felt overwhelmed by the unnecessary presence, and also at the cost of a second  solicitor, plus Mr Sleight’s highly-paid assistant, Mrs Forsyth, (who later became his wife).

  All support was refused for Mr Sleight’s wish to be paid on the clock. 

The need for seven amendments to the minutes of the first meeting were agreed and passed by the committee to be necessary, for them to be a true record.

The creditors again asked for legal fees to be taxed and were again deliberately fobbed off by both Mr Sleight and                        Mr Taylor, with misinformation.

Creditors again complained about the excessive amount  (far in excess of the scale fee)   being claimed by Mr Sleight.

 Sleight advised the creditors’ committee that action SHould be taken to recover £35,000 from Mr Barlow’s sons, to which they had no right.  He told the Creditors that this was “well worthwhile,” since it would yield between  £28k and £34k net, for them. They gave him formal approval but this action was never taken by him.  IT was abandoned after the deceitful Mr Sleight applied to the Court and misinformed it  by saying the amount was not worth recoverinG ! His false information to the Court was never verified.

No amended minutes were ever received by anyone for the first meeting. The minutes of the second meeting were equally inadequate and misleading

Although the creditors objected to all these things, no matters have ever been addressed and NO amended minutes were ever received for either meeting.

Despite the fact that Mr Barlow admitted, under oath, in court, having taken all my pension money for his own use, Mr Sleight forced me to go to Court to prove that those assets ever existed which  Mr Barlow admitted taking!     This was a purely spiteful act by Mr Sleight.    

 I won the case, thereby earning under £4k, in extra dividend ( 4p in the pound) but since I’d brought the action to prove my point against Mr Sleight, I was ‘The applicant’ and our grossly unfair legal system rules that ‘The Applicant must bear the costs of both sides, irrespective of the outcome’.    I was made to pay both sides’ costs.        Walker Morris’ (Mr Sleight’s solicitors’) fees, initially, were £16k. We had them reviewed and they were reduced to £8k !!

By 1997, the bankruptcy was virtually wound up and the Trustee was claiming £54k +VAT; (three times his entitlement.) The legal fees had climbed to £32k.     No dividend had been paid to any creditors.

Between  20 Nov 1996 and 30 Nov 2001, although no further amounts had been recovered from the bankrupt,  a further £52k  in FEES was claimed by Mr Sleight AND A FURTHER £23k by WALKER MORRIS whilst  after six years, not even an interim dividend had been paid to any creditor ! 

In November 2001, since nothing had happened for years, my solicitor, John Letts, wrote to Mr Sleight at his York office asking him to account for the delay in completing a bankruptcy which started nearly seven years earlier. It also set out a number of Important points where the creditors believed he had not acted in a true and responsible manner, and seeking an explanation. 

The London office of his partnership, Smith & Williamson, replied, the following month, merely saying that   “the matters raised would receive attention” and that “Mr Sleight had left the York office which had closed, with it’s business transferred to Worcester.”

Mr Letts wrote to Smith and Willamson again on Jan 10th 2002 to ask if they’d   “looked into the issues raised”  He also asked  if Mr Sleight was still a partner in their company and “if not, what has happened to him” - (where was he ?)

Receiving no reply, Mr Letts wrote to them a month later and still with no reply, he wrote yet again on March 25th complaining that “in spite of chasing on the phone and by letter, we have still heard nothing.” 

On April 5th 2002, a nonchalant reply  came, merely acknowledging        Mr Letts’  five letters and apologising for the lack of reply to his November letter.               IT did not disclose Mr Sleight’s whereabouts; wrongly using the data protection act as an excuse.

Mr Letts responded by claiming our right to know where                Mr Sleight was, ‘as the Trustee in the Barlow bankruptcy and an officer of the Court.’

On April 15th 2002, after a delay of 5 months,  which must have been deliberate, since it arrived ten days too late for us to do anything about the matter,   Smith and Williamson announced that Mr Sleight had applied to the Courts and had been granted his release from the Trusteeship in December 2001.      It still did not reveal his whereabouts.

Despite my solicitor’s five repeated letters, pressing for important, essential information about the administration of the bankruptcy over A five month period, from November 20^th   2001, through to March 25^th   2002,          Messrs Smith and williamson

declined, through their legal department, to provide any of the requested information, whilst at the same time, obtaining, by court order, the discharge of Mr sleight on 2oth december 2001,  without notice to the creditors .     the order, was issued on january 4^th 2002 and advertised inconspicuously, in the 7^th march 2002 issue of ‘the independent’ (not read by me).    The terms of the order required Creditors to challenge it within 28 days of publication.

mr hickings solicitors only sent my solicitors the court paperwork on june 7^th 2002, long after the period of challenge had expired. in my opinion, knowledge of the order was deliberately withheld from me until It was out of time ----they must have know that i would not let mr sleight be discharged without a fight !

i asked my solicitor, what he thought about such deceit.

he said    “it stinks !”

Creditors should have been told of Mr Sleight’s intention in an honest and open manner.     In fact, Halsbury’s Bankruptcy Laws Vol3 (2) para 345 states   “ Before resigning, the trustee MUST call a meeting of creditors…”

We now had to find and fight Mr Sleight or tackle Messrs Smith and Williamson and/or the partner, Neil Hickling, who took over Mr Sleight’s responsibilities. Apparently we could not sue Walker Morris directly but only the Trustee who overpaid them.

Things dragged on interminably but in the summer of 2003, we held a conference with Neil Hickling and Smith and Williamson’s solicitors. When we asked Mr Hickling the reason for the five months delay in replying to Mr Letts’ November 2001 letter he said,             

“It was due to a cock-up in the office !”     It was obvious that Mr Sleight was an embarrassment and that the partnership wanted quietly rid of him. 

All they have done for five years is employ frustrating, delaying and bullying tactics and remind us that their charge is £375 per hour, in the hope that we’ll give in.

In May 2005, the Costing Judge’s report said,          “having given Mr Sleight the benefit of all possible doubt,  (including his claim to be paid  ‘on the clock’, an open-ended situation, with which the creditors did not agree.)  I find Mr Sleight has overcharged.”  (by some 57% in fact).  The Costs Judge assessed the Trustees fees should have been no more than £71k  In actual fact Mr Sleight had paid himself  £111,774.                His entitlement, according to the official scale, which he himself suggested should be used,     was less than £30k 

In addition to that overcharge, Mr Sleight deprived the creditors of other large sums.               His unnecessary procrastination caused them a very substantial loss of interest,    (probably £40,000),    on cash in the bank awaiting distribution for some six years, which was confiscated by the state, grossly unfairly.

The figure he’d shown as the amount recovered,    constantly disputed by the creditors, of £506,000 was reduced to £287,000 by his partnership, as at November 30^th 2001.   The O.R. has agreed to repay any overpayment ‘on confirmation by Smith and Williamson’ who have so far ignored our requests for this action.

Mr Sleight abandoned the recovery, which he himself advised, of some £34,000 owed to the creditors by Mr Barlow’s corrupted sons.

I believe he overpaid Walker Morris by some £25,000 despite repeated complaints from the creditors.       The Costing Judge’s report says that      ‘the legal fees should be assessed.’

Mr Sleight sold Mr Barlow’s assets to Mrs Barlow at a fraction of the value without informing the creditors, as required under Halsbury’s Bankruptcy Laws Vol 3 (2) para 324 (6).  It was made very clear by Mr Barlow at his trial that Mr Sleight undersold the bankrupt’s other assets by some £100,000.     Thus the creditors have been left something like £275,000 short, due to Mr Sleights devious activities.   

Having SURREPTITIOUSLY obtained his release as Trustee, with the aid of his partners, without advising the creditors as required by law, he has bolted to Spain with his equally unsavoury wife and is beyond economic reach.

 His partners, having accepted responsibility for the Trusteeship, have refused to repay the amount by which creditors have been judged, officially, to have been overcharged.

My solicitor and a Chancery Lane ‘solicitors’ consultant’ have both strongly advocated  dropping any attempt to attain justice, simply on the grounds of cost.     They say I will only end up losing more money. This is because of the blatantly unfair legal system which is stacked in favour of unscrupulous lawyers and officers of the Court.

All I have been able to salvage on behalf of the Creditors is a ruling by District Judge Greenwood, on the evidence before him, confirming that Mr Sleight’s entitlement was no more than £71k and that “costs are reserved.”

After nearly thirteen years of mental hell, due to the wickedness of these men, I am now physically sick and impecunious because of all the villainy which I myself and my fellow creditors have had to endure.        I publish my bitter experience in the hope that it may alert other innocent people and that   something may be done to prevent such wholesale deception.

Everything I have alleged can be backed by corroboration of a fellow creditor and by tangible evidence,         A full official transcript of the entire eight-week trial of Mr Barlow and  THE FULLY DETAILED DIRTY HISTORY ARE AVAILABLE.    

A more detailed account is available –see  ‘The Whole Barlow / Sleight Story’

_{The language used throughout has been moderated on my solicitor’s advice!}