Brian Kennedy:
The Cheshire Police Connection and ‘Rotherhamgate’:
The Rotherham Rugby Union Club Slush Fund
Brian Kennedy’s role in the investigation into the disappearace of Madeleine McCann is pivotal in the whole mystery. Here’s one of a number of artcices about him that we intend to feature on our website in the coming months.
An article by The Madeleine Foundation, 20 July 2010
As we’ve covered in our separate article about the McCanns’ private investigators, Cheshire-based Brian Kennedy has for the first three years after Madeleine McCann’s disappearance both funded and effectively directed the work of the McCanns’ private detectives.
CON-MAN
Latterly - early in 2009 - he appointed two ex-Cheshire retired police officers to head up his brand new private investigation team, handily placed in Knutsford, Cheshire. This followed his disastrous appointment of controversial Spanish detective agency, Metodo 3, as the lead private investigators for the McCanns, at a cost of a reputed £½ million. It appears they achieved nothing. That was followed by the even more embarrassing choice by Brian Kennedy of Kevin Halligen to lead the private investigation. For Halligen turned out to be a hard-drinking con-man who was picked up by police, hiding in a 4-star Oxford Hotel, in October last year. He was wanted for extradition to the United States, where he faced allegations of a $2 million fraud. Since October he has languished in the high security Belmarsh Prison, south-east London. He cost the McCann investigation a further £½ million, again drawing a total blank so far as obtaining any information regarding Madeleine’s whereabouts was concerned.
The two former Cheshire police officers he appointed, ex-Detective Inspector Dave Edgar and ex-Detective Sergeant Arthur Cowley, have been Kennedy’s chosen men for over a year.
CHESHIRE POLICE RENTS ACCOMMODATION FROM BRIAN KENNEDY
Less well-known is that a key department of Cheshire Police rents office space directly from one of Brian Kennedy’s many property companies.
As was reported in 2007, one of Kennedy’s property interests, Patrick Properties, very possibly named after his son Patrick, obtained a £60 million funding boost to exapnd their property portfolio. The company was established in 2002 by Brian Kennedy himself and Managing Director Andrew Dickman The Patrick Properties empire, based in Wilmslow, included Premier Park, Winsford and Crewe Business Park. One of the tenants of Patrick Properties is a department of Cheshire Police, the so-called ‘Public Order Training Unit’. Perhaps Kennedy’s close contacts with Cheshire Police enabled him to make the decision to appoint two ex-Cheshire detectives to assist with his private investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
A £750,000 BRIBE
But our main interest in this article is to look at claims that Brian Kennedy was involved in the planned payment of £750,000 bribes to Rotherham Rugby Union Club (Rotherham RUC) Club back in 2002.
On 19 December 2002, the Daily Telegraph published an article which began: “Sale Sharks owner Brian Kennedy stated yesterday that he would open every accounting book that he has in order to prove to a Rugby Football Union (RFU) enquiry that there was no slush fund set up to persude Rotherham RUC not to accedt promotion into the Premiership last season [= end of the 2001-2 season]. An article in May 2002 stated that Rotherham’s promotion to the Premiership had been rejected at the last minute due to inadequate paperwork.
A week earlier, on 12 December 2002, the Telegraph had broken the story of how Worcester Rugby Union Club owner Cecil Duckworth had told the RFU how a special slush fund was set up to bribe Rotherham RUC into failing to meet the criteria for being promoted to the top flight the next season. In the event, they failed to be promoted on the grounds that they had ‘failed to provide the required documentation relating to ground-sharing with Rotherham United Football Club’.
The Telegraph reported that Duckworth had met RFU officials at Twickenham to air his complaint. A three-man RFU delegation, Chief Executive Francis Baron, Chairman Graeme Cattermole and Disciplinary Officer Robert Horner were charged with pusuing an investigation into the alleged scandal. They later appointed an independent inquiry headed by Anthony Arlidge, QC, to investigate the whole matter.
Duckworth’s allegation was that influential owners of several Premiership clubs considered a payment of £68,000 per club to encourage Rotherham not to accept promotion. Brian Kennedy was named by Duckworth as one of the alleged co-conspirators.
The background to this is that the 12 Premiership clubs had for years believed to have conspired to keep themselves as an ‘exclusive’ club of the top dozen clubs. The ‘relegation issue’ was a source of controversy for years, with concerns that the 12-strong Premiership was keeping out other clubs leading to an official Office of Fair Trading investigation being started in September 2001.
In the event (see below), Rotherham also officially received an amount varioulsy said to be £740,000 or £720,000 as a ‘parachute payment’ designed to compensate for their failure to be promoted.
KENNEDY REACTS ANGRILY
Kennedy reacted swiftly and angrily: “When someone makes such a high-profile accusation as this, on allegations that are unfounded, with evidence that is flawed, we have to go public in response. I want my part in this inquiry to be clear, overt and fair. If we turn our back on it, then the implication will be that there is something to hide. The truth is that there is nothing to hide. Come and see my books. These allegations are wrong. I for one will not be sneaky and underhand when it comes to giving my evidence. There are some daft notions flying about. One paper suggested yesterday that owners like me are in it for the money to be made. How ridiculous! If I'd invested in rugby in order to make money, then I would seriously question my commercial judgement. I came in to stop Sale from disappearing off the map, to try and give the North-West some top-class sport. That's all. All I'm interested in is driving this business towards break-even. I'll tell you now, if I ever did make a profit at Sale then I'd give it all to charity”.
SECRET MEETINGS
But The Times unearthed evidence of secret meetings. They reported that:
“Allegations that Premiership rugby union clubs considered bribing Rotherham not to take up their promotion place last season were given fresh impetus yesterday. The independent inquiry set up by the RFU has received information claiming that three leading club figures held a secret meeting at a Jersey bank last August, only a fortnight before the new season began. According to the information, the individuals, two from Premiership sides and one from a First Division club, met at a bank in St Helier on 16 August 2002. When contacted by The Times yesterday, one of the men, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied ever having been to the Channel Islands. The other two did not return calls”.
The Times report continued:
“If the meeting is substantiated, what they discussed could be of great importance to the inquiry investigating claims that Rotherham were to be paid £750,000 to turn down promotion last season, after winning the National League First Division title. The inquiry team has also been notified of details of a meeting allegedly held between two prominent rugby personalities on a yacht off Monte Carlo last May. The head of the inquiry team, Anthony Arlidge Q.C., had also been told of an England international from a Premiership club, involved in last season’s relegation battle, who claimed that he knew as early as last February that no club would go down because ‘a “deal had been struck’.
The report went on: “Mike Yarlett, the Chief Executive of Rotherham RUC, denied receiving any payments, described the allegations as ‘mischief making’, but then refused to assist the enquiry in any way”.
The £750,000 was alleged to be have been paid to Rotherham in addition to the ‘parachute payment’ to which the club was entitled. Half the £750,000 would, it is alleged, have come from central Premier Rugby funds and the other half from the 12 clubs themselves, who would each contribute £31,250.
The Times continued: “According to information passed to The Times, this was agreed at a meeting at the Weston Manor Hotel, near Oxford, in October 2001 and rubber-stamped on 6 April last year. The allegations surrounding last season surfaced after claims were made about a similar payment this year for Rotherham, who are again favourites for promotion. This was allegedly discussed at a meeting at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, near Heathrow, on Monday, December 2”.
RUGBY CHAIRMEN DISCIPLINED
Anthony Arlidge Q.C. in his final report, made adverse comments on four individuals in particular: Premier Rugby Ltd (PRL) chairman Charles Jillings, Gloucester Rugby Union Club owner Tom Walkinshaw, Northampton Rugby Union Club owner Keith Barwell, and Rotherham chairman Mike Yarlett.
Warning letters about their conduct in the ‘Rotherhamgate’ affair sent to Walkinshaw and Jillings “indicated the RFU's displeasure in the way, as successive chairmen of PRL they either encouraged or allowed discussions about improper payments to Rotherham RUFC”.
Mike Yarlett of Rotherham RFC was rebuked for “his willingness to manipulate the facts to fit a required situation in relation to the date of signing a lease in relation to the use of Millmoor (Rotherham United FC Ground)”.
Worcester Rugby Union Club chairman Cecil Duckworth was also reprimanded, for ‘airing dirty laundry in public rather than pursuing a complaint through official Rugby Football Union channels’.
Whistle-blowers are rarely popular.
Sources used in compiling this article:
http://menmedia.co.uk/news/business/s/1007366_kennedy_property_arm_secures_60m_boost
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/article809450.ece
[Madeleine Foundation article 20 July 2010]
