Conn Farrell
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Solicitor on trial over Ritz hotel 'sale scam'
June 09, 2010
A SOLICITOR from Aldershot is among a trio of men who claimed they could sell The Ritz hotel in London, in an attempt to pocket a huge cash deposit, a court has heard.
Conn Farrell, of Cambridge Road, Aldershot, is standing trial at Southwark Crown Court, accused with two other men of duping their victims into handing over a £1m cash advance on the five-star hotel in Piccadilly, jurors were told.
Farrell, 57, Anthony Lee, 49, and Patrick Dolan, 68, are alleged to have told two businessmen that they were buying The Ritz for £200m – a claim that the court heard was beyond the "wildest dreams" of plausibility.
Lee told potential buyers he was a "close friend" of Ritz owners the Barclay twins - Sir Frederick and Sir David, who also own the Daily Telegraph - and had a contract to buy the property for a "bargain" £200m before selling it on for £250m, it is claimed.
The charade was so successful that businessman Terence Collins and his Dutch financial backer Marcel Boerkhoorn were persuaded to make the £1m downpayment, which the fraudsters simply pocketed, the court heard.
On Tuesday this week, prosecutor Anuja Dhir QC told jurors: "These three defendants were each involved in a simple but well-targeted and ambitious scam.
"They promised their targets something which seemed too good to be true – the opportunity to buy The Ritz hotel and casino in Piccadilly for the bargain price of £250m.
"They did not have the ability or in fact the intention to fulfil that promise."
The prosecutor said that the trio "sucked in" their victims with false promises, and frustrated them with unnecessary requests until they managed to extract a payment of £1m.
She added that the sale promised by the defendants was "all based on one big lie".
Bank account
"The deal that sounded too good to be true was complete fantasy," she said.
"The defendants were never in a position to be able to sell The Ritz to Terence Collins, Marcel Boerkhoorn, or anyone else for that matter.
"They knew that, of course, but their victims did not. That makes them guilty of conspiracy to defraud."
Miss Dhir said property developers Dolan and Lee pretended they would be able to procure The Ritz's sale at the lower price, and so they recruited Farrell – then a partner at solicitor's firm Farrell, Martin and Nee – to act as their lawyer.
"The representations that he made in his capacity as a solicitor gave the story put forward by Lee and Dolan an additional degree of legitimacy," she told the court.
Jurors heard that in 2006 Lee had approached 'middle-man' Karen Maguire, and asked her if she could find a buyer interested in purchasing The Ritz.
There followed six months of negotiations, culminating on December 15 that year, when a company owned by Mr Boerkhoorn paid £1m into an Irish bank account controlled by Lee, it was said.
Mr Boerkhoorn and Mr Collins had been led to believe that once this payment had been made, contracts for the sale and other legal documents would be sent by Farrell for lawyers acting for the buyers.
Miss Dhir told the court that "almost the first thing" Lee did upon receiving the money was to pay £435,000 to Dolan.
She added: "Once the £1m was paid into Lee’s bank account, the defendants immediately began to place hurdles in the way of the proposed transaction."
No legal documents were ever sent by Farrell and the money was never returned, jurors were told.
The court heard Lee and Dolan now claim the £1m payment was money that Lee was owed for a separate property deal with Mr Collins, while Farrell insists he acted on the instructions of his clients.
Dolan, of Phillip Lane, Seven Sisters, London, and Lee, of Broad Lane, Goole, Yorkshire, deny conspiracy to defraud between January 1, 2006 and March 30, 2007, as does Farrell. The trial continues.
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