Difference between revisions of "Bill Fairclough"
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In BZW Bill helped rapidly establish the Thamesway Group as the world’s premier soft commission broker (per Greenwich surveys). Thamesway was cannibalizing BZW’s core business to such a degree that in 1993 it was sold to Reuters (including Fairclough who re-joined Barclays in 1995). Bill helped Reuters develop the business across several countries, six of which were started from scratch, in less than 18 months after it acquired Thamesway. | In BZW Bill helped rapidly establish the Thamesway Group as the world’s premier soft commission broker (per Greenwich surveys). Thamesway was cannibalizing BZW’s core business to such a degree that in 1993 it was sold to Reuters (including Fairclough who re-joined Barclays in 1995). Bill helped Reuters develop the business across several countries, six of which were started from scratch, in less than 18 months after it acquired Thamesway. | ||
− | On his return Bill was, inter alia, appointed a director of Barclays Holdings and a Group Senior Executive. During over a decade in Barclays, Bill | + | On his return Bill was, inter alia, appointed a director of Barclays Holdings and a Group Senior Executive. During over a decade in Barclays, Bill worked with many of Barclays' luminaries including Oliver Stocken, Martin Taylor and John Varley as well as one or two less "notable" persons at various points in his career. He was on the board that built the first online retail broking business outside of the USA. He simultaneously sold the UK’s largest personal tax business and bought the customer base of Fidelity Brokerage Services (within 24 hours of hearing it was for sale). |
'''Other Organizations''' | '''Other Organizations''' |
Revision as of 18:00, 9 April 2018
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Born | John William Percy Fairclough 1950/08/31 Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, England |
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Chairman, Company director |
Parents | • Richard Alan Fairclough • Margaret Fairclough |
Spouse | Josefina Repancol Fairclough |
Relatives | • Peter Richard Stafford Fairclough (1948 – 1996) • Sister: Jane Margaret Jackson (1944 – 2014) • Daughter: born 1986 • Son: born 1987 |
Bill Fairclough's biography |
BILL FAIRCLOUGH
Full Name - John William Percy Fairclough
Born - 1950
Born - Stockton-on-Tees Durham England
Occupation – Non-executive chairman
Languages - English and French
Nationality - British
Notable publications to date - Beyond Enkription, The Burlington Files published 2014 and various technical accounting, auditing and fraud prevention publications whilst working for Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) published from 1975 to 1983 in the UK and the USA
Parents - Dr Richard Alan Fairclough (1915 – 1987) and Margaret Fairclough (1918 – 1995)
Brother - Peter Richard Stafford Fairclough (1948 – 1996)
Sister - Jane Margaret Jackson (1944 – 2014)
Spouse - Josefina Repancol Fairclough (1996 – present)
Children - Two, a daughter (born 1986) and son (born 1987)
PRIMARY WEBSITE LINKS
https://everipedia.org/wiki/bill-fairclough
Citations and evidence are included where possible in the Everipedia biography: please see below.
http://www.theburlingtonfiles.org
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fairclough-119
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/billfairclough
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bill_Fairclough
ACCURACY, VALIDITY & VERACITY OF INFORMATION
All the information in this article is valid and accurate. Files, photographs, web-links and other forms of data are available to support that statement. To the extent legally possible and having regards to protecting sources etc citations and other evidence have been appended to Bill Fairclough's biography in Everipedia.
However, for security and legal reasons certain data may only be released to prove the accuracy, validity and/or veracity of the information disclosed if subjected to confidentiality agreements which preclude the publication of their existence and have no limits in respect of claims for damages.
SYNOPSIS OF BILL FAIRCLOUGH'S BIOGRAPHY & THE BURLINGTON FILES
Bill Fairclough, full name John William Percy Fairclough, (born 31 August 1950) is the non-executive chairman of The Burlington Files Group and was the nominal author of The Burlington Files, the series of spy novels based on his life. In 1978 he founded Faire Sans Dire, a niche global intelligence and investigatory organisation.
Bill Fairclough started his career as a trainee accountant (or articled clerk) at Cooper Brothers (later to become Coopers & Lybrand and after that PricewaterhouseCoopers) and somewhat altruistically lived a double life from the early seventies. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant at Coopers, he established and controlled Faire Sans Dire in the late seventies to provide a conduit whereby intelligence agencies involved mainly in law enforcement at that time could more easily work together. The goal was to help prevent the exponential spread of international organized crime.
After leaving Coopers & Lybrand in July 1983 Bill Fairclough continued to work in the international financial services industry until January 1999 while still retaining control of Faire Sans Dire. From 1983 to 1986 he worked at Citigroup and from 1986 to 1999 he worked at Barclays (including a short secondment to Reuters Group). From 1999 he "switched roles" and Faire Sans Dire became his main occupation, albeit covertly until 2010, while simultaneously taking on directorships (overtly and covertly) in various companies mainly in the financial services sector but also in property, healthcare and other industries.
In July 2009 Bill Fairclough was approached again to try to make some films loosely based on his experiences. At the time he was still running Faire Sans Dire and acting as a director for various property and finance companies. Through intermediaries he contacted two well-known film production companies to assess their appetite for making films comprising a pot pourri of unusual concepts and experiences based on his somewhat unconventional and maverick dual existence.
Despite all their initial enthusiasm, the negotiations with those companies’ executives came to nothing. Both film production companies advised Bill that he must first present his material in book and/or film script format. Sadly, his approach to one US corporation eventually landed on stony ground when MGM, which produced many of the James Bond films, filed for bankruptcy. (MGM has since recovered.) The other household name film production company approached was based in the UK but had a full production agenda for many years ahead.
Accordingly, on 5 March 2014 the first novel in The Burlington Files series, Beyond Enkription, was published on Amazon (worldwide) as a paperback and eBook and copyrighted by an English company, The Burlington Files Limited of which Bill was ostensibly the majority shareholder at the time. The official date of publication marked the fiftieth anniversary of the opening chapter in Beyond Enkription and was “coincidentally” on purpose the same day as Bill Fairclough’s father’s birthday. In 2015 a hardcover version of Beyond Enkription was published by Dolman Scott.
Beyond Enkription was not written as and has never been marketed as a traditional novel because it was "written for film". The sole purposes of publication were to secure copyright and make it easy for those in the film industry to access it in a manner that suited them once they had been contacted via Faire Sans Dire. Accordingly, the book has to date not been a best-seller other than in obtuse ways in China and old Soviet bloc countries such as the Ukraine and Bulgaria. It is estimated that in aggregate over 60,000 copies were sold through illegitimate eBook libraries within a year or so of its publication on Kindle: so much for copyright!
CONTENTS
1 PERSONAL LIFE
2 EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
3 OVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE
4 COVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE
5 THE BURLINGTON FILES
6 WEB LINKS & OTHER DATA
1 PERSONAL LIFE
Bill Fairclough had a brother and sister and was the youngest of three children; both his elder siblings, Jane and Peter, are now deceased. Peter attended Keble College at Oxford University studying history and despite his frequent absences obtained a third-class degree which was more than his younger brother Bill achieved at university. Given Bill only attended university for 17 days that is hardly surprising!
Bill Fairclough’s father, the son of an ex-headmaster of a school in Putney, was an Oxford Scholar from Keble College where he obtained a first and a doctorate in chemistry. Bill's parents met during the war when his father (ostensibly working for Imperial Chemical Industries - ICI) was working secretly on creating bombs to wipe out the Nazis’ industrial hinterland. Bill's parents married in Yarm in 1941.
After Bill's father, Richard Fairclough, retired from ICI he ran an antiquarian and second-hand book shop in Yarm during the late seventies and the eighties until his death in 1987. The book shop, which mainly exported antiquarian books to overseas libraries, was used in the eighties as a front for various intelligence and recruitment purposes by both his youngest son and some countries’ intelligence agencies.
When not gated (or being otherwise punished for unruly behaviour) at boarding school Bill Fairclough spent most of his childhood and early teens in the North East of England not far from the banks of the River Tees. As a child he lived in Billingham and then (in a vast white house once lived in by the poet Percy Shelley) in Norton by the “green” overlooking the duck pond. In his early teens he lived in Middleton St George and later in Yarm and rented flats near nightclubs he worked in or controlled during the late sixties near Stockton-on-Tees and Jesmond in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
In his youth Bill Fairclough survived numerous life-threatening events such as serious accidents, severe illnesses and multiple car and boat crashes. On three successive holidays as a teenager his escapades included sinking a 35-foot pleasure cruiser in the River Trent; escaping from a flat burnt to ashes in Ealing; and being diagnosed with acute appendicitis while touring the mountainous regions surrounding Innsbruck. He also survived several attempted murders in his late teens and early twenties while involved in running night clubs and casinos. He lived life in the fast lane.
In 1971 he left the North East of England in a hurry, bound for Soho, London’s West End and a new job at Coopers in the City of London at their prestigious Head Office in Gutter Lane Cheapside. To his employers at Coopers it was understandable that anyone like Bill Fairclough would prefer to work in their large Head Office rather than their relatively small offices in Middlesbrough and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
He already had a reputation for spotting and uncovering fraud and malpractice which had not escaped the notice of some of Coopers' senior partners in London. However, according to Bill he had been moonlighting in night clubs and had to leave for his own safety after getting involved in gang warfare. He was receiving unwanted attention from protection racketeers (including allegedly corrupt police mainly in Newcastle and Sunderland) all along the North-East coast of England from Scarborough to Whitley Bay.
On arrival in the West End of London in 1971 he maintained a triple existence not only working for Coopers but also moonlighting in clubs and the music industry while unwittingly assisting the intelligence services (see covert professional life below). In the music industry he acted as an accountant for several promoters, agents, managers and artists while dabbling in the fun side of the business including co-managing some rock groups in Europe such as Ange and Little Bob Story. In the early seventies, the highlights of his involvement in the music industry included:
(1) helping produce a number one single for Ange while visiting Phonogram's recording studios in Paris;
(2) drumming with Keith Moon of the Who at the Roundhouse in London;
(3) performing on stage with George Melly at Ronnie Scott's in Soho;
(4) dressed in a pin stripe suit to provoke the audience, pretending to whip Stacia Blake (of the band Hawkwind) on stage at some of Hawkwind's concerts for which he was purportedly made an "honorary" Hells Angel; and
(5) hiring Wembley Stadium after reaching an oral agreement with Colonel Tom Parker for a weekend performance by Elvis Presley which never happened as Elvis decided he didn't want to perform overseas at the time!
He turned down various offers in the early seventies to manage some very well-known UK and American rock bands as he found working with the intelligence services more exciting and to his liking as a moonlighting "pastime". He even turned down a request in the eighties to become the non-executive chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
From the mid-seventies until the mid-nineties Bill Fairclough spent much time working overseas. He was based in Nassau Bahamas and the Americas on and off up until the mid-eighties. Bill continued to face many near-death experiences on land, water and in the air. He suffered from a toxic variety of life threatening illnesses including a few attempted poisonings. He also survived several other attempts on his life by those who would have preferred that his investigatory talents weren’t covertly locked onto their criminal empires.
Bill Fairclough was married in 1983 and by 1987 his wife had two children. After a separation lasting six years their marriage ended in divorce in 1995. He remarried in August 1996.
In February 1996 his brother was reported to have allegedly committed suicide prior to a planned move down South from Yarm.
2 EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
Bill Fairclough attended Red House School in Norton Stockton-on-Tees and then obtained a full fee-paying scholarship to St Peter’s School York. He was nearly expelled from Red House School on more than one occasion for his rebellious behaviour. However, once safely ensconced as a scholar at St Peter's School York he was safe from expulsion as the expulsion of any scholar was not only unprecedented but in any event, it would have reflected badly on those who awarded it.
St Peter's School York is one of the oldest schools in the world having been founded in 627AD by Saint Paulinus. Bill was far removed from being a saint! Mind you, so was John Johnson ("JJ"), better known as Guy Fawkes, one of its former pupils. As noted in The Burlington Files, JJ was the first pseudonym attributed to Bill whilst being used as an intelligence asset in London: the intelligence agencies knew a little about history.
In his last term at York, Bill Fairclough took the Oxford scholarship entry exam with a view to following in his father's scholarly footsteps at Keble College. Bill was assured through his father (by a very close friend and fellow scholar at Keble, one Douglas Price) that he had done exceedingly well in the exam and was unquestionably on course to obtain a scholarship in English literature at Keble College having apparently excelled all the others taking the scholarship exams. (Douglas Price devoted most of his life to Keble College which has a prestigious society named after him.)
Accordingly, Bill attended an interview at Oxford University somewhat unusually with Douglas Price in attendance. They had met before at Bill's father's houses on many occasions. However, he was not only refused a scholarship but also refused entry to Keble College. Even his brother's position had become precarious, but Peter managed to remain at Keble on the proviso that he relinquished his rooms there which he did.
Bill had been turned down for egregious misbehaviour after a party that had lasted long into the night which was attended by him and his brother. Bill’s night out ended unceremoniously only a few hours before the interview. Consequently, he was immediately suspended from school. He left for Soho rather than return North and later went to the University of East Anglia instead of Oxford University as planned.
From September 1967 until July 1968 Bill spent only seventeen days at East Anglia University in Norwich preferring the “University of Life” in Central London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne working in and running night clubs and casinos. Even so, he passed his first-year exams at Norwich with flying colours (obtaining the equivalent of a first) and then left prematurely without notice.
Bill Fairclough also attended Newcastle Polytechnic to study accountancy after being articled to a partner at Cooper Brothers in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He obtained top marks in many of the exams including several "100%" marks on his papers. He qualified first time as a Chartered Accountant in 1974. In 1980 he became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. In 1994 he became a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. In 1995 he became a life member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers. In January 2016, after over 40 years as a qualified Chartered Accountant, Bill resigned from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
From the late eighties at various times Bill Fairclough was registered with the UK and other financial and banking regulatory bodies to be a director of businesses operating in the financial services sector. Since then many of them have changed their names. In the UK those authorities included the SFA, IMRO, the PIA, the FSA (via the ICAEW) and the Bank of England which now comes under the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority. In the USA he was similarly licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission; in Japan by the Ministry of Finance; and in Hong Kong by their Securities and Futures Commission.
Bill was also a member of the Anti-Corruption Research Network at Transparency International for many years while leading Faire Sans Dire once it had gone public.
3 OVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE
Coopers & Lybrand
Bill Fairclough worked at Coopers & Lybrand (or Cooper Brothers) from 1969 to 1983. During his thirteen years with Coopers, apart from helping establish Coopers & Lybrand itself and working in their Technical Department, Bill’s bread and butter work included working on: audits and restructurings of British Steel, British Telecom and British Leyland; audits and investigations of listed companies (e.g. Rio Tinto Zinc), local councils, banks and leasing companies; liquidations of banks in the Caribbean; reviewing audit work undertaken by the UK firm; and many unusual one offs such as helping with the start-up and subsequent sale of a Peruvian investment house.
While working in Coopers' Technical Department he wrote (with others) the firm’s Manual of Auditing, several UK statements of standard accounting practice (SSAPs) and other publications (e.g. on the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related anti-boycott legislation). Later, he became the first Secretary to Coopers' International Executive Committee reporting to the International Firm’s CEO, the first of whom was Sir Brandon Gough.
At Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) as Secretary to the International Executive Committee Bill Fairclough was also involved in helping investigate major frauds encountered by the firm internationally and investigating suspected malpractices involving Coopers' international partners (e.g. straightforward fraud or compliance with coercion by terrorists). From the mid-seventies he was based in either the UK or the Bahamas and worked extensively in Europe, the USA, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America.
Citigroup
In 1983 Bill Fairclough was head-hunted by Citigroup based in the Strand London and became the deputy chief financial officer for Citigroup's EMEA and Far East operations which at the time held more assets than the UK's Lloyds Bank Group and Midland Bank Group global banking groups combined.
Bill earned his daily bread by not only undertaking those chores one would expect of an accountant and deputy finance director. In addition, using the talents he had acquired at Coopers, Bill spent much time: investigating alleged frauds and malpractices; and creating off balance sheet schemes (some of which involved interest rate and currency swaps with up to thirty counter-parties) and off balance sheet vehicles (such as Drury Lane Limited and Citibank Investments Limited).
Also, working in a team of three, reporting to Kent Price (Citicorp's UK chief executive officer at the time) Bill assessed potential acquisitions such as Williams & Glyn's Bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Nationwide Building Society none of which were deemed palatable by the Bank of England. Bill also helped sell Citigroup's Thai banking interests in such a way that the deals were not perceived to be the sale of a banking license despite regulatory hurdles in Hong Kong and Thailand.
Fairclough's investigations into alleged frauds and malpractices extended into more covert investigations of alleged breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related anti-boycott legislation in the Middle East. Some of these investigations were mandated by the Group's chief financial officer in 1985 (Tom Jones) based in Wall Street. He wanted investigations undertaken of certain suspected politically sensitive frauds and other misdemeanours in all the areas Citigroup operated in excluding North America.
Citigroup now calls itself "Citi" and remains one of the largest banks in the world. Bill parted company with Citigroup pursuant to conducting a series of covert investigations which had global consequences for Citigroup. It ended up paying out unprecedented fines (including penalties to large numbers of tax authorities) and its global management structure was completely overhauled at the behest of regulators.
Barclays Group
In 1986 Bill Fairclough joined the Barclays Bank Group. He worked his way up the ladder at Barclays becoming a director of many Mercantile Credit and Mercantile Group businesses*, Ebbgate Holdings (BZW now Barclays Investment Bank), Barclays Stockbrokers, Barclays Financial Services, Barclays Holdings (now Barclays Directors) and many other Barclays Group companies* including Barclays Bank Trust Company. In addition, he had responsibilities for other parts of the Barclays Group such as Barclays Global Investors. (*Please note that most of Fairclough's appointments were before directorships were registered on the UK Companies House website.)
In 1995 Bill re-joined Barclays after a quasi-secondment to Reuters when one part of BZW he was operations director for was sold to the Reuters Group and later to NASDAQ. At Reuters Bill had been a director of many companies including a founding director of Instinet Holdings some of whose subsidiaries had later been sold to NASDAQ.
While at Barclays (including when Bill was seconded to Reuters) he was mainly based in London but also worked out of New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. During this part of his career he worked in many countries in Europe, the Far East and the Americas.
Please note that although Bill Fairclough held many senior board positions at Barclays those were all held long before Barclays became embroiled in mis-selling, interest/exchange rate fixing and other scandals. Those parts of the Barclays Group which were later to become centres of duplicity and dishonesty many years after Bill left the Barclays Group in 1999 never directly fell under his direct chain of command in his later years at Barclays.
At Barclays, Bill’s daily chores varied as his seniority grew. For those parts of Barclays Group for which he was responsible he had typical finance director responsibilities. He enhanced Barclays’ profitability by introducing sub-LIBOR mismatched swap back to back funding to Mercantile. He even challenged the Inland Revenue’s Board on grounds of “unfair competition” and won. As a result, Mercantile Group’s profitability increased notably.
In the eighties Bill helped expand Barclays’ agricultural finance business (the Highland Group) such that through acquisition/de novo growth in Eire, Canada, Germany and Denmark it become the world’s second largest provider of agricultural finance behind the Deutz Allis Group. Along with Ed Robson, Highland’s CEO, Bill even tried to acquire Deutz Allis too! In addition, Bill helped develop joint ventures with Fiat, Citroen and Peugeot and created forestry and fast cheque processing businesses.
In 1990 he was part of a small Barclays team (reporting to Owen Rout) responsible for the restructuring of the Mercantile Group (which then represented 25% of the Barclays Group in terms of assets). In 1991 Bill then sold Mercantile Credit to GE Capital days after Mercantile’s head office in Basingstoke had almost been burnt to the ground. Bill assisted GE Capital start its UK business using what it had acquired from Mercantile Credit as its base.
In BZW Bill helped rapidly establish the Thamesway Group as the world’s premier soft commission broker (per Greenwich surveys). Thamesway was cannibalizing BZW’s core business to such a degree that in 1993 it was sold to Reuters (including Fairclough who re-joined Barclays in 1995). Bill helped Reuters develop the business across several countries, six of which were started from scratch, in less than 18 months after it acquired Thamesway.
On his return Bill was, inter alia, appointed a director of Barclays Holdings and a Group Senior Executive. During over a decade in Barclays, Bill worked with many of Barclays' luminaries including Oliver Stocken, Martin Taylor and John Varley as well as one or two less "notable" persons at various points in his career. He was on the board that built the first online retail broking business outside of the USA. He simultaneously sold the UK’s largest personal tax business and bought the customer base of Fidelity Brokerage Services (within 24 hours of hearing it was for sale).
Other Organizations
Since 2000 after leaving Barclays, Bill Fairclough has been a director of several companies involved in activities other than the provision of financial services. He also ran his own regulated forensic accountancy practice. In 2010 his involvement with Faire Sans Dire became public knowledge after he opened the organization’s first website.
To date, after more than four decades, there has been only one investigation Faire Sans Dire was involved in where Bill Fairclough’s or Faire Sans Dire’s name entered the public domain. That one related to The Money Portal. Various legal actions took place relating to investigations conducted by Bill who was also The Money Portal’s finance director at the time which hit the front pages of some of the UK press at the time.
In 2005 Bill Fairclough failed to get the case brought against him summarily struck off by Mr Justice Forbes (of fame for presiding over the Harold Shipman serial murders trial). The case was primarily sponsored by one of the company's founding directors who in 2006 was disqualified from acting as a director for ten years and later bankrupted in and extradited from Australia and imprisoned until his trial in England in respect of criminal charges brought against him by the Serious Fraud Office.
Mr Justice Forbes argued that Bill Fairclough's strike-out case was so exceptional (e.g. it included a solicitor who confessed to destroying a company computer with a hammer and garden shears) that it should go to a full trial and Mr Justice Forbes said The Money Portal had only just “squeaked home”. It is of note that Mr Justice Forbes was not normally a judge in commercial cases. Furthermore, he had apparently made it known that he was close to retirement at the time with an unblemished record of never having had any of his judgements appealed which he was presumably proud of and no doubt wanted to retain his flawless reputation.
Not only this strike-out case but the ensuing linked trials involving people connected with Faire Sans Dire's investigations were not exactly good advertisements for the quality of British justice or the Serious Fraud Office's investigatory capabilities. Furthermore, had the case gone to trial a few of the plaintiff's directors and legal representatives might have been astonished to discover that the case hinged on various overseas matters that they appeared to have overlooked in the strike out case.
Immediately after the strike out hearing in October 2005 The Money Portal tried to reach a settlement with Bill Fairclough because they did not wish the case to proceed to full trial. It was not until July 2006 that Bill Fairclough and The Money Portal’s chairman (Richard Hambro of the Hambros Bank dynasty) reached an out of court settlement to Fairclough’s satisfaction. By that time the founding director referred to earlier had admitted to some of his previous misdemeanours which had been the subject of investigations led by Bill Fairclough.
Within days of the settlement, Bill was rehired by The Money Portal to undertake more covert investigatory work for them. Not long thereafter one of their founding directors was bankrupted in and extradited from Australia and imprisoned until his trial in England in respect of criminal charges brought against him by the Serious Fraud Office.
4 COVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE
To the extent considered legally acceptable and unlikely to harm any person Bill Fairclough's covert life is explained between the lines of The Burlington Files in which the character and adventures of the main protagonist, one Edward Burlington, are based on Bill, his life and his experiences. To date only the first novel, Beyond Enkription, in The Burlington Files series of six novels has been published though.
In the seventies (and later) Bill Fairclough worked with Alan Pemberton CVO MBE and Barrie Parkes MBE to covertly help combat corruption and Fairclough’s skills and experience were used to investigate some extraordinary international frauds and diplomatic misdemeanours. In 1978 Bill formed Faire Sans Dire which means to do without speaking. It was his family’s motto and incorporated in its crest of arms.
The organisation was established to provide a conduit such that intelligence agencies involved mainly in law enforcement could liaise with one another more easily to help tackle and reduce international organized crime. The rationale for that was during the Cold War those on both "sides" wanted to put a stop to certain types of organised criminal activities but were prevented from liaising one with another for that purpose for political reasons.
Faire Sans Dire bridged the gap by providing anonymity to those who wished to halt heinous crimes such as people and drug trafficking across borders by those taking advantage of the uncooperative stances taken by the authorities who were at "cold war" with one another politically speaking.
Those who worked for or with Faire Sans Dire were not only from intelligence backgrounds but also included senior retired police officers, lawyers, accountants and retired members of elite military units such as the SAS, SBS and their equivalents from other countries' special forces. Since its establishment in 1978 Faire Sans Dire amassed a global network comprising many associates around the world whether individuals, firms, organisations or corporate and other bodies.
Furthermore, since 1978 Faire Sans Dire has carried out thousands of assignments and investigations for clients in over 120 countries. Faire Sans Dire has operated under many guises but a company called Faire Sans Dire Limited has existed from time to time when required to act formally on behalf of the Faire Sans Dire organisation. Faire Sans Dire remains a niche intelligence led security and investigatory organisation with global reach and provides a variety of risk management and intelligence gathering services with an increasing focus on cyberspace services.
Much of Faire Sans Dire’s work has been carried out on a pro-bono basis. From its inception until recently Bill Fairclough has been the owner of Faire Sans Dire, the legal structure of which has changed from time to time. He normally used to act either as its executive or non-executive chairman.
Obviously, Bill Fairclough's activities while running Faire Sans Dire cannot be divulged other than to the extent they have been disclosed in the autobiographical novels in The Burlington Files series of which Bill Fairclough was the nominal author. Including those disclosures, Faire Sans Dire and/or Bill Fairclough have one way or another publicly acknowledged Bill’s involvement in investigations into and/or assignments relating to the following subjects, persons and events:
• The John Poulson scandal and subsequent resignation of Reginald Maudling: as referred and alluded to on pages 102, 103, 122, 135, 354 and 361 of Beyond Enkription. (From the late sixties Bill Fairclough allegedly effected “legitimate” access to Poulson's offices in Middlesbrough which were situated on the floor above Cooper Brothers' offices where Bill was employed as an articled clerk, inter alia, on the audit of and investigations into what was Teesside Council.)
• Corruption et al involving Milton Obote and Idi Amin in Uganda: alluded to on pages 72, 143, 465 and 467 of Beyond Enkription. (In the seventies Bill Fairclough investigated money laundering involving suitcases of cash sent from Rhodesia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia to Europe which, inter alia, resulted in the assassination of a Ugandan diplomat involved with Faire Sans Dire.)
• Thefts of bullion, other precious metals and diamonds worth millions of pounds from secure premises near Heathrow in the early seventies: as alluded to and described in Chapter 10 of Beyond Enkription. (The thieves disabled the alarms that should have been triggered by movement across the paths of laser beams by inserting mirrors that acted as receivers when placed close to the sources of the laser beams. Those responsible were never identified or caught.)
• Human and body part trafficking and related international criminal activities (including murders and multi-million-dollar frauds) undertaken by African, Middle Eastern and Asian diplomats and intelligence agencies linked to organized crime in the seventies: as described in detail in Chapters 1 to 10, 13 to 20, 30 and 36 of Beyond Enkription.
• India's Operation Smiling Buddha and nuclear proliferation issues in 1974: as referred to and described in Chapters 11 to 13 of Beyond Enkription.
• Nuclear proliferation issues involving South Africa's Bureau of State Security in 1974: as referred to and described in Chapters 11 to 13 of Beyond Enkription.
• Rogue Caribbean banks, such as the British American Bank Limited (in compulsory liquidation), in the seventies: many of these banks had been solely established and used to defraud depositors. (This particular Bahamian bank named British American Bank Limited was renowned in the seventies for placing advertisements brazenly stating that it would pay 1% more interest on deposits than offered by any other bank in the same issue of Time Magazine.)
• Fraud and related crimes by Robert Vesco in the Caribbean in the seventies and eighties: as referred and alluded to in Chapters 22, 23 and 28 of Beyond Enkription. (Also see Everipedia and/or Wikipedia links set out below which refer to Bill’s involvement.)
• Bribery, fraud and other crimes in Honduras committed by President Oswaldo Enrique López Arellano: as alluded to in Chapter 21 of Beyond Enkription. (While operating in the Caribbean in the seventies and eighties, Bill Fairclough kept the Honduran President’s financial and other activities under surveillance.)
• Millions of dollars worth of black coral thefts in the Caribbean in the seventies: as referred and alluded to in Chapter 28 of Beyond Enkription.
• Alleged breaches of international aviation financial and safety regulations by Haïti Air Inter in the seventies: as referred to and described in Chapters 28 and 31 to 35 of Beyond Enkription.
• Crimes and corruption involving Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier and the Tonton Macoute: as referred to and described in Chapters 28 and 31 to 35 of Beyond Enkription.
• Money laundering and other crimes involving Luckner Cambronne, the "Vampire of the Caribbean": as referred to and described in Chapters 31 to 35 of Beyond Enkription.
• Lynden Pindling and his links to Carlos Lehder and other drug traffickers in the seventies (and beyond): as referred to and described in Chapters 21 and 22 of Beyond Enkription. (As noted in other publications including The Burlington Files website Fairclough has acknowledged involvement in investigations involving Pindling's “nation for sale” scandal and attempted multi-million-dollar frauds against the Crown Agents in Nassau in the seventies.)
• Allegations concerning global corruption and tax evasion including alleged breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related anti-boycott legislation in the Middle East involving Citigroup in the eighties: Bill Fairclough's and Faire Sans Dire's investigations took place mostly between 1983 and 1986 as referred to under the heading “Citigroup" in the section entitled "Overt Professional Life” above.
• Manuel Noriega, Oliver North and the Iran Contra scandal that nearly toppled US President Ronald Reagan in the eighties: as explained and alluded to in the Panama Papers section of Faire Sans Dire’s preserved website and its press releases about the Panama Papers and Bill Fairclough’s similar articles on LinkedIn.
• Suspected terrorism and arson at Barclays' Mercantile Credit Head Office in Basingstoke in 1991: as referred to under the heading "Barclays Group" in the section entitled “Overt Professional Life” above.
• Scandals involving The Money Portal and its regulators commencing in 2004: as referred to under the heading "Other Organizations" in the section entitled “Overt Professional Life” above.
• Edward Snowden's whereabouts and activities (often reported ahead of the global media): as reported in several news articles published by Faire Sans Dire about Snowden, Optic Nerve, Prism and Cyberspace. (The articles were published between 17 February 2012 (long before Snowden was headlining global media) and 27 February 2014. The articles' titles do not necessarily indicate they were about Edward Snowden and are still accessible via Faire Sans Dire.)
• Companies House records in the UK: as disclosed in an article by Bill Fairclough on LinkedIn dated 6 November 2015 entitled “The UK Government Admits 945 Year Old Director Found Alive And Still Active”. (The article was also published by Faire Sans Dire pursuant to a Freedom of Information Request and unearthed some extraordinary facts about "English" company directors.)
• Unusual mistakes, frauds, misdemeanours, malpractices and crimes encountered by Faire Sans Dire since the seventies: as disclosed in a Faire Sans Dire news article entitled “Background Checks & Tales of the Unexpected” dated 3 September 2016. (The pot pourri of assignments and investigations referred to by Faire Sans Dire include some crass errors by not just Faire Sans Dire's clients, who are anonymously referred to, but also law enforcement agencies such as the FBI.)
Other than as explained and disclosed herein, Bill Fairclough’s and Faire Sans Dire’s involvement in assignments shall remain forever confidential as has been the case during the last four decades or so. Interestingly, much of the information in the public domain concerning Bill Fairclough's investigations into The Money Portal scandals (the only “leaked” assignment) has never been put into its proper international perspective. It is unlikely that Faire Sans Dire's involvement will ever be explained in full for legal reasons but what appears in the press is as far removed from the truth as Donald Trump’s perception of himself!
Since 2018 Faire Sans Dire has reverted to operating covertly and its website has simply been preserved for posterity because of the historical importance of Faire Sans Dire within The Burlington Files series. The intellectual property rights relating to FaireSansDire.org belong to The Burlington Files Limited. Faire Sans Dire has indeed gone back quietly into the night.
5 THE BURLINGTON FILES
Bill Fairclough started writing The Burlington Files in 1975. However, it was only in 2009 that work on the project began in earnest. The Burlington Files series is based on Bill Fairclough’s experiences running a double or triple life including the activities undertaken by Faire Sans Dire. The intellectual property rights of The Burlington Files are vested in an English company, The Burlington Files Limited and its subsidiary companies.
Beyond Enkription is the first stand-alone novel in the series to be published. At circa 180,000 words it is believed to be the longest spy novel published in the 21st century or was so at the time of publication. It took circa 10,000 hours to write and research. For most people working in the UK that is equivalent to more than five years’ work and that is for just one book in the series. Part of the core plot in Beyond Enkription is centred on the misspelling of “encryption”.
There are expected to be six novels in the series. Beyond Dekription, the second novel, has been drafted and is undergoing a review and editing prior to its publication. The other novels are at varying stages of production. All the novels were written in such a way that they could more easily be converted to become the bases for either full length feature films and/or television series. Bill called them novelogs and they are not dissimilar to grown up versions of Anne Frank’s diaries.
In summary, The Burlington Files is a series of unusual espionage novels based mainly on the life of Bill Fairclough and loosely on the lives of his family and his colleagues. Many of them worked for decades as governmental employees or assets or employees of intelligence agencies such as the CIA or MI6 (and indeed privately for Faire Sans Dire itself). The action and plots rapidly spread across the globe as time passes. The series covers a chain of interconnected plots (and family life) running from the Second World War through to the Edward Snowden era.
Beyond Enkription is a stand-alone novel in its own right and is set in 1974 in the heart of the disco fevered seventies, the Cold War and the escalating Irish Troubles in the purportedly united British Isles. Roger and Sara Burlington have been involved in espionage since 1939. While Roger is still a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sara’s address book appears to be more like a Who’s Who of NATO’s intelligence services than a housewife’s little black book. Both Roger and Sara desperately wanted their sons, Hugh and Edward, to follow in their footsteps but things didn’t go to plan given Edward’s rebellious nature.
Consequently, Edward unwittingly ends up working as an MI6 asset. Early in 1974 he is nearly killed not once, but four times. Indirectly it is all MI6’s fault ... so far as his parents are concerned. Sara decides someone high up in MI6 must pay and persuades Roger to exact revenge. Meanwhile Edward is sent to supposed safety from London town to Nassau in the Bahamas to continue his career as an accountant.
However, the CIA has a representative on the Joint Intelligence Committee and is therefore already aware of Edward’s exploits and capabilities. They turn him into their asset within 48 hours of his landing in Nassau. Meanwhile Hugh’s involvement with MI6 becomes increasingly intriguing as the entangled plots and layered webs of deceit, betrayal and revenge reverberate across the world and throughout the Burlington family and their trusted supporters.
6 WEB LINKS & OTHER DATA
There are literally tens of thousands of interesting web-links to Bill Fairclough and his past personal and/or business activities as explained in https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@burlingtonfiles/tales-of-the-unexpected-fact-checking-disinformation-unredacted. Not necessarily mutually exclusive to the web-links etc set out in the formal References in Bill Fairclough's biography in Everipedia, are some interesting links and facts about Bill Fairclough and Faire Sans Dire which are set out below. Many more external references are included in Bill Fairclough's biography in Everipedia.
Barclays Group https://everipedia.org/wiki/Barclays/
Beyond Enkription https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Enkription-Burlington-Files-1/dp/1497314186 and https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t1_1&qi=X.Sr6mbI2JIULNzbNYX4WQtpDrk_1497963026_1:2:1&bq=author%3Dbill%2520fairclough%26title%3Dbeyond%2520enkription%2520%2D%2520the%2520burlington%2520files
Bill Fairclough Recent Directorships http://companycheck.co.uk/director/906528948/MR-JOHN-WILLIAM-PERCY-FAIRCLOUGH-FCA-MSI-MCT and https://opencorporates.com/officers?q=John+William+Percy+Fairclough&utf8=%E2%9C%93 and https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/xO1Q7Tk3htRGf497OL_Qg3xznqs/appointments (Please note that Bill Fairclough's directorships in his early life are not included in the computerized records currently accessible by Companies House searches.)
Biography https://everipedia.org/wiki/bill-fairclough
Blogspot http://theburlingtonfiles.blogspot.co.uk
Citigroup https://everipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup/
Coopers & Lybrand https://everipedia.org/wiki/pricewaterhousecoopers/#coopers-lybrand
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theburlingtonfiles and https://www.facebook.com/CaguioaFairclough
Faire Sans Dire Co-founders http://www.fairesansdire.org/about-us/index.php
(1) Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE http://yeomenoftheguard.com/officerimages.htm#pemberton and No. 112 at http://yeomenoftheguard.com/exons.htm
(2) Barrie Northend Parkes MBE http://companycheck.co.uk/director/904498710/MR-BARRIE-NORTHEND-PARKES
Faire Sans Dire History http://www.fairesansdire.org/about-us/index.php
Faire Sans Dire Limited Past Directors http://www.fairesansdire.org/about-us/index.php and http://companycheck.co.uk/director/904498710/MR-BARRIE-NORTHEND-PARKES and http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06552657/FAIRE-SANS-DIRE-LIMITED/directors-secretaries
Intelligence Online https://www.intelligenceonline.com/search?sqe=QmlsbCBGYWlyY2xvdWdo0
ISBN Numbers for Beyond Enkription ISBN 10: 1497314186 and ISBN 13: 9781497314184; Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906166; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform North Charleston South Carolina USA; and ISBN 13: 9781909204720 Dolman Scott 1 High Street Thatcham Berkshire RG19 3JG England
LinkedIn https://uk.linkedin.com/in/billfairclough, https://www.linkedin.com/company/2949735, https://www.linkedin.com/company/737209 and https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4848897
Locations Details of locations Bill Fairclough lived in or operated from for protracted periods in England (excluding those not disclosed for reasons of confidentiality) were as follows:
(1) Locations in Northumberland & County Durham: 4 Bank Road Billingham; The White House Norton Green Stockton-on-Tees; 13 Castle Close Middleton St George Darlington; and several locations in Portrack (Stockton-on-Tees); Middlesbrough; and Jesmond (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
(2) Locations in Central London: 13 Montagu Square W1; 4 Quebec Mews W1; 65 Harley Street W1; 17 Draycott Avenue SW3; 51 Thurloe Square SW7; 124 Regents Park Road Primrose Hill NW1; 21 Rosslyn Hill Hampstead NW3; 238 Randolph Avenue W9; 5 Hamilton Place W1; 107 Sussex Gardens W2 and several locations in the City of London
(3) Locations in Surrey: several locations in Epsom; Sutton; Weybridge; Cheam; and Wallington
London Espionage Tours http://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/indexd4a6.html?p=124 (Tours are currently only available based on Bill Fairclough's life in London in 1974.)
News @ Faire Sans Dire http://www.fairesansdire.org/news/index.php (This page contains dozens of articles and press releases relating to Faire Sans Dire's activities.)
News @ The Burlington Files http://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/index3f7b.html?cat=2 (This page contains several articles and press releases mostly relevant to the production of The Burlington Files.)
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/BurlingtonFiles
Reviews of Beyond Enkription http://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/page/endorsements (The web-page linked to contains links to most of the reviews of Beyond Enkription.)
Secret Tours http://www.henriettaferguson.com/top-secret (Tours are currently only available based on Bill Fairclough's life in London in 1974.)
Social Links http://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/page/social-links
Spooks https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bill_Fairclough
The Burlington Files Limited http://companycheck.co.uk/company/08005044/THE-BURLINGTON-FILES-LIMITED/directors-secretaries
The Burlington Files Group https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08005044 (The Burlington Files Limited has two wholly owned subsidiary companies, Enkription Limited and Dekription Limited.)
The Money Portal Scandal 1 http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/the-money-portal-trial-a-tale-of-pillocks-parasites-and-aberdeen/a269307
The Money Portal Scandal 2 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134516/Pension-fund-boss-stole-52million-fund-lavish-lifestyle-pay-ex-wife.html
The Money Portal Settlement Arrangements http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/tmp-ends-bitter-battle-with-former-directors-through-settlement/a275292
The Panama Papers & Faire Sans Dire http://www.fairesansdire.org/the-panama-papers/index.php
Twitter & Faire Sans Dire https://twitter.com/FaireSansDire
Twitter & The Burlington Files https://twitter.com/BurlingtonFiles
Wikipedia & "Bill Fairclough" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=50&offset=0&profile=default&search=bill+fairclough+beyond+enkription&searchToken=a6lnvgkot4cp3mg0yq5p63my0
WordPress https://theburlingtonfiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/the-burlington-files
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSnLZUOTkdprirBiqaM9_4A