Disgraced solicitor tried to fraudulently claim proceeds of property deal

Disgraced former solicitor and convicted fraudster Rodney Whiston-Dew has been using the court system to attempt to fraudulently get hold of the proceeds of a property deal, a High Court judge said in a ruling handed down yesterday (27 March). Whiston-Dew was jailed for 10 years in 2017 for his role in a fraudulent investment scheme that swindled investors, including celebrities and aristocrats, out of more than £100m. He was released from jail in December 2022 and is subject to a criminal confiscation order of more than £3m which, if it isn’t paid, could lead to him going back to jail. In a judgment handed down today, Senior Master Fontaine, a judge at the High Court, said that he and other judges have come to the conclusion that Whiston-Dew and a company controlled by him has sought to fraudulently use the court system to get hold of money that they were not entitled to. According to the ruling, the case centres on a plot of contaminated land owned by a company called Judmick Estates. The company was placed in creditors’ voluntary liquidation in 2011 and the claimant in this case, insolvency practitioner Jonathan Sinclair, was appointed liquidator. Just before his appointment, the land was sold for £435,000. According to the ruling, the Crown Prosecution Service told Sinclair that Judmick was owned by another company that was 60% owned by shareholders, including Whiston-Dew, who were being prosecuted for fraud. As a result, £275,000 of the sum was placed in escrow until what should be done with it is resolved. To make matters more complicated, there was some evidence that a loan was taken out by Judmick related to land. And in 2021 Winston-Dew was made bankrupt and a trustee appointed. This, according to the ruling, led to a complicated dispute over the escrow. According to the ruling, this was further complicated in 2021 when a company called Churwitz took action in Norwich County Court over the sum, claiming to be a creditor of Whiston-Dew. The judgment describes a series of complicated legal proceedings in Norwich County Court which, Senior Master Fontaine said, “appeared to be an attempt to carry out a fraud”. According to the ruling, Sinclair told the court that, upon doing research, he had “uncovered evidence that led him to take the view that the loan [to Judmick] was a sham”. Meanwhile, according to the ruling, an online insolvency publication called Financial Fraudsters News started publishing articles saying Sinclair was a fraudster who had stolen the escrow funds. The publication, the judge said, had the same registered address in the Cayman Islands as Churwitz. “In the circumstances described above, the court was asked to draw an inference that the defendants, and specifically the first defendant [Whiston-Dew], who appears to be the controlling mind of Churwitz, have some involvement in the online publications from Financial Fraudsters News, and that the first defendant is also likely to be the controlling mind of Financial Fraudsters News,” the judge said. “The likely involvement of the defendants in such publications is supported by the conclusions that I and other judges have come to that both defendants have acted fraudulently in both the Norwich County Court proceedings,” the judge said. “Further, it is apparent that the fraud sought to be perpetrated was designed to obtain a judgment against the claimant and his solicitor to enable the first defendant to obtain funds held as part of the escrow sum, to which he had no entitlement.” The judge ruled in favour of Sinclair and awarded him costs. Jonathan Harris Sinclair (liquidator of Judmick Estates Ltd (in creditors’ voluntary liquidation)) v Rodney Whiston-Dew (1), Churwitz Stanford AG Holdings Ltd (2) and Virgil Levy (trustee in bankruptcy of the first defendant) High Court (Senior Master Fontaine) 23 March 2023