At last, watchdog looks into drug dealing law boss
WE’RE WATCHING YOU 1
LAST week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Town & Country Law Ltd of Lincoln, which is fully authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as a credit broker, is controlled by James Scotney, who has a prison record for dealing in Class A drugs.
Four previous directors of the company are awaiting trial on fraud-related charges. They include Robynne Casswell. Yet the FCA’s public register advised anyone with a complaint against the business to contact her.
Scotney denied that Casswell has any current connection to his company, but confirmed that ‘we are regulated by the FCA for any financial services, and I am the approved person’ – meaning he has been vetted by the watchdog and given its blessing as ‘fit and proper’ to run the business, which also offers funeral plans and prepares legal documents such as wills.
The FCA was offered the evidence
Why did the FCA give its blessing to THIS law firm?
in advance if it wished to comment. The watchdog demanded the evidence, but refused to say whether it would comment, so it only saw the report when it was published last Sunday.
I reported then that we would give space today for the FCA to comment, and to say whether it was aware of Scotney’s record. Anyone seeking approval to play a major role in an authorised firm has to supply details of any convictions, and the FCA – which has 4,000 people on its staff – has access to criminal records to carry out checks.
I also asked the FCA why it told complainants to contact Robynne Casswell if, as Scotney told me, she is no longer at Town & Country Law. Did the FCA not know she had left? Did it not know that she faces charges linked to the firm?
Last Wednesday, the FCA admitted it was wrong to name Casswell.
It told me: ‘The firm did update its complaints details last year and a system error on our side meant that the details were not changed. This has been corrected and we are looking into what happened.’
But the watchdog refused to discuss whether Scotney concealed his drug-dealing conviction to win FCA approval, or alternatively whether he declared it but the FCA judged him fit and proper anyway. An official explained that it is a firm’s responsibility to use the Government’s Disclosure and Barring Service and then confirm that an applicant has a clean record. But since Scotney runs the company, this is like asking him to mark his own homework.
The most the FCA would say was: ‘We are looking again at the circumstances surrounding the disclosure of Scotney’s conviction.’