60 replies to this topic

[Graham Gauld]

Fred Bushell who was financial director of Lotus, died last Saturday morning at 8 am. He had been in a nursing home for some time but was taken to hospital on Friday night but died in the morning.
I often felt that Fred ended up the fall guy in the whole De Lorean affair and went to prison for it.
I had hoped to see him once he had got better but sadly he is now gone.

GG

[Macca]

Very sad news.



Another link with past gone; and I echo what you say about the DeLorean business.


Paul M

[Doug Nye]

Yes - poor Fred - a lovely bloke. He once told me how in the mid-1950s he walked past Colin Chapman's dad's pub each night on his way home from working in the City of London, and always wondered about the interesting looking cars he saw emerging from the stable block round the back. He thought the blokes working there - whatever they were up to - always seemed to be having a particularly good time.

One night he was enjoying a comfort stop in the Gents outside the pub when another chap came in he recognised as being one of those blokes with the cars. "What exactly do you do in that place?", Fred asked. The person he was talking to turned out to be Chunky himself, who invited him into the 'works' to take a look. In conversation Colin then learned that Fred was an accountant. "Ooh" he said, "You're exactly what we need", and according to Fred he then found himself seated on a box, shuffling through a stack of notes on the backs of envelopes - and scribbles on scraps of paper and box lids - Lotus Engineering's accounts. "And Colin seemed to regard me as a fixture from that night forward...".

The real tragedy of it all was that after years of effectively keeping ACBC out of jail, it was Fred who did the porridge in the end. And it was not to the credit of The System that Fred was denied time with his desperately ill wife during that period...he had not inflicted physical harm on anyone and nor was he a danger to anyone. But I have always felt that The System inflicted harm on him beyond due justice.

DCN

[MonzaDriver]

Originally posted by Graham Gauld
I often felt that Fred ended up the fall guy in the whole De Lorean affair and went to prison for it.
I had hoped to see him once he had got better but sadly he is now gone.

GG

Dear Graham,
Dear Doug,
Thank you a lot for your eye-opening posts. In my opinion they are priceless.
All my esteem.
MonzaDriver.

[Eric McLoughlin]

I always had the impression that Bushell must have been in awe of Chapman (who wasn't?) and as a result, failed to exercise the correct ethical approach to what he was being asked to do.

As a fellow accountant, I can empathise with the pressure he must have been under much of the time, but, in the end, he could always have walked away. Or was being around Chapman just too exciting to give up?

[Gav Astill]

I hesitate to be a voice of decent amongst people more knowledgable than I, but he was instrumental in a fraud that cost the taxpayer (i.e. us) out of 18 million dollars, nearly a million of which ended up in his own pocket. Fraud is not a victimless crime, as well he knew.

Three years is about normal for this, though I do accept that the bigger villans got away with it. The judge said at Bushell's trial that had he survived Chapman (who pocketed over 8 million dollars) would have got 10 years

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by Gav Astill
I

Three years is about normal for this, though I do accept that the bigger villans got away with it. The judge said at Bushell's trial that had he survived Chapman (who pocketed over 8 million dollars) would have got 10 years

...which was, I felt, right out of order - Chapman was not even charged with anything related to the De Lorean affair, so the Judge pontificating about the sentence he "would" (I would hope that His Lordship meant might, had he been charged and convicted -- after all, innocent until found guilty is a cornerstone of British law) have got was a bit irregular.

That said, I think Chapman was always going to be found out, eventually... he was (to mix metaphors) sailing close to the wind for years, and swimming with some fairly unpleasant sharks...

[Catalina Park]

This may be a bit off but...... Why did the politicians give them the money in the first place? What were they thinking? Did they really think that it was possible for the De Lorean project to work? When governments are throwing money around without thinking, what do they expect to happen?

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin
I always had the impression that Bushell must have been in awe of Chapman (who wasn't?) and as a result, failed to exercise the correct ethical approach to what he was being asked to do.

As a fellow accountant, I can empathise with the pressure he must have been under much of the time, but, in the end, he could always have walked away. Or was being around Chapman just too exciting to give up?

I think that this sums up the situation pretty well. Crimes were committed, Fred Bushell was tried and convicted, and dealt with in a proper manner. FB benefited personally from a massive fraud, and he was the man at Lotus at the time who was 'good at sums'. Certainly it's 'unfair' that the main perpetrator of a massive crime against taxpayers died before he could be brought to book, but Chapman's heart attack was justice of a kind, remember that it happened only a few days after the infamous DeLorean drugs bust. I've never doubted that stress caused by the realisation that DeLorean s**t was heading inexorably towards the fan of UK justice, played no small part in Chapman's early demise, he was going to end up in jail and he knew it. Going public meant little to him, and he continued to run Group Lotus more or less as a private company using shareholders' money, aided and abetted every step of the way by Fred Bushell. As an engineer, designer, innovator and visionary, ACBC was a truly great man, but that didn't make him fit to run a public limited company. Chapman was undoubtedly a genius in his way, and Fred was every bit at good at what he did for the Company, technically Lotus was bankrupt throughout most of the 30 years he was there. I didn't know Fred socially, and he may indeed have been a 'lovely bloke', but it's a fact that he wasn't held in any great affection by most Lotus employees, and on the rare occasions that he ventured from the Executive Suite into the main open plan office, an uneasy hush would fall over the room. The DeLorean/Lotus affair was many years ago, and many questions remain unanswered to this day. Jabby Crombac's family-authorised biography told us very little. The Mike Lawrence book got much closer to the truth, but still left gaps, and Fred Bushell could have filled in most of those gaps if he'd co-operated more fully. His silence on the GPD Services 'Swiss Connection' allowed guilty people to go free, and I think it's significant that in addition to the three years prison sentence, the court also fined him two and a quarter million pounds, just think how much that would be in today's money.

[Doug Nye]

We are each of us perceived in different ways by different people - to whom we probably present different faces. Almost every post in this thread so far seems to present an entirely valid view of Fred, including the last. Some rascals can also come across as good guys, particularly to those that they know are fully aware of their 'rascality'. For now let's concentrate on the ingenuity of a man who kept Lotus afloat long enough to achieve momentous deeds within our world, and to help provide (albeit temporarily) profitable employment for many who otherwise might have found none.

DCN

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
We are each of us perceived in different ways by different people - to whom we probably present different faces. Almost every post in this thread so far seems to present an entirely valid view of Fred, including the last. Some rascals can also come across as good guys, particularly to those that they know are fully aware of their 'rascality'. For now let's concentrate on the ingenuity of a man who kept Lotus afloat long enough to achieve momentous deeds within our world, and to help provide (albeit temporarily) profitable employment for many who otherwise might have found none.

DCN

Very well put Doug, RIP Fred.

I also agree with the earlier post in which Doug mentioned the way that Fred Bushell was refused permission to leave prison to visit his sick wife. Fred and I shared an MP at the time, and I wrote to him to plead FB's case, unfortunately without success.

[MonzaDriver]

Originally posted by Graham Gauld
I often felt that Fred ended up the fall guy in the whole De Lorean affair and went to prison for it.
GG

I am sorry dear members, if I understood well the expression of Graham Gould:
" the fall guy" is intended like something planned before.
I mean, they planned the fraud, and before things going bad, they already knew that the person
destinated to jail was Fred Bushell.
Sorry for a phrase invented: but I understood " the guy who will fall.............."
Also in Eric Dymock's book about Jim Clark, there is an interpretation of the facts in this way.
If I dont understood right, sorry.
In any case this forum is crowded by people that are really a pleasure to read.
MonzaDriver.

[ensign14]

Originally posted by petefenelon


...which was, I felt, right out of order - Chapman was not even charged with anything related to the De Lorean affair, so the Judge pontificating about the sentence he "would" (I would hope that His Lordship meant might, had he been charged and convicted -- after all, innocent until found guilty is a cornerstone of British law) have got was a bit irregular.

That said, I think Chapman was always going to be found out, eventually... he was (to mix metaphors) sailing close to the wind for years, and swimming with some fairly unpleasant sharks...

I entirely agree. Chapman never got the chance to put in a defence. For the Judge to make such comments was IMO highly unprofessional at the very least. How was the Judge to know there was no defence of impersonation, duress (Delorean putting a gun to his head or something) or even temporary insanity (Exhibit A: Lotus 88) to be put forward?

[kayemod]

Originally posted by ensign14
I entirely agree. Chapman never got the chance to put in a defence.

Chapman didn't have a defence, premature death was his best option.

[Gav Astill]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
For now let's concentrate on the ingenuity of a man who kept Lotus afloat long enough to achieve momentous deeds within our world, and to help provide (albeit temporarily) profitable employment for many who otherwise might have found none.

DCN

Fair point - for all their misdeads, the team at Lotus left a magnificent legacy

[Eric McLoughlin]

And many of the current F1 mob are certainly not beyond reproach either.

[MonzaDriver]

Originally posted by kayemod


Chapman didn't have a defence, premature death was his best option.

I remember an article, right on those days, that some drivers ( for sure Andretti)
called the widow of Colin Chapman, because they want to give him a last greeting,
to wait a little just the time of the journey but she reply that the funeral time was already planned and so on...........
Well the source is the sport newspaper of Italy, not so reliable.............

MonzaDriver.

[ensign14]

Originally posted by kayemod


Chapman didn't have a defence, premature death was his best option.

Mike Lawrence mentioned a possible one in his biog. Signature forged.

[kayemod]

Originally posted by ensign14
Mike Lawrence mentioned a possible one in his biog. Signature forged.

It's a couple of years since I read the book so I'll have to check, but didn't the alleged Chapman signature forging happen after ACBC's death? I thought DeLorean, now also dead of course, was accused of forging signatures and trying to prematurely age documents. Whatever, the evidence against Bushell and by implication Chapman at FB's trial seemed pretty conclusive to me.

[Charles Helps]

Originally posted by kayemod

... Whatever, the evidence against Bushell and by implication Chapman at FB's trial seemed pretty conclusive to me.

Were you at the trial then?

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Charles Helps
Were you at the trial then?

No, but I've read the trial reports.

[Mohican]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin
And many of the current F1 mob are certainly not beyond reproach either.

Agree that some people's business practices appear strange - being both team principal and personal manager of the star driver comes to mind as an interesting conflict of interest.

But that is hardly the same thing as saying these individuals are criminals...and I must say that I belong to the convinced re Chapman's guilt.

[MonzaDriver]

Originally posted by ensign14
Mike Lawrence mentioned a possible one in his biog. Signature forged.

Here in Italy, generally, when you go to a funeral service, you can look at the corpse just before they close the coffin. It is the same also in England?
Maybe someone in this forum is gone to the funeral service.

DriverMonza......( opsss....signature forged)

[Eric McLoughlin]

Mohican - obviously I'm not going to mention names or go into any details but it is well known that certain current members of the F1 Paddock (many who have an extremely long history in motor sport and F1) have been known to have sailed very close to the wind regarding their financial affairs in past eras.

Nowadays these individuals are seen as pillars of the motor racing establishment and, by and large, I would assume that they are now wealthy enough to be resonably honest about their activities. But, when they were younger and struggling to make their way in the motor sport world, some would have been tempted to maybe circumvent more "traditional" accounting and tax matters.

[FLB]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin
Mohican - obviously I'm not going to mention names or go into any details but it is well known that certain current members of the F1 Paddock (many who have an extremely long history in motor sport and F1) have been known to have sailed very close to the wind regarding their financial affairs in past eras.

It doesn't necessarily need to be about financial affairs either.


EX:

The Toyota vs Ferrari affair (On-going, headline news on this website this very week)
The Arrows vs Shadow affair in 1978 (the first Arrows being recognized in Court as a Shadow clone and all that)

[ensign14]

Arrows-Shadow was a little bit less than blatant copying, in that there was a dispute as to whether the intellectual property in the Shadow belonged to AVS or to Tony Southgate personally. Normally that would not even be worth considering as a problem (employees' ideas belong to employer, prima facie) but I can't remember if there was an argument about Southgate acting as an independent contractor - in which case the terms of his contract with AVS would determine whether he could have sold the design on or taken it with him to Arrows.

As it was, Shadow's argument was pretty strong as they obtained an injunction. Which is quite difficult to get.

[Dennis Hockenbury]

Perhaps to bring this thread somewhat back on topic, I offer my condolences to the Bushell family and express my sadness at his passing.

As more elequently said by others, Fred's considerable contribution to making Lotus a success should serve as his true legacy. What happened during the DeLorean affair was a tragedy, but this was not Fred's sole doing. I suspect that he was caught up in the machinations of others, and was the only one who paid the price.

RIP Fred.

[Eric McLoughlin]

That's often the lot of the accountant in a firm that is found to have comitted a financial crime.

Judges often take a dimmer view of an accountant's behaviour than, say, the CEO or other managers or directors. The reason they do is because the judge, being a member of a profession, looks on the accountant as a powerful and important figure in an organisation expecially when it comes to financial matters. Few judges are willing to believe that senior accountants are "caught up" in events and usually take the view that they are instrumental in forming the businesses financial policy. Therefore, when that policy deviates from acceptable or legal behaviour, the accountant is right in the firing line for carrying the can.

Also, accountants, being members of professional bodies, are expected to adhere to ethical standards as set out by their institutes. This puts them under a moral (as well as legal) pressure to keep their businesses on the straight and narrow. Courts will take the accountant's supposedly superior knowledge of these issues into account when apportioning blame.

[Charles Helps]

Passing on a note from Warren King (ex Lotus) on the funeral arrangements :

I thought that you would like to know that the arrangements for Fred Bushell's funeral have now been finalised. It will take place at 11.00 am on Friday 27 January at Wymondham Abbey. Afterwards the family wish to welcome everyone at the Ex-Serviceman's Club in Wymondham. There is no parking at either venue but both are within easy walking distance of the central car parks.

[RAP]

Eric - Very well put. As a fellow accountant I endorse everthing you say. Shareholders look to the Finance Director to know where to "draw the line" and when he commits fraud he is guilty of extreme breach of trust and letting the profession down as well as the crime itself.
Richard

[tkotw]

Originally posted by kayemod


It's a couple of years since I read the book so I'll have to check, but didn't the alleged Chapman signature forgeing happen after ACBC's death? I thought DeLorean, now also dead of course, was accused of forgeing signatures and trying to prematurely age documents. Whatever, the evidence against Bushell and by implication Chapman at FB's trial seemed pretty conclusive to me.

I think the Government forged evidence like they did so often before.
Isn't it strange that Bushell was sued not until the 90s though all the lawsuits
regarding GPD took place in the 80s?
In the 90s the British Government wanted to get the money back they had invested in
the DeLorean project (See "DeLorean - Recovery Of Public Funds"). They wanted the money
from Arthur Andersen, but they couldn't get the money without a proof that they did
something wrong when the company was the auditor of the DMC. So they had to find this
proof. They accused Fred Bushell, won the trial and at the end they got 27,75 million dollars
from Arthur Andersen that way. Suspicious!

[Eric McLoughlin]

Have you any evidence that the Government "forged" evidence? That is a hugely serious allegation to make.

Trials involving serious financial misdemeanour often take many years for the evidence to be gathered togethjer before prosecution can begin.

Are you sure the Government "sued". Suing is carried out under civil law and normally does not result in any sort of custodial sentencing. It usually involves trying to recover lost funds.

Crminal prosecutions are another matter.

[Charles Helps]

I believe this is the report, "DeLorean - Recovery Of Public Funds" , to which the suspicious tkotw refers.

The figures, both dates and amounts, don't seem to quite match those given by tkotw.

[tkotw]

Sorry, I come from Germany...I didn't know the difference between "sue" or "accuse"

Look at page 10 or page 31 (Recovery Of Public Funds). There you can see that Arthur Andersen paid $27,75 million, so the amount is right.

The big GPD-trial in Detroit took place in 1986. DeLorean was found not guilty.

Fred Bushell was accused and convicted in 1992! Six years later. More suspicious: The only witness in the Bushell-trial was Thomas Monk. He also had testified in Detroit (1986). But in Belfast (Bushell-trial) he testified exactly the opposite of what he had testified six years before. He perjured himself. Research and take a look to the court transcripts of both trials and you will see that I'm right.
With the help of Mr Monk Bushell was convicted.

Malcomb Schade was the prosecutor in the Detroit-case for the British Government in 1986. It's proven that he withheld more than 600 pages of exulpatory documents and that he introduced evidence he knew to be false. He though lost his case. The Judge of this case, Judge Gibson, was really upset about Schade's actions. When Schade wanted to appeal the concerned Judge, Federal Judge Lawrence Irving, found that Schade had lied in that case and that Schade had a "personal vendetta" against John DeLorean. A really strong indictment by a Federal Judge.

It's obvious that something was wrong in the whole scenario.

If you are interested in this topic I only can advise you to research. I would be glad to see more informations
And if you have informations which are different from my informations please disclose them. I am very interested in stories like this one.


@Charles Helps: I didn't want to attack you or someone else. I only wanted to share my opinion and informations with you. My name or the name of the "suspicious tkotw" is Elias Pierro. Sorry if I attacked you

[kayemod]

Originally posted by tkotw
I think the Government forged evidence like they did so often before.
Isn't it strange that Bushell was sued not until the 90s though all the lawsuits
regarding GPD took place in the 80s?
In the 90s the British Government wanted to get the money back they had invested in
the DeLorean project (See "DeLorean - Recovery Of Public Funds"). They wanted the money
from Arthur Andersen, but they couldn't get the money without a proof that they did
something wrong when the company was the auditor of the DMC. So they had to find this
proof. They accused Fred Bushell, won the trial and at the end they got 27,75 million dollars
from Arthur Andersen that way. Suspicious!

'Forged Evidence' you say? That's a serious allegation, I wonder what trial judge Lord Justice Murray would have had to say about that?

I didn't know Fred Bushell well, we never exchanged more than the occasional pleasantry, but I knew him well enough to know that he would have moved heaven and earth to right any wrong that he thought had been done to him. Also, I don't think he was the kind of man who could have been 'silenced' with any amount of money. I know that he was advised after sentencing that he had no realistic grounds for appeal, and following his release from prison, he maintained a dignified silence right up to his death, at any rate outside any inner circle of friends, of which I was not one. The definitive book on the DeLorean/Group Lotus/HM Government issue has yet to be written. Many questions have never been answered, and with Fred Bushell's death, they almost certainly never will be. It wasn't a phrase he would have used, but I understand that Fred accepted that he had been caught 'Bang to rights'. The dates mentioned are not in any way suspicious, trials of this kind always take a long time, often many years, to come to court, and the reputation of Sir Kenneth Cork, who's forensic examination of DeLorean accounts provided much of the trial evidence was unquestionable. None of those concerned emerged from the affair with much credit. Colin Chapman's 'timely' death ensured that he is remembered for his engineering genius, and his deep involvement with the DeLorean scandal is largely forgotten, but sadly that fraud is still very much connected with Fred Bushell. Whatever Fred may have done, he was nobody's scapegoat, and he wasn't a man to make excuses for himself either.

[tkotw]

Originally posted by kayemod


'Forged Evidence' you say? That's a serious allegation

That's my opinion. Official reports proved that the British government maintained a "forgery mill" in the 80s for fabricating such documents as false Argentine government letters to "prove" that Argentina was harboring Nazi war criminals.
That isn't a serious allegation but a serious fact!

[Eric McLoughlin]

Just be careful - allegation of forgery could be taken as libellous.

Maybe a moderator should take a peek at this particular thread - for the sake of Atlas.

[ensign14]

No individuals have been named as document forgers, and the class of possible forgers is so wide no individual person can be inferred, so it's OK. Difficult to defame the Government anyway.

[Eric McLoughlin]

Non-governmental individuals or firms who were involved in the gathering and presentation of evidence on behalf of the prosecution might be upset to be included in a "falsification of evidence" accusation. The prosecuting authorities don't just rely on police evidence. At least one "civilian" name has already been included in this thread i.e. the liquidator.

So far no REAL evidence has been presented that any such forging, falsification or perjury was committed in court (all offences in themselves) - only someone's allegations based on a "knowledge" that the British government had a habit of falsifying evidence in other situations.

In my view, whenevr someone is genuinely falsely accused and subsequently sentenced as a result, they tend to protest their innocence vehemently and will even garner support from outsiders to clear their name. There have been plenty of examples of this type of situation over the years.

If Fred Bushell really was innocent of the crimes he served time for, he and his friends were remarkeably quiet about the whole thing.

[KJJ]

It's as well to remember that Fred Bushell pleaded guilty, the hearing lasted six minutes. Any proposed appeal would have been against the length of the sentence or the size of the fine. The matter of guilt was not in question.

It's wrong to say that action against Bushell was delayed until the 90s. Civil proceedings were started in January 1986. One of the reasons for the "delay" in laying criminal charges until July 1989 was because the police were unable to raid properties in England. The 1988 Criminal Justice Act changed the law and allowed them to raid which they did in February 1989. The thousands of documents recovered in those raids formed the basis of the case against Mr Bushell.

Arthur Andersen fought through the courts for nearly 13 years without noticing any forgeries.

Why on earth would "the government" - whoever that might be - want to take the considerable risk of forging documents? In government terms the sums of money involved were piffling. Politically the sensible thing for "the government" would have been to drop the whole thing, as it was huge quantities of government papers, including cabinet papers, were released to the various parties involved.

[kayemod]

Originally posted by tkotw
That's my opinion. Official reports proved that the British government maintained a "forgery mill" in the 80s for fabricating such documents as false Argentine government letters to "prove" that Argentina was harboring Nazi war criminals.
That isn't a serious allegation but a serious fact!

Your opinion is wrong, unless of course you're suggesting that Fred Bushell may have been a Nazi war criminal, in addition to being one of the perpetrators of the DeLorean fraud that he was actually found guilty of. You clearly don't understand that in the UK, the Judiciary and Government are completely separate and independent. HM Government is constitutionally unable to influence proceedings in a UK court of law in the way that you are suggesting. The very fact that the Government so often loses important cases in the Courts would be proof enough for anyone other than a deranged conspiracy theorist.

[ensign14]

Originally posted by kayemod
The very fact that the Government so often loses important cases in the Courts would be proof enough for anyone other than a deranged conspiracy theorist.

One of the reasons why they want to end trial by jury in fraud cases...?

Other thing to remember re libel: fair comment based on true facts is allowed, so long as someone is not being malicious (in a legal definition). I don't know what the facts of the investigation are tho'.

BTW, given that the Israelis kidnapped Adolf Eichmann from Argentina, I don't think anyone needed to forge documents to prove that the Argentine Government was harbouring Nazis into the 60s.

[Peter Morley]

Originally posted by KJJ

It's wrong to say that action against Bushell was delayed until the 90s. Civil proceedings were started in January 1986. One of the reasons for the "delay" in laying criminal charges until July 1989 was because the police were unable to raid properties in England. The 1988 Criminal Justice Act changed the law and allowed them to raid which they did in February 1989. The thousands of documents recovered in those raids formed the basis of the case against Mr Bushell.

Arthur Andersen fought through the courts for nearly 13 years without noticing any forgeries.

AA have certainly learnt since then!
It is amazing that after 3 years there were still incriminating documents lying around, didn't they recently start destroying documents as soon as they knew they were in trouble?

[tkotw]

Originally posted by KJJ
It's as well to remember that Fred Bushell pleaded guilty, the hearing lasted six minutes. Any proposed appeal would have been against the length of the sentence or the size of the fine. The matter of guilt was not in question.

It's wrong to say that action against Bushell was delayed until the 90s. Civil proceedings were started in January 1986. One of the reasons for the "delay" in laying criminal charges until July 1989 was because the police were unable to raid properties in England. The 1988 Criminal Justice Act changed the law and allowed them to raid which they did in February 1989. The thousands of documents recovered in those raids formed the basis of the case against Mr Bushell.

Arthur Andersen fought through the courts for nearly 13 years without noticing any forgeries.

Thanks for the informations!

Originally posted by kayemod

Your opinion is wrong, unless of course you're suggesting that Fred Bushell may have been a Nazi war criminal, in addition to being one of the perpetrators of the DeLorean fraud that he was actually found guilty of. You clearly don't understand that in the UK, the Judiciary and Government are completely separate and independent. HM Government is constitutionally unable to influence proceedings in a UK court of law in the way that you are suggesting. The very fact that the Government so often loses important cases in the Courts would be proof enough for anyone other than a deranged conspiracy theorist.

I love it to be a conspiracy theorist ;)
What I wanted to say was, if they forged evidence in the Argentine case they could have also done this in other trials. But I don't want to argue with you. In fact, I really don't understand the Justice system in the UK, but that's allright. And if you say that my theory is impossible I'll believe you.

On the other hand I just can't understand why DeLorean was acquitted in Detroit in 1986. Everyone in this board is convinced he did this fraud and many facts are showing the same. So why? It's so confusing

[kayemod]

Originally posted by ensign14
BTW, given that the Israelis kidnapped Adolf Eichmann from Argentina, I don't think anyone needed to forge documents to prove that the Argentine Government was harbouring Nazis into the 60s.

To lighten things a little, a story from the days when Bernie, the drivers and most other personnel flew to away races in a single plane. Sitting on the tarmac somewhere in a chartered and much delayed 707, John Watson quipped that the last man to arrive in Argentina on time had been Martin Bormann.

[ensign14]

Originally posted by tkotw
On the other hand I just can't understand why DeLorean was acquitted in Detroit in 1986. Everyone in this board is convinced he did this fraud and many facts are showing the same. So why?

It was in America. Reaching the right decision at any level below about the Supreme Court is a matter of pure chance.

[Ruairidh]

Originally posted by ensign14


As it was, Shadow's argument was pretty strong as they obtained an injunction. Which is quite difficult to get.

.........Solicitors were Woodham Smith, IIRC, and very proud they were of this too.....

[tkotw]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin
Just be careful - allegation of forgery could be taken as libellous.

Like I already said, I don't want to insult someone...the whole scenario was only a crazy idea of a conspiracy theorist. Please don't take this so serious

In fact, I love England and the British Government

Originally posted by ensign14
It was in America. Reaching the right decision at any level below about the Supreme Court is a matter of pure chance.

This doens't convince me. At the end they had to decide if DeLorean was guilty or not guilty. After they had checked all the evidence they found him not guilty. So why you are in doubt about his innocence. I am still searching for the proof that DeLorean did use this money for his own purpose

[kayemod]

Originally posted by tkotw
In fact, I love England and the British Government

Well, I certainly agree with you about England, not so sure about the Government though....

[Eric McLoughlin]

And I'm Irish - so no great urge to "love" British instititions (although, the British judicial system, most of the time, is pretty even handed and fair.

All British government really hate the idea that the judiciary is (in theory anyway) independent of government and (again, in theory) immune from pressure being put on it by the government.