Page 2 - 72_Begg to PBC_9-12-16 (5pp)

your habit of telling lies. This claim that AR Lawrence were supervising and responsible for your work is just one example. It will be for the court to determine whether or not your evidence is to be preferred to that of Mr Tony White, who denies absolutely that you were a sub-contractor or that he was in any way responsible for your work.
(b) You claim to have "made savings", but are unwilling or unable to supply the evidence or to substantiate the fact that any such savings were made.
(c) The lessees (you imply) tacitly approved or condoned the fact that you were carrying out some of the work yourself— and that you were funding the ”additional work" by ”making savings". (I assume that is the thrust of your rhetorical question: ”were lessees advised of additional works and savings being made to fund them?). You say they had been advised of this in your
email to Mrs Hillgarth dated 11 September 2014 (you confuse it with an e-mail of 13 September 2014) which you refer to as your "game, set and match" e-mail. Seemingly the fact that the lessees took no action to stop you can — at least in your mind — be taken to constitute " approval".
The truth is that after you had been photographed doing the work (again photographs will be supplied) you had received endless e-mails from several of the lessees asking what you were up to and telling you that you were not allowed to deviate from Section 20 or to carry out work yourself. But needless to say the lessees were in no position to stop you. You were after all their landlord — a position of authority/trust which you have continued to abuse. To assert that their inaction constituted some sort of approval is clearly not tenable.
Your assertion that the lessees had been advised of what was going on is typical of the half-truths you use to deceive and confuse. Yes, you did advise them, but not at the outset — only when the project was already under way. Having been observed/photographed doing some of the work yourself, you had now come under serious pressure. Questions were now being asked which required explanation. If you had told the lessees prior to 22 June 2014 (the date of the agreed Section 20 letter) that your plan was to make savings by doing work yourself in order to carry out additional works (allegedly expected by Mrs Hillgarth) the lessees would never have given their approval.
2. We will claim damages for deceit, as an alternative to, or in addition to the Section 20 claim. You say: ”what Mrs Hillgarth cannot abide is that [you] did the work [yourself] and that it was shoddily done”. That is wrong. What she cannot abide is your deceit. Deliberately misleading the lessees into believing that the work would be done by AR Lawrence, changing the agreed décor without the approval of the lessees, and secretly reducing the scope of AR Lawrence's work in order to line your own pocket. Then com- pounding the deceit by presenting the lessees with grossly inadequate accounts and persistently refusing to answer questions from the lessees as to who had been paid for doing what.
You say that work on the lift is tricky to hide from anybody in the building. From which you seek to imply that what you did was entirely open and above board. Of course work on the lift is tricky to hide — partic- ularly if you choose to paint it gold. But what can be hidden, as you well know, and what you plainly did attempt to hide, is precisely who was doing that work. You dismiss as "fantasy" the idea that you swore Bunny to silence about this. However we have written evidence, which we will produce in court, that you wrote to him: "only you and I know what’s going on re Mitre House etc — so only talk with me for now!!" (This instruction being repeated at the end of the note and signed ”Paul").
3. As regards MHML's charges for the RTM matter, we say that what you have done amounts to conversion (theft). We say that unless there was agreement on the part of Mrs Hillgarth to pay those charges, or a court judgement requiring her to pay them, it is unlawful to offset those charges against MHML shareholders funds (whether distributed or not) attributable to Mrs Hillgarth.Your position is that the charges were properly payable by Mrs Hillgarth (notwithstanding that you had initially invoiced them to the RTM company) and that the offset was therefore lawful. You made use of her money that was sit- ting in the company's account in order to pay yourself, just as if she had given you a blank cheque. That is theft — plain and simple.
4. The only other outstanding question now is exactly how much of the lessees’ money you have taken. You have refused to disclose how much was paid to you personally, this being ”impertinent" and/or a ”pe- ripheral/ detail" and/or ”not a relevant query" and/or ”asked out of time". But this is information to which the leaseholders are entitled and which will become available to us on disclosure. As soon as litigation has started we will seek an order for specific disclosure of all relevant invoices and MHML bank statements so that we can see exactly what has been paid and when and to whom.