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INTRODUCTION
This Blog is dedicated to making public some of the business activities and methods of Liam Collins, David Bone Jr and their associates. In the spring of 2010, the present authors invested in Collins & Bone (C&B), who were offering an enticing 8-10% interest on the basis of buying houses for cash, renovating them and letting them out to students. We were assured that our money was secured against houses that they owned, including their own homes and the properties held by their associated company, Castle & Gatehouse (C&G). We have emails and brochures that confirm these details, as do others who invested on this same basis at around the same time. The idea worked for us for over a year, then in November 2011 they told us they were insolvent. They refused our every request for clear accounts, which led us to suspect wrongdoing. We began an investigation and then started this Blog. We found our suspicions confirmed: other investors had lost sometimes quite large amounts to C&B and its predecessor CBS, and all requests for repayment were adamantly refused. These people use and have used so many names that we found it necessary to compress them into CoBo (for Collins & Bone) and Coboco (for the whole bunch of them – there are quite a few!) Note that there is an index in the margin at the right hand side.

Friday 30 August 2013

JUSTICE CLOSES IN ON COLLINS AND BONE

Today the Insolvency Service posted the following Press Release on its website:

Britain's Got Talent dancer and business partner get 28-year bankruptcy restrictions for investment scam

Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Liam James Collins, and his business partner and fellow street dancer David Bone, have each received 14-year bankruptcy restrictions for misleading people into investing in a property scheme that never materialised.

The restrictions, which also disqualify them from being directors, started on 25 July 2013, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Mr Collins and Mr Bone gave the bankruptcy restrictions undertakings to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovations and Skills, following earlier bankruptcy orders made on 9 May 2012 and 31 May 2012 respectively. They each owed over £4.5 million to creditors.

Investigators found that from January 2010 to April 2011, Mr Collins (34) of Covent Garden, London, who danced on the TV show as one half of the act “Faces of Disco” and his cousin, David Bone (31) of Middleton, Greater Manchester, took £874,000 from investors promising returns of between eight and ten percent, but instead used the funds to pay business expenses.

At the time, the two dancers already owed over £3 million to creditors following the failure of a similar property business. Between November 2010 and April 2011, they also took a further £187,500 from the public despite being warned not to do so by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Mr Collins and Mr Bone failed to carry out any of the investment activity that investors would have reasonably expected them to do. When investors sought explanations they were misled and the true state of the partnerships finances were kept from them.

Commenting on the case, Ken Beasley of the Insolvency Service’s Public Interest Unit said:

“At a time when they were already heavily indebted Collins and Bone took substantial sums of money from members of the public with the promise of high returns on property investments with no reasonable expectation that they would ever be able to meet the repayments promised to investors."

"The Insolvency Service investigates the circumstances of all bankruptcies and will use its enforcement powers to tackle serious misconduct of this kind.”

Contact Information.  Media Enquiries should be directed to Kathryn Montague – Media Relations Manager – 020 7674 6910 or Ade Daramy, Press Officer - 020 76596 6187.

Thursday 22 August 2013

OUR AIM AND HOW THINGS STAND REGARDING COLLINS AND BONE

Our aim, from the start of this Blog, as most readers know, has been to clarify the accounts of Collins and Bone and their associates (Coboco) and to find out what happened to the investors’ money. We had to ensure that the two persons in the forefront of this case, the perpetrators Liam Collins and David Bone Jr, were bankrupted in order that scrutiny of their financial accounts could commence.

The analysis of those accounts is the job of the Public Trustee (PT). In this case, Messrs Chantrey Vellacott were nominated when their agent, Mr David Clements, was working for them and was in touch with us. Since he left the firm, Chantrey Vellacott does not seem to have considered it any kind of priority to communicate with Collins and Bone's creditors. Professional people these days do charge very high fees and consequently the Public Trustee feels that it would be too costly to scrutinize all of the said accounts in detail; witness that Chantrey Vellacott, having scarcely scratched the surface of the said accounts, have already managed to rack up a bill of £40,000 plus VAT—and that doesn’t take account of their lawyer! We realise that the cost of maintaining offices in Russell Square and elsewhere must be exorbitant,* but that can’t be a problem to dump on CoBo’s creditors, can it? Nor is it fair to plunder the sole (at present) discoverable asset pertaining to Collins & Bone, namely, the property at 25 Shelton Street, London. ‘Trustee’ means someone who is to be trusted, but it doesn’t mean someone who can be trusted to get as much out of a situation for themselves without the slightest regard to the other people and other factors involved.

The Trustees, Chantrey Vellacott, have called a creditors’ meeting in order to approve their charges and they have offered to host this meeting at the nominal charge of £100 plus VAT for the use of one of their rooms for this purpose. They have not stated whether this fee would include refreshments, sandwiches, etc. There can be no doubt that this would present an absurd situation for CoBo’s creditors. Something more equitable will have to be worked out, as well as something more reasonable by way of fees. 

No wonder British business is in a parlous state! We warn that with this sort of grab-and-snatch attitude, everyone will eventually lose out.

Meanwhile, evidence is surfacing that David Bone Sr and Mark Black benefited substantially from money that investors entrusted to Collins & Bone and to CBS. In fact, they were able to draw on those funds at will, without any proper checks. ('Those funds' = money paid to them in good faith by many readers of this Blog, as well as ourselves).

We call upon all those involved in this case to pull their socks up and help us shovel away this sorry mess. You are invited to rise up from your sofas.

* Mr Clements was based in Reading, where it is logical to suppose that overheads are considerably less overheated than they are in central London.

Friday 16 August 2013

LIAM COLLINS ADMITS MISCONDUCT IN BRU

Liam Collins has signed a Bankruptcy Restriction Undertaking (BRU) for the maximum period less one year, that is, for 14 years. He has admitted the Official Receiver's findings of misconduct as detailed in the following extract:

"Between 5 November 2010 and 29 April 2011, Liam James Collins (“Mr Collins”) continued to accept investments from members of the public by way of promissory notes totalling £187,500 in contravention of the Financial Services Marketing Act 2000 (FSMA) and despite being explicitly requested to cease doing so by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Mr Collins also failed to notify existing investors of their statutory rights under the FSMA as required by the FSA on 26 October 2010.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011, whilst trading in partnership with David Bone as property investment, lettings and renovation, although not personally responsible for financial transactions, Mr Collins allowed the misappropriation of investor monies totalling at least £874,000. In particular:

"At January 2010, the Collins and Bone partnership (“C&B”) had existing liabilities under promissory notes totalling £3,047,845, given to investors in a group of companies that had gone into liquidation on 18 December 2009, and of which David Bone and Mr Collins were directors.

"From January 2010, Mr Collins made misleading representations to members of the public to induce further investments in C&B.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011 further investments totalling at least £874,000 by way of Promissory Note were accepted by C&B. Mr Collins was indirectly involved in several Joint Venture Agreements and he believed that the future revenue streams of those agreements had the potential to repay investors. As C&B were not formally party to those agreements C&B investors had no legal entitlement to any potential funds arising from, or legal recourse against the third parties contracted to, those Joint Venture Agreements.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011 C&B did not undertake any business activity relating to that which the investors would have reasonably expected their investments to have been applied given the representations of C&B.

"Between January 2010 and September 2011, in providing explanations for the delay in payments properly due to investors from C&B under the terms of Promissory Notes issued, Mr Collins provided inaccurate information concerning the valuation of assets held by the partnership,  the estimate of expected income receipts from third party ventures and the likelihood that investors would receive payments due in the future."  

As far as we know, no-one is in possession of the facts relating to what exactly happened to the £3 million plus which the partners took from CBS investors. They certainly misused the £1 million approx. which they had extracted by means of false promises from C&B investors in 2010. We are not aware of their having shown any sign of remorse, but we would point out that the way is always open for them to start seriously co-operating with the investigation, regardless of the embarrassment this would entail for them. The partners need to 'come clean' before being able to make sincere efforts to 'go straight' in future.

It seems that Liam Collins may have misled his family and close associates with business fantasies that took little account of legality, but that does not absolve those people of complicity.

Monday 12 August 2013

DAVID BONE JR - THE OR's FINDINGS OF MISCONDUCT

We received today a copy of David Bone Jr's BRU (Bankruptcy Restriction Undertaking) from the Official Receiver. Liam Collins's BRU will follow in a few days. Following below is an extract from the above mentioned document. (Note that David Bone Jr has put his signature to all of these findings).

"The matters of misconduct admitted were:

"Between 5 November 2010 and 29 April 2011, David Bone (“Mr Bone”) continued to accept investments from members of the public by way of promissory notes totalling £187,500 in contravention of the Financial Services Marketing Act 2000 (FSMA) and despite being explicitly requested to cease doing so by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Mr Bone also failed to notify existing investors of their statutory rights under the FSMA as required by the FSA on 26 October 2010.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011, whilst trading in partnership with Liam Collins as property investment, lettings and renovation, Mr Bone caused the misappropriation of investor monies totalling at least £874,000. In particular:

"At January 2010, the Collins and Bone partnership (“C&B”) had existing liabilities under promissory notes totalling £3,047,845, given to investors in a group of companies that had gone into liquidation on 18 December 2009, and of which Liam Collins and Mr Bone were directors. 

"From January 2010, although not personally responsible for sales, Mr Bone allowed misleading representations to be made to members of the public to induce further investments in C&B.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011 further investments totalling at least £874,000 by way of Promissory Note were accepted by C&B. Mr Bone was indirectly involved in several Joint Venture Agreements and he believed that the future revenue streams of those agreements had the potential to repay investors as C&B were not formally party to those agreements C&B investors had no legal entitlement to any potential funds arising from, or legal recourse against the third parties contracted to, those Joint Venture Agreements. 

"Between January 2010 and April 2011 C&B, did not undertake any business activity relating to that which the investors would have reasonably expected their investments to have been applied given the representations of C&B.

"Between January 2010 and September 2011, although not personally responsible for investor communications, in providing explanations for the delay in payments properly due to investors from C&B under the terms of Promissory Notes issued, Mr Bone allowed Liam Collins to provide inaccurate information concerning the valuation of assets held by the partnership,  the estimate of expected income receipts from third party ventures and the likelihood that investors would receive payments due in the future."

NB  The areas of misconduct by the partners refer to C&B investors from January 2010. The matter of the bona fide CBS investors, on the other hand, who have seen more than £3 million disappear so far without trace has yet to be properly investigated.

Saturday 10 August 2013

COLLINS & BONE - A FOURTEEN YEAR BANKRUPTCY RESTRICTION FOR BOTH PARTNERS

Readers will appreciate that confidentiality has prevented us from keeping them as bang up to date with developments as we would wish, but we are able to report the following:

Liam Collins and David Bone Jr have finally had to accept a Bankruptcy Restriction Undertaking (BRU) for fourteen years each. This is just one year short of the maximum restriction that the Secretary of State can impose. 

The partners have had to accept the findings of the Official Receiver and his allegations in their case. A report of these findings will be issued to creditors as well as a Press notice. Details of the restrictions and the partners' misconduct may also be published on the Insolvency Services website.

CoBo did not make it easy for the Court or the Official Receiver: they did their best, as usual, to delay matters and quibble over many points. David Bone Jr only agreed to a BRU on the day of his court hearing, so the OR's representative, his assistant and one of our investors travelled to the Court only to be told that the case had been superseded.

The partners have wasted the time of many officials in their attempts to wriggle out of responsibility for the wide-spread mess they have created.

As soon as we have a copy of the OR's findings we shall publish them here.

To conclude, we make the critical point that we still have no idea whatsoever as to what CoBo did with the money they raked in. We suspect that much of it may have gone into now concealed assets, some of them perhaps abroad.

Sometimes a jail sentence is the only way to drive home the fact that dishonest business will meet with society's firm disapproval.