Staff Reporter

She has been remanded in custody at Highpoint prison while awaiting sentence. Date for sentencing has not yet been fixed.

Westbrook (39) from Welwyn Garden City was employed as a bookkeeper at X Art from November 2001 to July 2002.

Westbrook was formally charged by police with theft by employee and forgery in November last year.

She was due to have appeared in court that month. X Art went bust because of the 50000 embezzlement and a 50000 debt by failed accessory company Blue-I.

X Art discovered financial irregularities a day after Westbrook left the company. A cheque payable to the Inland Revenue for 20000 bounced due to insufficient funds.

X Arts former managing director Simon Templeman was unsurprised at the news of Westbrooks plea.

Im not surprised she pleaded guilty. She was caught red-handed. However the courts see fit to deal with her will be appropriate.

Her actions have caused the loss of the company and peoples jobs.

Ridge claims the action was taken because PNC failed to pay him under the terms of his employment contract forcing him to leave the company last year.

Ridge is still vehemently defending action by PNC Telecom which is suing him over allegations of financial misconduct.

Ridge is accused of spending over 400000 of company money without board authority on payments to non-PNC Telecom staff.

He is also accused of purchasing stock from his wifes jewellery business raising the salary of his former KJC partner Joseph Case and other transactions involving family members.

Ridges solicitor claimed the charges were a ploy by PNC Telecom to avoid having to pay Ridge out under the terms of his contract.

In the meantime PNC had goods worth 1304.17 seized from two KJC mobile phone stores a fortnight ago. The action was carried out by bailiffs acting on behalf of (cont P2) Ridge and his former KJC partner Joe Case who own some KJC premises.

Bailiffs were sent to recover goods worth 783.11 and 521.06 at KJC premises in Lee-on-Solent only a month after bailiffs had also seized 17000 from KJC premises for unpaid rents to Ridge and Case.

This latest action was taken because KJCs parent company PNC Telecom refused to pay bailiffs costs for the previous action.

PNC has been refusing to pay rents on premises owened by Ridge.

Case is pursuing his own action against PNC and is claiming 2 million for alleged unfair dismissal harassment victimisation and breach of contract (Mobile News March 10). He alleges PNC is in breach of contract because no consultation or attempt to find him employment within PNC took place before taking the decision to make him redundant.

He said: Emotionally and contractually a deal with Vodafone has been struck.

It will take time for due diligence and legalities to be completed and no doubt there will be some tough negotiations over the small print from Caudwell. When the dust settles Vodafone will pay between 300 million and 400 million.

Phil Dobson is one of John Caudwells most trusted finance men. He has spent time at 20:20 and in the Discovery Store parts of the business and now resides at Singlepoint.

Hes there for a purpose which could well be devising the least expensive exit for John as far as his tax bill is concerned.

In some ways a deal will be good for the Caudwell Group but it will lose a vital arm. So we are probably looking at a new strategy for the Caudwell empire. Until now the Group has prided itself as being involved in every aspect of the business: retail accessories distribution and service provision. That will no longer be the case. The question is whether or not the price Vodafone agrees to pay is enough to compensate for the loss of an important arm.

However a note of caution has been sounded by an ex-senior Caudwell Group executive – Yes Telecom MD Keith Curran.

Nobody knows for sure whether Singlepoint is even for sale never mind whether a deal is being done. I have received categorical denials from senior people at both the network and Singlepoint that a deal is not even being discussed said Curran.

Curran also doubted (cont P2) whether Vodafone is on a mission to buy up every remaining independent service provicer.

I dont think Vodafone particularly wanted to buy Cellular Operations. I think the network bought Cellular Operations out of financial necessity. I dont agree with those who say Vodafone is hell bent on owning every one of its customers lock stock and barrel.

I think it only steps in when it sees that an SP can no longer support its customer and make the payments to Vodafone that the network demands. It buys SPs to protect its interests; its not part of an overall strategy. If I were Vodafone I would do the same said Curran.

When or if the deal does go ahead it will be interesting to see whether the Caudwell Group keeps hold of Phones 4U Corporate which currently connects through Singlepoint. 4U Corporates network independence is one of its perceived strengths in the highly-competitive corporate marketplace. It remains to be seen whether 4U Corporate will come under Vodafone and forfeit that independence.

The bottom line is that this forthcoming year we will be opening more stores than we will be closing said managing director Nick Wood.

It is about managing our product portfolio and with certain stores it makes sense to close them and open elsewhere because of specific circumstances such as tenancy agreements. (cont P2)

Wood insisted that the two stores that were set to close in Port Talbot Wales and Staples Corner London did not indicate a change in direction for the retailer.

The Staples Corner store will be replaced by another store in the same retail park. At the moment the store is only a store-within-a-store in a large PC World unit. It wants the space back and we plan to open a stand-alone unit in the same location.

Wood insisted there would be no job losses and said staff from closed stores would be relocated in surrounding stores. He added that a few other stores would close but refused to give a number or name the stores.

Where we do have plans to close it will be because of store resizing he said. Last year we closed our presence on Regent Street London but then we opened one in Oxford Street. It really depends on the deal with the landlords. We have already announced that we are opening a new store in the Birmingham Bullring shopping centre and we are looking at numerous other sites.

The Link recently opened four business centres in London as it implemented its The Link Business offering. The centres were in Basildon Lewisham Hammersmith and Oxford Street and will join existing centres in Liverpool Manchester Leeds and Birmingham. They designed to attract and look after small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

And he accused T-Mobile managing director Harris Jones (left) of making threats over the telephone to Virgin Mobiles chief executive Tom Alexander (inset).

It is extremely rare for a judge to make such unambiguous remarks about someones conduct in a civil case. But in his scathing indictment of Joness actions Mr Justice Cooke said:

Mr Harris Jones made a threat over the telephone in relation to the proposal of a customer contribution of 1.71. He anticipated that the result of that proposal would be litigation and considerable disruption to the business of Virgin and Virgin Mobile. That is of course exactly what occurred.

T-Mobiles attempt to trigger a termination of the joint venture with Virgin and Virgin Mobile was lost after a prolonged High Court hearing. The failed action will now cost the German-owned network millions of pounds in legal costs. The judge refused T-Mobile leave to appeal.

Mr Justice Cooke said T-Mobile had produced an artificially low Marketing Support Contribution to trigger a termination clause (Cont P2) that would have destroyed Virgin Mobile under its current ownership.

The judge branded T-Mobiles attempt to get out of its joint venture a deliberate engineering of a supposed no-fault termination in order to secure commercial advantages.

T-Mobile took the view said Mr Justice Cooke that its commercial interests took precedence over the rights and wrongs of the situation and T-Mobile was prepared to risk the outcome of litigation on the basis of the course of action which they adopted. That is a course of conduct which is deserving of moral condemnation. It would inevitably lead to litigation as Mr Harris Jones appreciated and said.

It is unreasonable conduct to a high degree. When a party comes to the court running a case which they know to be wrong I see that as highly unreasonable conduct in the course of litigation.

Mr Justice Cooke said Virgin and Virgin Mobile were now entitled to all their costs and that there is no reason for the successful parties to be kept out of their costs.

The network was ordered to make an immediate interim payment of 560000 to Virgin and 300000 to Virgin Mobile.

T-Mobiles counsel Mr J. Sumption QC hinted that the network would petition in the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against the order.

(See Analysis P18).

While commission for the high-end business tariffs are untouched the network is removing its Vodafone Incentive Programme (VIP) which acted as a marketing fund for dealers and the Business Partners Initiative (BPI).

Vodafone was the first network to publicly state it would be reducing handset subsides as a result of the Competition Commissions announ-cement in January. It was also the first operator to announce it would be challenging the legality of the order and calling for a judicial review.

Two weeks ago Orange sales director Stuart Henry told Mobile News that his network would be cutting subsidies by at least 40 by August with further cuts more than likely.

Last week T-Mobile got the message and announced it was to slash its commission payments by 40 as well.

Sales director Christina Meade said: This measure was inevitable in the wake of the Competition Commission recommendations.

Meade suggested that dealers focus on higher-value customers to offset the losses.

The announcement now leaves O2 as the only network not to have announced plans to cut subsidies.

The Taiwanese handset manufacturer is now deciding if and when it will enter the UK market.

DBTEL had planned to start shipping handsets before last Christmas with the slimmest and lightest colour-screen handset.

But DBTEL has failed to ship a single handset since it established a sales office in Croydon last year.

Head of product management for Europe Maurice Pickles said the company would announce its strategy after CeBIT.

We could have shipped but the chairman has decided to review the sales strategy in light of our success in China. The UK market hasnt been right for DBTEL he said.

We are looking to see what we can learn from our success in China and use that in Europe. There is also the issue of operator subsidy reductions. We need to be able to offer the right product to market he added.

McKee had always stated it had been his intention to eventually move back to Ireland. But a plan for him to work out of Dublin was not acceptable to DBTEL.

An announcement is expected this week. At the time of going to press Vodafone declined to comment. Cellular Operations managing director Nigel Bunter and sales director Chris Jones were unavailable.

Cellular Operations won the Best Service Provider prize at the Mobile News Awards last year and describes itself as the second largest independent service providers for Vodafone and O2.

The company was formed in 1991 by Ford Motor Company and called Ford Cellular Systems.

It went private in 1997 following a management buy-out led by Bunter. Turnover last year amounted to 200 million from a subscriber base of half a million customers including Argos IBM and Ford as well as Ford-owned car marques Jaguar Aston Martin Mazda and Volvo.

Case claims his contract was terminated abruptly by PNC in December last year.

He alleges PNC is in breach of contract because no consultation or attempt to find him employment within PNC took place before taking the decision to make him redundant. Case also claims PNC failed to pay him bonuses due under the terms of his contract. He says PNC also failed honour a payment due to him for the purchase of KJC mobile from himself and co-founder Darren Ridge. PNC purchased KJC in July 2000.

Case says PNC harassed and victimised him by cancelling his status as a signatory on one of the companys bank accounts and instructing security staff to deny him access to company premises. He says an attempt to enter a company warehouse was resisted by force and witnessed by other company employees causing him distress and embarrassment.

Cases claim totals more than 2 million including (Cont P2) 1.7 million for loss of salary bonus and benefits 53000 for unfair dismissal and 260000 compensation for harassment.

In the meantime bailiffs have successfully seized goods worth 17000 from PNCs offices for unpaid rent on two properties that the company is leasing from Case and former KJC managing director Darren Ridge.

The bailiffs recovered the funds at the end of last month. Neither Case nor any PNC director was available for comment at the time Mobile News went to press.

The news comes as PNC has decided to make a U-turn on a decision to sell all or part of the company just months after a boardroom battle that saw shareholder and former chief executive Geremy Thomas appointed as a PNC non-executive director. Thomas had openly opposed the companys plan to sell up claiming he and other shareholders would lose out due to the low share price.

PNC said it had been in discussion with several interested parties but had declined the offers because they were not acceptable. A company statement was issued saying:

These discussions have not resulted in any proposals being made that the directors feel they can accept. The company has ceased taking active steps to promote a sale.

Current trading is in line with management expectations.

PNC claims it has managed to reduce debts by 55 per cent due to some large tax rebates.

The meeting came a day before Customs won a significant VAT & Duties tribunal decision which gives Customs the legal right to deny repayment where the transactions do not amount to economic activity (see story this opposite).

More than 400 people packed a meeting room at Lancashire Cricket Club in Manchester to form a new pressure group called the Federation of IT Equipment Distributors (FITE) to demand Customs and Excise rethink its new laws.

A sign that Customs was taking FITE seriously was that HM Customs and Excise head of fiscal fraud Tony Walker had flown from London to the meeting.

Conduct

Protesters pointed out that Customs had given missing traders their VAT number in the first place. Thus how could legitimate companies account for the conduct of companies they had never heard of?

Walker sought to offer reassurance for legitimate traders and fired warning shots for those not trading legitimately. He claimed that the proceeds of carousel fraud were being used to fund the sale of heroin outside school playgrounds.

Turning a blind eye is no longer good enough said Walker as he sought to reassure legitimate businesses that they had nothing to fear.

Dr Mike Cheetham of Bond House Systems Limited which has just lost its appeal against Customs right to block a VAT claim said:

How can a legitimate business know an individual is going to become a missing trader before he does? Customs gave the missing trader the authority to become a VAT collector – shouldnt Customs shoulder some of the burden of blame when it all goes wrong?

Walker replied:

Its all about knowing your supplier and everything regarding the transaction. You must take general reasonable commercial steps that will lead you to consider the legitimacy of your supplier and the commercial viability of your supplier.

Support

FITE organiser Frazer Holmes of Barnard Atkins VAT Services said he was taken aback by the support and the show of hands pledging 1000 each to get the ball rolling. (Cont P2)

I think we collected around 250000 at the end of the day. The watchword is cooperation. Customs want to work with us; they are looking forward to having one representative voice with which to deal.

People are coming forward to volunteer their services. But it is first and foremost a members organisation. It will be their federation and it will be non-profit making.

Somebody had to do it. VAT clients of mine in the mobile phone sector didnt feel the existing bodies represented them or their needs.

I dont know how long the money pledged today will last. We are going to be involved in producing consultation documents. It will be expensive.

If we launch a legal fighting fund well be talking about a lot of money. I dont know if the Federation feels it can manage that process. Its up to the members. The people here today have to decide the ultimate direction. My role perhaps will be to help suggest the roads they may follow.

An individual up against a Government body doesnt stand a chance in hell. A large company doesnt stand a chance. A federation of 200 and more companies will make a difference.

Customs got a lot out of today. They will be directing the written answers arising out of todays session to the Federation (full story P16).