Bankers in £245m scam ‘kept a drawer filled with cash and Viagra for escort sex parties’
A BANKER at the centre of a £245million loan scam held sex parties with escorts which were fuelled by Viagra and funded by bribes, a court heard yesterday.
Married Lynden Scourfield, 54, received envelopes of notes worth up to £4,000 at the central London flat where the events were held, it was alleged.
The former senior director at Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) stored the cash in a kitchen drawer – which also contained a stash of Viagra – and used it to pay women whom he liked to dress in ‘suspenders and mini-dresses’, the jury heard.
Scourfield was allegedly showered with gifts, including a £3,000 Cartier watch and luxury cruises, in return for signing off vast loans to businesses on the brink of collapse.
Former banker and venture capitalist David Mills, 60, offered the rewards to ensure Scourfield’s clients used him as a ‘turnaround consultant’ as part of the terms of the loan, it was claimed.
The corrupt lending, between 2003 and 2007, forced HBOS to write off losses of £245million when it was finally uncovered.
Scourfield was also the beneficiary of ‘sexual entertainment which … was provided to him on a fairly frequent basis,’ prosecutor Brian O’Neill QC said.
Michael Bancroft, one of Mills’s associates, told a colleague that Scourfield ‘had an unhappy marriage and that he would want a woman to have sex with whilst in the capital,’ the court heard. A staff member said she was asked to ‘book girls’ for some ‘posh t*** banker friends’.
Scourfield and Bancroft were subsequently among a group, including three escorts, who dined in central London’s Royal China Restaurant in December 2005, jurors heard. ‘The group adjourned to a nearby flat where various sex acts took place, Mr O’ Neill told the court.
A diary note from the escorts concluded: ‘Drinks at flat and quick shag. Easy £1,500. Home late and drunk.’
Another diary entry, from 2005 when the escort and two others, named Amber and Starr, entertained the men, said: ‘Portman Square W1. Drink G/G/G show songs, sex … stockings classy.’
Bancroft later told an associate that one of the girls had filmed one of the parties on her phone. He added that Scourfield ‘suffered from premature ejaculation, liked to undress girls and liked girls to wear suspenders and mini-dresses’. Another of the escorts, using the pseudonym Suzie Best, was said to have been a particular favourite of Scourfield.
‘Suzie Best describes one of the men as a Danny DeVito lookalike – short and bald,’ the court heard.
Bancroft hired a man named Terry Holligan who made deliveries of envelopes containing up to £4,000 in £10 and £20 notes to Scourfield at the Portman Square flat.
If the banker was not there he was told to leave it in the ‘blue drawer’ which was where Bancroft ‘kept his stash of Viagra’.
On one occasion he was greeted by Scourfield, wearing only a towel, who appeared from the bedroom and said: ‘Hi Terry, you got some stuff for me?’ As he was talking, a girl in her twenties came out of the bedroom, the court heard.
Mr Holligan was later told the cash was ‘funny money’ for Scourfield to pay for girls. He went back to make two further deliveries and on the third occasion saw the same girl with ‘a slightly older one’.
Scourfield was also allegedly bribed by Mills with free travel at the expense of a company called Bradman Lake Group Ltd, and had free rein over an American Express card the consultant owned for more than two years, the court heard.
Clothes, jewellery, luxury hotels and business-class flights – including a trip to the US costing more than £2,000 – were all frequently purchased using the card. Further lavish spending took place at an oyster bar, it was alleged.
He went on several trips, some of which were clearly ‘boys’ jollies’, Mr O’Neill said.
The purchases allegedly included a Cartier watch worth more than £3,000 in Barbados in 2005 and a six-star, all-inclusive cruise on the Mediterranean for the Scourfield and Mills couples in October 2004.
Together they occupied the second most expensive accommoda-
‘Suspenders and mini-dresses’ ‘Money to pay for girls’
tion on the ship, the two-bedroom Royal Suite, Mr O’Neill said.
He added that on several occasions Scourfield asked the person organising the trips to send the details to his personal email rather than his HBOS one.
In total, the Scourfields allegedly received almost £60,000 in identifiable corrupt gifts in this way.
Tom Angus, a senior HBOS director from 2006 and Scourfield’s direct line manager, told the court: ‘The very fact that he had a card would place him in an indefensibly vulnerable position.
‘If personal usage is on the card then the suspicion would be that there can only be one reason – that the client wants you to do something in return that may not be in keeping with your duty of care to the bank.’
Scourfield is not on trial. Mills, 59, appeared in the dock with his wife Alison Mills, 51, of Moreton-inMarsh, Gloucestershire; Michael Bancroft, 73, of Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire; Mark Dobson, 55, of Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire; Jonathan Cohen, 57, of Pinner, north-west London; and John Cartwright, 71, from Hyde, Cheshire.
The list of charges, which the six all deny, includes conspiracy to corrupt, fraudulent trading and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. The trial continues.