by Sugar, Alan
All this aggravation was caused by Gold, who could not see further than his law books. I’d warned him that Crystal was slippery. We employed the services of a very senior barrister, Derry Irvine (who later became Lord Chancellor). He sent his junior counsel to Herbert Smith to draft a witness statement for me in defence of this contempt of court allegation. One of the things I needed to show the court was what a twisting liar Jonathan Crystal was. Nick Hewer told me about an occasion when, by pure accident, he had seen Crystal’s antics in court. He and Margaret Mountford were attending a hearing brought by an individual shareholder, an old boy by the name of Mr Northcote, who was making some claim against Amstrad over the privatisation issue. Margaret had told me that the case was nonsense, but nevertheless we had to take it seriously.
As the hearing was about to start, proceedings were interrupted by Jonathan Crystal, who walked into court and asked the judge for a couple of minutes’ recess. Crystal requested that the judge postpone a hearing that was to take place later in the day because he wouldn’t be available to represent his client. He said that he had an emergency hearing in another court scheduled at the same time. The judge granted Crystal his wish, the Northcote case continued and, as predicted by Margaret, it got thrown out.
The plot thickened when Nick met me that afternoon for a meeting at Tottenham. When the meeting started, he saw that Crystal was also there. Nick thought this was strange, as he’d seen Crystal that very morning in court and heard him tell the judge that he couldn’t attend a scheduled hearing this afternoon because of some other emergency hearing – yet here he was at Tottenham for a board meeting!
I included this incident in my witness statement in my defence of the contempt of court matter. Alan Watts had to get special permission from the Northcote judge to disclose the cancelled Crystal hearing and to release the transcript of that day’s court proceedings, which showed that Crystal had lied to him. Armed with this information and copies of the minutes of that day’s Tottenham board meeting, we had conclusive proof that Crystal had lied to the judge and wasn’t to be trusted. We worked through the night preparing this witness statement, as the court hearing was the next day.
Crystal and Venables were standing outside the courtroom smirking, thinking I was in deep trouble on this contempt of court issue. Their barristers insisted it should be the first thing to be heard. The smile was wiped off their faces within fifteen minutes, when Herbert Smith handed them copies of the witness statements and the brief being put forward by Derry Irvine.
Crystal went white. There was a lot of shuffling around with his lawyers and then they asked the judge, Vice-Chancellor Sir Donald Nicholls (the most senior judge in the Chancery Division), to delay the contempt of court hearing. The judge had also been served a copy of my witness statement – he knew very well what all the fuss and delay was about, and he kind of smiled knowingly.
Philip Hislop, acting for me, stood up immediately and stated that this case had been delayed several times already and that the contempt of court issue was a sideshow, created to cause further delay. The judge accepted this and the contempt of court issue was put to one side, clearing us to continue with the main case. Alan Watts turned to me, smiled and said, ‘One-nil to you.’
I never forgave Crystal for the aggravation he caused me. He was a wicked man. I had the bit between my teeth and I was going to teach him that messing with me was the wrong thing to do. I instructed Herbert Smith to draft a complaint about Crystal to the Bar Council – I wanted him reported as the cheating liar he was. The process took about a year, after which the Bar Council suspended him for a month.
When we resumed with the main case, Philip Hislop stuck to his guns and ran the case on technical Companies Act matters, steering clear of all the other issues. Unfortunately, Philip had a speech impediment and that repulsive animal Eric Hall, who was in the public gallery, kept taking the mickey out of him by mimicking his stutter, to try to upset his flow of words. There were lots of fans in the gallery shouting throughout the hearing and every so often, the judge warned them they’d be thrown out if they didn’t keep quiet. Eric Hall continued his heckling of Philip Hislop, who nevertheless put his case clearly.
Then a rather stupid and unprecedented thing occurred. Venables’ barrister stood up and, for reasons best known to himself, started to read out the section of my witness statement about Cloughie taking a bung, along with other issues I’d raised about Gary Lineker’s transfer to the Japanese club Grampus Eight.
Alan Watts and I were shocked – we had resigned ourselves to the fact that all this stuff wouldn’t be disclosed. However, in their wisdom, Venables and his advisers decided to get in first, as it were, rather than allow my barrister to read out all this damning stuff. Little did they know that my barrister had no intention of doing this as he considered it irrelevant to the case.
This revelation must have affected the rainforests – there’d be barely enough trees to make the paper for the newspaper industry over the coming days. The media went bananas. In the national newspapers the next day, there were front-page headlines, back-page headlines and double-page spreads – all about the Clough bung allegations. Venables had shot himself in the foot trying to be clever and getting the information out first.
The case went on for two days. At one point, Edward Walker-Arnott, the senior partner of Herbert Smith, turned up to show his face. I wondered what he was doing there, but Alan told me it was a psychological tactic Edward employed sometimes. He was very well known and respected in court circles and his presence was a way of showing the judge that his client, namely me, must really have a serious case.
The judge called a halt to proceedings halfway through the second day and said he would be reading out his judgement in the next half-hour. This looked positive for us. Alan Watts explained, ‘Normally, judges can take a couple of weeks to formulate a judgement. This must mean he’s made up his mind.’
Shortly after the court adjourned, Alan received a message from the judge telling me that immediately after the reading of the judgement, I should exit the courtroom through his chambers and out the back entrance. He advised me to have my vehicle standing by. Meanwhile, there were hundreds and hundreds of raging fans outside the front of the courts.
When the court reconvened, the judge read out his decision and upheld the firing of Venables, overturning the renegade judgement on that fateful Friday night. He also ruled that, technically, there may have been a contempt of court; however, taking into consideration all the pressure I was under and the threats from the fans, he decided to waive the issue and call an end to all the proceedings.
Looking back on this incident, you can see that the judge had made his mind up before calling a halt to proceedings, but allowed the half-hour gap so I could make preparations for my escape. My brother Derek and Ann were also in court and we all scurried through the judge’s chambers and were guided to the back entrance, where Nick had arranged a taxi to stand by. We jumped straight in and the cabbie, as instructed by Nick, whisked us away quickly to a nearby square, where my driver was waiting in my Range Rover. We switched vehicles and shot off. When we turned on the car radio, it was already on the news that Venables had lost the case and had finally been sacked.
The newspapers were driving Nick mad to get interviews from me. They wanted more detail on the Clough bung situation. This time, I took Margaret’s advice and completely clammed up. I hoped that if I didn’t wind him up in the press, Venables would now do the sensible thing, accept my offer and graciously move away from the situation.
Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. Egged on by Crystal and Eric Hall, Venables started to give interviews to newspapers giving his side of the story, making me look like a monster. A few days later, Venables called a press conference at his club, Scribes West, where he told the media he was going to continue his fight against me, that his company, Edennote, was going to issue legal proceedings under section 459 of the Companies Act, which deals with the oppress
ion of minority shareholders in companies. In anticipation of this, Nick had hired a moody (fake) press crew which he sent to the press conference. Armed with a professional video camera, they mingled with the camera crews in the crowded room under the guise of being from some international TV channel. The famous sports reporter Mihir Bose, who was never a fan of Venables, started asking him awkward questions. Our moody crew recorded all this and the content was to prove useful in future witness statements I would put forward in the ongoing legal battle.
Throughout the course of preparing the defence for these court actions, Colin Sandy, using the services of Deloitte, had done a lot of background work on Venables and Ashby. It appeared that Ashby had been involved in no fewer than forty-three bankrupt companies! It also transpired that Venables had borrowed a large proportion of his £3m to buy Spurs from a company called Landhurst Leasing in exchange for leases they had granted him on pubs that turned out not to be under Venables’ ownership! Landhurst Leasing itself was in a lot of financial trouble and eventually went into receivership. Apparently, they were known throughout the industry for offering large loans to people against very flimsy assets.
Deeper investigation revealed that Landhurst Leasing was given a free executive box and free tickets at Spurs. We also uncovered loads of invoices which the club had paid to Scribes West for so-called ‘entertainment’. Even club property, such as Tottenham’s dance floor, had been taken up and put into Scribes West! Venables had been on trips to New York and had used the club’s credit card to pay for things like carpets and other gifts for himself. There were loads of bills from Eric Hall for services rendered on transfers and the negotiation of players’ contracts and outrageously large bills from Fugler – far in excess of what a large firm like Herbert Smith would charge. It was a total financial mess.
Eric Hall decided to take legal action against Tottenham after our refusal to pay some of his monstrously inflated bills. Alan Watts pointed out that Hall had acted illegally in the case of representing the player Justin Edinburgh. Not only had Hall charged Spurs for negotiating the player’s contract, he’d also charged Edinburgh himself. This, I was informed by Alan, was a breach of the Prevention of Corruption Act, whereby an agent may not take fees from both sides. Nevertheless, Hall pursued the case until, on the steps of the courtroom, he backed down when his own lawyer warned him that he’d be walking into a hornets’ nest. I instructed Alan to go after Hall to recover our costs, which he did.
The case brought against Tottenham by Edennote went on for about a year. Rumour had it that Venables’ company had no money and he was not paying many of his suppliers or advisers. There had been legal action taken against Scribes West for unpaid bills and supplies and rumours that certain PR companies he’d employed in his fight against me also weren’t being paid.
Edennote’s accounts showed they had no assets and the shares Venables owned in Tottenham were hocked to Landhurst Leasing. In July, David Gold suggested we applied to the court for security of costs, which meant Venables would have to prove to the court that should he lose the case he was bringing against us, he would be able to pay our legal fees. After a lot of twists and turns, Venables finally threw in the towel. He was unable to prove to the court that his company had any money.
While I was fighting this case, Gulu Lalvani thought it would be a good idea to employ the services of a PR consultant. He chose Nick Hewer! Shortly afterwards, Nick called me and told me that Gulu was banged up in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel – with Venables! He even gave me the room number, but told me not to let Gulu know he’d told me.
I decided to surprise Gulu by phoning him. ‘Hello, Gulu, it’s Alan Sugar here. How are you?’
It’s a shame videophones weren’t available in those days. All I got was a stunned silence. Eventually, he said, ‘Oh, hello, Alan, how are you? What can I do for you?’
‘It’s not what you can do for me – it’s what I can do for you, my friend. It seems you’re getting busy poking your nose into my business.’
‘No, no, not all, Alan. I am just having a business meeting here.’
‘I know who you’re meeting with and my suggestion is that you chuck him out.’ I slammed the phone down.
An hour or so later, Gulu called me to say he had met with Venables at Venables’ own request. I told Gulu that he was a bloody busybody who always got involved in things that didn’t concern him.
He denied it, saying he was trying to help me by finding out what Venables wanted. He told me that Venables had his back to the wall and needed someone to finance his court case against me. Venables was offering Gulu a chance to get a share of Tottenham Hotspur if he would stump up the money for security of costs.
Alan, you are my friend. I would never go against you, you know that. I was trying to help. I was going to call you to let you know what had happened. By the way, who told you I was in a meeting? How did you know?’ What a load of bullshit. Gulu had this pathological obsession with me and wanted to try to scupper whatever I was involved in.
A few days later, to my shock, on the back page of the Sun there was big headline and an exclusive interview with Gulu Lalvani. The headline read: ‘Sugar is a ruthless, hard man.’ It was a terrible story – all lies, of course. Maybe they twisted Gulu’s words, but I was gutted. How could someone whom I’d socialised with and considered a friend – albeit a bit of a rogue – do such a low thing? Ann was also very upset, as she too had spent a lot of time socialising with Gulu and his wife.
He tried to call me the next day, but I refused his calls. In desperation, he eventually got me on my mobile and started to blurt out that they had twisted his words and he’d never said this and he’d never said that – all that bullshit. I said I didn’t want to hear his excuses – he should never have spoken to them at all – and I told him that he and I were finished. I never wanted to speak to him or see him again.
From that day on, I never had anything more to do with Gulu.
*
Long after the initial court case, around the time Venables finally threw in the towel, businessman Philip Green called me to let me know that Venables was prepared to sell his shares to me for £3m – what he’d paid for them. I was a bit surprised to receive the call, as I didn’t really know Philip Green, other than having seen him in the boardroom at Tottenham a couple of times as a guest of Venables.
I told Philip I wasn’t interested in dealing with Venables at all. After all the aggravation he had caused me, he could stick his shares where the sun doesn’t shine. I reminded Philip that Tottenham was a public company and that Venables could sell his shares in the marketplace – I certainly wouldn’t be buying them from him.
It appears that Philip Green and Tony Berry knew each other and, allegedly, had both used the services of Landhurst Leasing on occasions. Maybe it was Philip or Tony who had put Venables in touch with Landhurst and Philip was now trying to broker a deal to get me to buy Venables’ shares (I’ve since learned that Philip likes to broker deals).
One of life’s lessons is never to form an opinion of a person based on information given to you by others. I have to confess at this stage that I was rather short with Philip Green on the phone. A couple of people whose names I won’t mention had warned me to steer clear of him. They never gave me any specific reason why – they just tipped me the wink as if to say, ‘You don’t want to get involved with that bloke.’ I guess this was in the back of my mind at the time and it made me a little dismissive.
The reason I mention this is because Philip Green is now known as one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and wealthiest businessmen. And while we do speak to each other occasionally these days, I can detect an air of coolness from his side, probably because he remembers the time I was offish with him. Now that he is who he is, it must look suspicious that I’m suddenly prepared to talk to him. To be fair, I know exactly how he feels and if the boot were on the other foot, I wouldn’t have anything to do with me either! So, to his credit, the relati
vely polite relationship that exists between us now is perhaps more than I deserve.
In truth, I should have learned this lesson a long time earlier. How many times in the old Amstrad days would Stan Randall mouth off about someone, resulting in me disliking that person without even meeting them! Look at Venables and his opinion of Scholar. When I finally met Irving Scholar, he seemed an ordinary, honest type of guy. I fell for this so many times. Nowadays, I’ve adopted a policy of not forming an opinion on someone until I’ve experienced them first hand.
A few days after Philip Green’s phone call, Venables dumped his shares in the market. He was obviously under pressure to turn them into cash. The lion’s share of the money went to pay Kanter Jules’s fees and I guess the balance must have been paid to Landhurst Leasing’s administrator.
Eventually, in May 1994, Venables’ company Edennote was put into liquidation. It transpired that Igal Yawetz had lent him money to buy some Tottenham shares and he’d been well and truly screwed in Edennote’s liquidation proceedings because as part of the security for his loan, Venables allocated some of his shares to Igal and now Edennote’s liquidator was chasing Igal to give them the shares back. Some friend Venables turned out to be to Igal.
Venables went on to publish an autobiography in which he told a pack of lies about me, and I sued him. I won’t bore you with the legal stuff, but to cut a long story, his publisher’s insurers took the rap for his lies and paid out £100,000 to me, which I donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Venables would not apologise, so the best I could get was an announcement read out in open court. I arranged for a giant cheque to be printed – sarcastically from the Porky Pie Bank – made out for £100,000 and signed by Terry Venables. I had my photo taken outside the court with a Great Ormond Street nurse and gave the picture to the media – quite fun.