A CONTROVERSIAL election trust that apparently bankrolled a candidate’s campaign in a scandal-hit by-election only actually existed for one month – and contained just £100, it has emerged.
Island lawyer James Quinn, who was a trustee for the Manx Election Trust (MET), revealed the trust was established just a week before the by-election in May 2010 but was formally wound up the following month after the promised significant funds never materialised.
The by-election, on May 27, 2010, was rocked by scandal following the arrest of Charles ‘Buster’ Lewin, campaign manager for candidate Kevin Woodford, on suspicion of proxy vote fraud. Mr Lewin was subsequently jailed last month for three and a half years for his part in a scheme to obtain fraudulent proxy votes.
Mr Quinn this week told iomtoday: ‘There was a trust called the Manx Election Trust. It was established on May 20, 2010. It didn’t exist before that date. It was settled with £100 cash. I was a trustee.
‘I was told there was going to be a substantial amount of money settled in the trust. The promised funds never materialised and as a result I gave notice of resignation on June 4, 2010, and the trust was formally wound up on June 22, 2010.’
Meanwhile, leading island accountant Clive Dixon has said he was ‘shocked’ to have been wrongly named as a trustee of the Manx Election Trust by businessman and celebrity chef Mr Woodford at the Douglas East vote-rigging trial.
Giving evidence for the prosecution at the trial, Mr Woodford testified he understood the MET to be the source of funds used in his election campaign. He said he had been told that Mr Dixon was one of three trustees of the MET – the others being former Chief Minister Donald Gelling and former banker Douglas Elliot.
In fact, none of those three was ever a trustee. The MET had one other temporary trustee apart from Mr Quinn.
Mr Dixon said he had been approached to become a trustee in April 2010 by James Quinn. But he subsequently turned down the invitation the following month, telling Mr Quinn it was a ‘distinctly unattractive proposition’ which had ‘the potential to damage the reputation’ of his firm.
Mr Dixon, a partner in chartered accountants Moore Stephens Isle of Man, told the Independent: ‘I was concerned to find that my name has been associated with the so-called Manx Election Trust. After I declined the offer to be involved, I simply assumed that they found an alternative trustee.’
Mr Woodford declined to comment when approached by iomtoday.
He has always insisted that he has never known, or had wanted to know, the identities of the group of business people behind the blind trust.
‘I had no idea who was funding the trust but I was given names for the trust directors,’ he told the election fraud trial. He said he had ‘assumed’ some of the ‘socially-conscious’ businessmen behind the MET were ‘connected’ with building firm Dandara.
In an interview with Isle of Man Newspapers ahead of the Douglas East by-election in May 2010, he said: ‘I am aware of who the trustees are. I’m not aware of who the financial backers are and nor do I want to be.’
Mr Woodford said he had been approached six months earlier by Mr Quinn, who had been requested to set up a trust by ‘several business people from the island’ whose concern was to seek funds to put forward election candidates that were ‘perhaps of different calibre to the ones we’ve had in the past’.
He said he had faith in the ‘professionalism, honesty and integrity’ of the trustees. ‘Those are the ones who are aware of who the backers are,’ he claimed.
But Mr Dixon said he had never known who the backers were – or indeed had ever asked because he had rejected the approach before it had got that far.
He said he had not disagreed with the principle behind the trust, so long as it was ‘fully accountable and fully transparent’.
But Mr Dixon said alarm bells began ringing when he heard the then Chief Minister Tony Brown referring to MET as a ‘blind trust’ and when he heard Mr Woodford claiming in an interview that the trust had already been set up.
He said that after declining the approach he had assumed others had taken on the role of trustees for the MET.