Old News

Secret Fisher Report

The report is written in a typically guarded accountant's style, even so it contains extraordinary details of cover ups by John Gardner, head of the General Purposes and Finance committee, including one where he overruled Paul Talbot and frustrated the forensic accountants in their task. The report:

1) Confirms that 80% of Mendes' (the MSF Head of Finance) expense claims that they could find were fraudulent, MSF having 'lost' most of the expense forms.

2) Confirms that the Head of Finance stole around £10,000 from our union in 1997 alone.

3) States that all Mendes' false claims that the auditors saw were approved by either General Secretary Lyons or John Chowcat, the paid off Assistant General Secretary.

4) It explains exactly how Mendes was stealing from the union:
a) He was attaching train tickets, presumably removed from other peoples' valid expense claims, to make his fraudulent expense claims. Unfortunately for him all these tickets were to, not from, his place of work.
b) He then claimed taxis fares and meals for the tail end of his non existent journeys.
c) He also claimed expenses with only a visa receipt then altered the date on the proper receipt and claimed again, on his next expense form!
d) Most stupidly, he clamed for a visit to Fishers the accountants on 29th December. W H Fisher & Company are always closed between Christmas and New Year.

5) The report finds that there were 234 accounts that appeared in the MSF membership list that did not appear on Unity Trust Bank's list. MSF's explanation was that they also bank with Bank of Ireland and Co-Op Bank. Fishers do not appear to have checked with these banks.

6) There are 227 branches that they are unable to match to Unity Trust Bank's list of accounts.

7) At this point Fishers reveal an extraordinary cover up on the part of John Gardner: "We explained the situation to John Gardner and subsequently Paul Talbot, with a view to contacting the individual branches and asking them to provide their bank account details. Mr Talbot drafted an appropriate questionnaire to be sent to Regional offices and the relevant branches, a copy of which we approved for sending. However, Mr Gardner has requested that these questionnaires not be sent out, as he is concerned that this would create unwanted speculation within the MSF organisation at a politically sensitive time." The forensic accountants add caustically: "it is still our opinion that the questionnaires should have been sent out."

8) Fishers admit they have failed to prove that the UTB list contained all accounts held by MSF during 1997 and that all potential references to other accounts had been fully reconciled to the UTB list.

9) Gardner is indicted again in what could charitably be described as a failure or what might be a second cover up, and which resulted in the accountants' task being frustrated: "We agreed with John Gardner and the Certification Officer that he would write to Mendes in order to request his family bank accounts for 1997. We understand that this information has not been made available and we cannot therefore carry out any work in this area."

10) MSF Head office cheques are made out to "CASH" , one such cheque allowed someone to withdraw £8,500 in used notes from a bank.

11) Unbelievably Fishers seemed to be unaware of Lyons famous American Express card: "There are various payments to American Express Europe. E.g. £5,394 on 4 April 1997, from a/c no. S@@@@B. We wanted to ensure that someone within MSF did have an MSF American Express credit card. MSF explained that Tim Hanley, a conference co-ordinator, held an American Express corporate card and that these payments relate to expenditure on his card."

12) Nelson Mendes was signing cheques with just a single character: "Nelson appears to have begun to sign this cheque but not finished his signature. Accordingly, the signature reads 'N'." Could be Nelson or Napoleon!

13) The final paragraph, with classic understatement, reveals that Fishers supplemental report did not even look into Lyons improper expense claims: "The Certification Officer is concerned only with incidents where expense claims have been made for which no expense was actually incurred. All the expenses referred to in Allegation 6 were incurred by Credit Card and therefore there is no doubt that the expenses actually took place. Accordingly, no further work was carried out in this area."

Read the report in full (click here)

Characters like "@@@!/@@" indicate sections that have been blacked out by MSF. All appendices have been removed by MSF.

Posted www.rogerlyons.com on 16th January 2002