The Statement

[kite]

I suppos that bit is allegations right now slim, OG was stating the facts

[The Old Git]

I'd either think that he had nothing, or that he had an awful lot and was just maintaining a smug silence while I made a berk of myself until the 'day in court'. I know which I'm more inclined to believe.

 

But in light of the arrest by the police and him resigning as Chief Minister it's going to be a bit of a pyrrhic victory if he does win

 

Would you play poker against him?

[monkey_magic]

With the exception of FCMR's tools. everything else is documented and available for public viewing.

 

Reading between the lines I think FCMR's "no reply" needed thread was some part of the settlement in getting the tools back. Could be totally wrong though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Heh. "Make posts on teh interwebnet or you can't have your tools back!" Nah, can't see it myself.

 

Apologies in advance if this has been mentioned elsewhere on the thread (or indeed forum, can't be arsed reading it all) but on BBC news they gave a simplified summary of this. They said that Ned got the builder to do two lots of work.

 

(1) Holiday Cottages.

 

(2) Impovements to his home (including a snooker room).

 

Apparently he asked for the two to be invoiced seperately so that he could claim the grant for the holiday cottages, but not for the snooker room.

 

The builder forgot to do this, and put both jobs down on one invoice. Ned presumabely didn't notice when he handed in the invoice to claim the grant (and presumabely also didn't notice that he received extra money).

[Slim]

I remember now, it was manx radio who listed the sequence of events as including work on the snooker room on the invoices for the grants. According to them Neds defence to that is that the builder invoiced incorrectly.

[manxman8180]

My God, what have I started....sorry...

[simon]

So even if he is not charged with any criminal activity --> he could still later be found to have broken civil / planning / grant application rules.

 

I make the distinction ... because I think that if he is ultimately not charged with anything then many people may draw the conclusion that he has done nothing wrong.

[Slim]

Broken the law or not, given the string of fek ups, it's obvious that he's received more money than he should have, even by his own admission. Why didn't he just give it back?

[The Old Git]

Heh.  "Make posts on teh interwebnet or you can't have your tools back!"  Nah, can't see it myself. 

 

There was something abouyt FMCR's "This has been posted to confirm that an oustanding compaint has now been settled." that made me think he had been asked to make the posting

 

The builder forgot to do this, and put both jobs down on one invoice.

 

Is that "oops, I forgot" or "tee hee I 'forgot' "

[Ripsaw]

The builder forgot to do this, and put both jobs down on one invoice. Ned presumabely didn't notice when he handed in the invoice to claim the grant

A QS confirmed that the work done justified the invoices, so even if the snooker room was included, there is no fraud unless the QS included the snooker room in his appraisal for the purpose of paying the grant.

[kite]

there is a fraud if you sign the invoice as paid when its not though

[Addie]

What about the Builders in all this, have they not been stressed out, they too must be sure of winning their case, has one of them not sold his property to finance the legal case

 

Who paid the Legal fees for Mr Bell at Mount Murry and Neds legal fees in the ongoing case.

 

I hope the payment of legal fees aren't going to prove to be another minefield.

[P.K.]

I heard the Manx Radio report when the news broke that they were helping the police with their enquiries. From memory the salient points were:

 

1. GE Contruction claiming £100K+ from the Corkills for unpaid work

2. Corkills counter claim £96K from GE Construction made up of three elements. Sub-standard work by GE Construction, having to bring in other builders to make good the GE work and the subsequent delay meant lost revenue from the holiday cottages.

3. For the good of the IOM's reputation GE Construction dropped their claim to put an end to it.

4. The CM did not stand down as he thought it would set the wrong precedent that a CM should stand down just because of unproven allegations despite their very serious nature.

5. The Corkills were determined to have their day in court and so would not let the civil action drop.

 

Now I thought that GE Construction finished the job and the building inspector passed the work of being of a high standard. Clearly I got that bit wrong. I wonder who are the other builders that the Corkills had to bring in to finish the job? I cannot recall if the journo mentioned that there were two grants for one project or if it was rightly split or appropriately spent or whatever. However I am pretty sure that there was no mention of all the Planning Permission violations. However it has been said elsewhere that work was carried out on the main residence at the same time.

 

Anyway, that was the gist of the report and it was very informative. Although most of it, if not all of it, was already in the public domain they did a good job of pulling it all together. I wonder why MR haven't broadcast it again? They could at least archive the piece as there are obviously a lot of people who would like to hear it. I am also puzzled at why the CM resigned now. He stayed on out of the priniciple of innocent until proven guilty. That position has not changed despite his arrest. So perhaps it was the arrest itself that tipped the balance. After all, they are now facing a criminal case as well as a civil one.

[lectro]

Three FM news said this morning they had left the island. Can you do that when out on police bail?

[Ripsaw]

Facts:

 

1) When questioned in Tynwald Ned refered to the grant as "their scheme {DoT&L}, not mine" even though he himself announced the reintroduction when he was Financial Minister.

 

I commented at the time that he must have known the terms of claiming the grants and known that all monies had to be paid up before a claim could be processed.

 

In the Select Committee report that was linked to last week on the MSN Group pages Mr LePage was asked about the inconvinience of having to pay all bills before claiming and suthe suggestion that claimants may have to even take out bridging loans until they received the grant, and asked why...

 

His reply was that the department (T&L) were aware of this and consulted with Treasurey. It was on Treasurey insistance that the invoices should be paid in full then claims submitted. Now David Cretney was open enough to admit that as Minister, he had overall responsibility for all actions carried out by his department, so is it fair to say that the Finance Minister carried the same responsibility for decisions made by his department?

 

2) Ned insisted that the development was split into 2 following advice from the grant issuers as part of the application was being held back by planning objections. The two parts being the Apartments and the former workshop.

 

I have not found anything to suggest that 2 grant applications should be made to cover the 2 parts of this one development. The advice was given verbally and unwitnessed (which is against Government policy) and there is no evident paperwork to verify what was discussed. I did however found in the minutes of Onchan District Commisioners confirmation that they were to object to plannng permission for the Apartments as the soon to be created living accomodation was adjascent to "an industrial unit", namely the workshop.

01/1394 2 Self Contained Holiday

Cottages, Ballacain House,

Little Mill, Onchan

ODC Recommendation: Refusal

Initial Planning Decision: Approval

ODC to seek review of decision

 

Source: ODC Minutes, Jan 2002

 

In a following meeting, Onchan Commisioners agreed to withdraw their objection to the Apartments as there had been clarification that the workshop was no longer in use as an industrial unit and hadn't been for some time. The workshop was only being, and to continue to be used as a storage area for the main building.

The Chairman reminded members that when this application was considered by the committee concern was

expressed that the cottages would be immediately alongside an industrial/commercial building and

consequently the committee made a recommendation to the Board that the Planning Committee be requested to

refuse the application on the grounds of the juxtaposition of the proposed holiday units in relation to the

commercial/industrial workshop as shown on the application as this did not provide the best environs for

holiday accommodation.

It transpired that in forwarding a copy of the planning application to the commissioners, DOLGE had failed to

forward a copy of a covering letter which explained that the commercial/industrial building would cease to

function per se and would be used for storage in connection with Ballacain House.

 

Approved subject to the use of the adjacent

building {workshop} for motor repairs having ceased and the accommodation {apartments} being used for bonafide

tourist with no individual let exceeding two consecutive weeks in duration.

 

Source: ODC Minutes, Feb 2002

 

If the development was originally one application, later split into two parts, why did Onchan Commisioners require assurrance that the Unit wasn't being or going to be used in an industrial capacity, that is, it was also going to be living accomodation. According to the ODC minutes from their meetings, the application to convert the workshop to accomodation was listed some months later.

 

These 2 examples alone (of which there are a number) put enough doubt in my mind that Ned has been the victim of unfounded speculation and are publically available online.

[ans]

You can get permission provided they don't assess you as a flight risk.