Capital troubles (Evening Standard article)

Taxi firm, Mayor's aide and disappearing cash
Andrew Gilligan


The Evening Standard has uncovered dramatic new allegations of fraud and intimidation in a project closely linked to the Mayor's senior adviser, Lee Jasper.

The project, run by two close associates of Mr Jasper - Greg Nowell and Clive Grey - received at least £280,000 from Ken Livingstone's London Development Agency and a further £70,000 from his other body, Transport for London, after strong pressure from Mr Jasper.Semi-derelict: The Clapham base of the Green Badge Taxi School

The supposed purpose of the funding was to support an organisation called the South London Green Badge Taxi School, teaching the Knowledge to would-be ethnic minority taxi drivers.

However, three former instructors at the Clapham-based "taxi school" have said it never operated properly after the grant, and never had more than a handful of students. None of the instructors was paid and the school lacked basic materials such as textbooks and proper maps.

One instructor said that when he walked out he was threatened and told "there would be bullets flying in my direction".

Bank statements seen by the Evening Standard show that only 17 days after the "taxi school" received its LDA grant - in 2002, according to the instructors - £25,000 of the money was diverted from the school's bank account into another body, the Inner City Fund.

The Inner City Fund was controlled by Mr Nowell and Mr Grey.

The ostensible reason was for "project management", but the sum paid was far in excess of the amount allowed for project management by the LDA.

The Inner City Fund filed no accounts for the relevant year. At the time it received the money it was being struck off the companies register for breaching company law regulations. Within weeks of receiving the money, it was struck off and all the cash vanished.

A few days later, according to bank statements and invoices seen by the Standard, a further £93,000 of the LDA grant was paid to a firm called Scape Developments, ostensibly for refurbishment of the "taxi school". Some work was carried out, but nothing like £93,000 worth.

The Standard has established that Scape Developments trades from the same floor of the same office building in London Road, Norbury, as another company, Phoenix Logistics. Both firms have the same official registered addresses, in Bond Street, Mayfair, and their directors are the same. The development manager of Phoenix Logistics is Mr Grey.

After a further few days, according to bank statements and invoices, another £45,000 was paid to a company called John Kent Automobiles, apparently to purchase taxis. The address of John Kent Automobiles is the Harrow home of Mr Nowell.

A few days after that, again according to bank statements and invoices, a further £15,000 was paid to Egal Consulting. One of its directors is Joe Ahmed-Dobson, the then LDA official responsible for administering the grant to Green Badge.

Mr Ahmed-Dobson is the son of Frank Dobson, the Labour MP and former candidate for Mayor. "There is no point in lying if you've got documentary evidence," said Mr Ahmed-Dobson. "I know it does look very bad. There is a clear conflict of interest." However, he denied personally pocketing the money.

Mr Ahmed-Dobson told us the original proposal from Green Badge scored "very low" on the LDA's funding bid assessment and should have been rejected at the first stage of the application process. But after what he said was intervention from a higher level than him, the application proceeded and was approved.

Within eight weeks of receiving the LDA money, the bank statements show, the Green Badge school's bank account had been almost emptied of a grant meant to last at least a year. Green Badge annual reports and letters seen by the Standard make clear the LDA and TfL grants were gained thanks to the "strong support of Lee Jasper", and many of the ordinary letters Green Badge sends are copied to their protector, Mr Jasper.

The Standard has also seen handwritten notes of thanks to Mr Jasper. "The partnership between Green Badge, TfL and the LDA was brought about through the good offices of Lee Jasper," says Mr Nowell in one of his chairman's reports. The Green Badge school appears to have been part of what is known as a "grant farm", in which Mr Nowell and Mr Grey created a number of "social enterprises", all based in the same small office, which then applied for public sector funding.

On the corner of one blank letterhead, a secretary has written: "Just print on to these if I do the verbiage."

As well as the Inner City Fund, other organisations included the Social Enterprise Group, the West London Construction Partnership, Bellamy Construction, and Careplus 2000 Ltd. Mr Grey and Mr Nowell went under various guises, including "His Excellency Greg Nowell, Vice President of World Health Concern Incorporated."

The pair enjoyed their greatest success with the Green Badge school which appears to have had some - but not very much - real existence.

The school was set up in the Eighties and appears to have been legitimate in its early years. However, by the time the LDA grant was received, according to three instructors who taught there, the school had become little more than a shell. One, Tom Marie, said he taught for three years without payment, apart from the subsidised use of one of its taxis and the occasional £100.

He said the school was refurbished when the LDA money came in, but only slightly, with new paint and new floors laid. Mr Marie said that he did some of the refurbishment himself, unpaid, and also had to act as the school's largely unpaid cleaner, as well as teaching.

"The only time Mr Grey ever inspected the classroom was on the odd occasion when dignitaries were walked through the school," said Mr Marie in a signed statement. "At no time past or present did the directors show any interest in the pupils."

Mr Marie said when he walked out he was threatened with "legal and physical action" by Mr Grey and was told "there would be bullets flying in my direction".

Another instructor, Mark Wynter, said that by 2005 the school had "virtually shut down" with only two lessons a week. Mr Wynter was unpaid too and financed his teaching by asking each pupil to pay him £5.

"The school lacked computers, books, proper maps, furniture and runs [ textbooks of routes for cab drivers]," he said. "Every time a new student arrived we had to send them to another school in order to purchase books. Money received was never used to advertise or to search out the disadvantaged the school was supposed to help."

Asked if he thought £93,000 could have been spent on refurbishment, Mr Wynter laughed and said: "No."

The Standard looked through windows of the "taxi school", in Clapham Manor Street. It is semi-derelict and nearly all the furniture has been removed.

Mr Grey claimed the LDA had "accepted" and "written off" the £25,000 transferred to the Inner City Fund. He said the £93,000 paid to Scape "could be explained" and insisted he was merely a "consultant" to Green Badge. All our instructor witnesses say, however, that he took a senior management role.

Mr Nowell, named as Green Badge chairman on many documents, put the phone down when the Standard tried to question him.

Mr Jasper refused to confirm or deny whether he had known or approved of alleged fraud. There is no evidence that he profited from the alleged fraud.

The LDA said the project had been externally audited "as a matter of routine" and claimed the results were submitted as a "statement of grant expenditure assuring funding was spent as intended." It said it had "no record" of any role played by Mr Jasper.

Red Ken is the most useless piece of meat ever to walk the planet. Old boy networks are making money under his nose and the guy keeps coming up with more stupid ways to tighten the screw on drivers in London.
As for money making schemes, has anybody looked into that taxi school working it's magic in burngreave? I can imagin that is something on similar lines to what these guys were up to, but someone in the know could answer that.

I have seen an advert for that taxi school at Burngreave in the past, have you a link to any website for them or know how to find them?