Bill Fairclough

Bill Fairclough     (Businessman)
Born	1950/08/31 Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, England
Nationality	British
Interests	Infiltration Intelligence Espionage
Bill Fairclough's biography

BILL FAIRCLOUGH

Bill Fairclough lived a remarkable maverick double life throughout much of his career. Covertly he worked as an intelligence agent, specialising in infiltration and investigatory assignments. Overtly he was a respected director in the regulated global financial services sector and an accomplished Chartered Accountant who specialised in fraud prevention and detection. In 1978 he founded Faire Sans Dire, a globally renowned niche intelligence organisation. In 2014, "Beyond Enkription" was published. It was the first in a series of six biographical novels (The Burlington Files) based on his life.

Full Name - John William Percy Fairclough (Nationality - English)

Born - 1950 in Stockton-on-Tees Durham England

Spouse - Josefina Repancol Fairclough (Married 1996)

Children - Two, a daughter (born 1986) and son (born 1987)

Father - Dr Richard Alan Fairclough (1915 – 1987)

Mother - Margaret Fairclough (1918 – 1995)

Brother - Peter Richard Stafford Fairclough (1948 – 1996)

Sister - Jane Margaret Jackson (1944 – 2014)

Notable Publications - Beyond Enkription, The Burlington Files published 2014 and various technical accounting, auditing and fraud prevention publications whilst working for Coopers & Lybrand (formerly Cooper Brothers, now PricewaterhouseCoopers) published from 1975 to 1983 in the UK and the USA

BILL FAIRCLOUGH'S BIOGRAPHIES - PRACTICAL & LEGAL ISSUES

SYNOPSIS OF BILL FAIRCLOUGH'S BIOGRAPHY & THE BURLINGTON FILES

Bill Fairclough, born John William Percy Fairclough on 31 August 1950, lived a remarkable maverick double life throughout much of his career. Covertly, he worked as an intelligence agent, specialising in infiltration and investigatory assignments. Overtly he was a respected director in the regulated global financial services sector and an accomplished Chartered Accountant who specialised in fraud prevention and detection.

In 1969 Bill Fairclough 1950 [1] started his career [2] as a trainee accountant (articled clerk) at Cooper Brothers [3], later to become Coopers & Lybrand [4] and after that PricewaterhouseCoopers [5]. Somewhat altruistically, Bill lived a double life from the early seventies which was when he qualified as a Chartered Accountant at Coopers. In 1978 he established Faire Sans Dire [6] while still employed by Coopers & Lybrand.

Faire Sans Dire became a globally renowned niche intelligence organisation. In the seventies and eighties, Faire Sans Dire provided a conduit whereby intelligence agencies involved mainly in law enforcement could more easily work together. In those days, many intelligence agencies did not communicate one with another thanks to the Cold War. Nonetheless, most of them abhorred people trafficking and similar heinous crimes. Faire Sans Dire’s goal was to help prevent the exponential spread of international organised crime which was exploiting the Cold War communications gap.

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 Fairclough worked at Citigroup [7] and from 1986 to 1999 at the Barclays Group [8] including a secondment to the Reuters Group [9]. From 1999 he switched roles and Faire Sans Dire became his main occupation, albeit still covertly until 2010. Even then, he continued to take on directorships openly and some covertly as a shadow director in various companies not only in the financial services sector but also in property, healthcare and other industries [10].

In July 2009 Fairclough was approached for the third time to try to make films loosely based on his experiences. Through intermediaries, he contacted two well-known film production companies to assess their appetite. The films proposed comprised a pot pourri of unusual concepts and experiences based on Bill’s somewhat unconventional and maverick dual or at times triple existence [11].

Despite all their initial enthusiasm, the negotiations with those companies’ directors came to nothing. Both film production companies advised Fairclough’s representatives that they should first present their material in book and/or film script format. Sadly, their approach to one US corporation landed on stony ground when MGM [12], which produced many of the James Bond films, filed for bankruptcy. MGM has since recovered but is under different management. Kudos [13], the other film production company approached was based in the UK. At the time it had a full production agenda for many years ahead courtesy of its global success with the Spooks [14] TV series.

Accordingly, on 5 March 2014, the first novel in The Burlington Files [15] series, Beyond Enkription, was published on Amazon (worldwide) as a paperback and eBook [16]. In 2015 a hardcover version of Beyond Enkription was published by Dolman Scott [17]. The entire Burlington Files series is broadly based on Bill Fairclough’s life. Fairclough was the nominal author of The Burlington Files. In that regard, it is understood one reasonably well-known novelist wrote much of the material but his or her name can never be disclosed.

Beyond Enkription was written for film adaptation and copyrighted by an English company, The Burlington Files Limited [18]. The official date of publication marked the fiftieth anniversary of the opening chapter in Beyond Enkription. It was coincidentally on purpose the same day as Bill Fairclough’s father’s birthday.

Beyond Enkription was not written as and has never been marketed as a traditional novel because it was written for film adaptation. The 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’s representatives. Accordingly, irrespective of its qualities or lack of them, 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 [19]: so much for copyright!

CONTENTS

   1 PERSONAL LIFE 

   2 EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS 

   3 OVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE 

   4 COVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE 

   5 ASSIGNMENTS & INVESTIGATIONS

   6 PERILOUS & BIZARRE MOMENTS

   7 THE BURLINGTON FILES 

   8 WEB LINKS & OTHER DATA  

   9 END NOTES (MORE CITATIONS)

1 PERSONAL LIFE

Up North

Born the youngest of three children, Bill Fairclough had a brother and sister. Both his siblings, Jane and Peter, are deceased [20]. Peter studied history at Keble College [21] Oxford. Despite Peter’s frequent absences from university, he obtained a third-class degree which was more than his younger brother Bill achieved at university. That is hardly surprising given Bill only attended university for seventeen days.

Bill Fairclough’s father, Richard, was the son of an ex-headmaster of a school in Putney. Richard was an Oxford scholar from Keble College where he obtained a first and a doctorate in chemistry. Bill's parents [22] met during the Second World War when his father, ostensibly working for ICI [23], worked secretly on creating bombs to wipe out the Nazi's industrial hinterland. Bill's parents married in Yarm in 1941.

After Dr 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 a few countries’ intelligence agencies.

When not gated at boarding school or being otherwise punished for unruly behaviour, 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 [24] once lived in by the poet Percy Shelley [25]) in Norton Green overlooking the duck pond. In his early teens, Bill lived in Middleton St George and later in Yarm. He also lived in flats he rented near nightclubs he worked in or controlled during the late sixties and early seventies in 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 hit the press. They included sinking a 35-foot pleasure cruiser near where the Grand Union Canal and the River Trent meet and escaping from a flat burnt to ashes in Ealing. Nevertheless, the most death-defying of the three was when he was diagnosed with acute appendicitis while high up in the mountains surrounding Innsbruck Austria.

Bill 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 and some of his reminiscences are reproduced below [26].

Down South

In 1971 he left the North East of England in a hurry, bound for Soho in the West End of London and a new job at Coopers in the City of London at their prestigious Head Office in Gutter Lane Cheapside. Coopers tried to change the names in their address, but the City of London suggested they change their name to Gutter Brothers. Gutter Lane Cheapside had been there for centuries. To his employers at Coopers it was understandable that anyone like Bill would prefer to work in their large Head Office rather than their relatively small offices in Middlesbrough and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Bill Fairclough already had a reputation for spotting and uncovering fraud and malpractice in major clients (e.g. nationalised industries and local authorities). This aptitude 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 who included allegedly corrupt police based mainly in Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland. The protection racketeers controlled much of the coastline of North East England from Whitley Bay to Scarborough.

On arrival in the West End of London in 1971 Fairclough maintained a triple existence. He not only worked for Coopers but also moonlighted in clubs and the music industry while unwittingly helping the intelligence services. Precisely how Fairclough unwittingly worked for the intelligence services is explained in detail in Beyond Enkription.

In the music industry he acted as an accountant for several promoters, agents, managers and artists while dabbling in the glamorous side of the business: sex, drugs and rock and roll. He even co-managed two rock groups in Europe, namely Ange [27] and Little Bob Story [28]. By the mid-seventies, the highlights of his involvement in the music industry included a few impressive feats.

(1) Producing a number one single for Ange while visiting Phonogram's recording studios [29] in Paris albeit he was so high he only learned of his production skills the next day.

(2) Drumming with Keith Moon [30] of The Who [31] at the Roundhouse [32] in London.

(3) Performing on stage with George Melly [33] at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club [34] in Soho.

(4) Pretending to whip Stacia Blake [35] of the band Hawkwind [36] on stage at many of Hawkwind's London concerts. Bill invariably dressed in a pinstripe suit to provoke the audiences. For these heroic if not kamikaze performances he was made an honorary Hells Angel [37].

(5) Hiring Wembley Stadium [38] after reaching an oral agreement with Colonel Tom Parker [39] for a weekend performance by Elvis Presley [40]. It never happened as Elvis decided he didn't want to perform overseas at the time.

Bill turned down various offers in the early seventies to manage a couple of very well-known British rock and American rock bands. He found working with the intelligence services more intellectually challenging and exciting as a moonlighting pastime. He even turned down a request in the eighties to become the non-executive chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra [41] claiming that he couldn't even spell Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky [42]. Mind you, how many in the orchestra could even when sober?

Elsewhere

From the mid-seventies until the mid-nineties Bill Fairclough spent much time working overseas. He was based Nassau in the Bahamas in the mid-seventies [43] and in the Americas on and off 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. Bill 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 Bill’s brother was controversially reported to have allegedly committed suicide before a planned move down South from Yarm.

2 EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Schools & Universities

Bill Fairclough attended Red House School [44] in Norton, Stockton-on-Tees and then obtained a full fee-paying and boarding scholarship to St Peter's School York [45]. 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. Expelling any scholar was unprecedented and would have reflected badly on those who had awarded the scholarship.

St Peter's School York is one of the oldest schools in the world having been founded in 627AD by Saint Paulinus [46]. Bill was far removed from being a saint! Mind you, John Johnson (JJ) [47], better known as Guy Fawkes [48], one of its former pupils wasn't a saint either. As noted in The Burlington Files website [49], JJ was the first pseudonym attributed to Bill whilst being used as an intelligence asset in London: the UK intelligence agencies knew a little about history.

In his last term at York, Bill Fairclough took the Oxford scholarship entrance exam with a view to following in his father's scholarly footsteps at Keble College. Bill was assured through his father (by a close friend and fellow scholar at Keble, one Douglas Price) that he had done exceedingly well in the exam. Thus, Bill 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 [50] 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 over the years. However, Bill was not only refused a scholarship but also refused entry to Keble College. Even his brother Peter's position had become precarious. However, Peter [51] managed to remain at Keble on the proviso that he would immediately relinquish his rooms there and take up residence elsewhere in Oxford, 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 [52] instead of Oxford University as planned.

From September 1967 until July 1968, Bill spent only seventeen days at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. He preferred the university of life in Central London and Newcastle upon Tyne working in casinos and clubs and jointly running night clubs and discotheques. Even so, he passed his first-year exams at Norwich with head held high (obtaining the equivalent of a first) and then left prematurely without notice.

Professional Qualifications

Bill Fairclough also attended Newcastle Polytechnic [53] to study accountancy after being articled to a partner (Trevor Middleton) at Cooper Brothers [54] in Newcastle upon Tyne. He obtained top marks in many of the exams including several 100% marks on his papers. Soon afterwards, he qualified first time as a Chartered Accountant in the early seventies.

In 1980 Fairclough became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales [55]. In 1994 he became a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment [56]. In 1995 he became a life member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers [57]. 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 Bill Fairclough was intermittently registered with the UK and other countries’ financial and banking regulatory bodies as 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 [58], IMRO [59], the PIA [60], the FSA [61] (via the ICAEW [62]) and the Bank of England [63] which now comes under the Financial Conduct Authority [64] and the Prudential Regulatory Authority [65]. In the USA he was similarly licenced by the Securities and Exchange Commission [66]; in Japan by the Ministry of Finance [67]; and in Hong Kong by their Securities and Futures Commission [68].

Bill was also a member of the Anti-Corruption Research Network [69] at Transparency International [70] for many years while running 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 fourteen years with Coopers, Bill helped establish Coopers & Lybrand itself and worked in their Technical Department in the seventies. His bread and butter work before that was for clients and included the following.

(1) Working on audits, investigations and restructurings of British Steel [71], British Telecom [72] and British Leyland [73].

(2) Undertaking audits and investigations of listed companies (e.g. Rio Tinto Zinc [74]), local councils, banks and leasing companies.

(3) Carrying out liquidations, audits and investigations of banks and other financial organisations in the Caribbean.

(4) Helping out on many unusual one offs such as the start-up and subsequent sale of a Peruvian investment house.

While working in Coopers' Technical Department and reviewing audit work undertaken by the UK firm, he wrote (with others) the firm’s Manual of Auditing [75]. He also wrote several UK statements of standard accounting practice (SSAPs [76]) and other publications (e.g. on the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [77] and related anti-boycott legislation). Later, he became the first Secretary to Coopers' International Executive Committee [78] reporting to the International Firm’s chief executive officer, the first of whom was Sir Brandon Gough [79].

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. These investigations included 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, the USA or the Bahamas and worked extensively in Europe, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America.

Citigroup

In 1983 Bill Fairclough was head hunted by Citigroup, based in the Strand, London. He became the deputy chief financial officer for Citigroup's EMEA [80] and Far East operations. At the time, in terms of assets, those operations were larger than the UK's Lloyds Bank Group [81] and Midland Bank Group [82] global banking operations combined.

It is notable that before head hunting Bill Fairclough, the head hunter concerned had become a client of the Fairclough family's book shop. Once Bill had joined Citigroup, despite his and others’ best efforts, none of them could trace the head hunter. Indeed, on reviewing all of Citigroup's relevant records in the UK and the USA, no fee appeared to have been charged for the head hunter’s services.

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. He also created off-balance sheet schemes and ground breaking off-balance sheet vehicles (such as Drury Lane Limited [83] and Citibank Investments Limited [84]). The more complex of these schemes involved mixed interest rate and currency swaps with multiple termination dates for up to thirty counter-parties at a time.

Also, working in a team of three, reporting to Kent Price [85] (Citicorp's UK chief executive officer at the time) Bill assessed potential acquisitions for the group. These included Williams & Glyn's Bank [86], The Royal Bank of Scotland Group [87] and Nationwide Building Society [88] none of which were deemed palatable by the Bank of England. In addition, Bill helped sell Citigroup's Thai banking interests in such a way that the deals were not perceived to be trading in banking licences. Trading in bank licenses was, of course, forbidden under the prevailing regulations in Hong Kong and Thailand.

Bill Fairclough's investigations into alleged frauds and malpractices extended into more covert investigations of suspected customer-oriented tax frauds. These mainly emanated out of the Bahamas. They included alleged breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related anti-boycott legislation in the Middle East running into billions of dollars. Some of these investigations were mandated by Citigroup's chief financial officer in 1985 (Tom Jones, a UK citizen) based in Wall Street. Fairclough had been confidentially instructed by Jones to covertly investigate certain suspected politically sensitive frauds and other misdemeanours in most of 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 the covert investigations he was instructed to undertake and more besides. Those investigations had global consequences for Citigroup. It ended up paying out unprecedented fines and penalties to large numbers of tax authorities. Furthermore, 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 initially becoming a director of many Mercantile Credit [89] and Mercantile Group businesses [90]. Later he was appointed a director of Ebbgate Holdings [91] (BZW now Barclays Investment Bank).

In his final stretch with Barclays, he was made a director of Barclays Stockbrokers [92], Barclays Financial Services [93], Barclays Holdings [94] and many other Barclays Group companies including Barclays Bank Trust Company [95]. In addition, he had responsibilities for other parts of the Barclays Group such as Barclays Global Investors [96]. (Note that most of Bill Fairclough's Barclays Group directorships are no longer visible 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 [97]. At Reuters, Bill was appointed a director of many companies. For example, he was the founding director of Instinet Holdings [98] whose main trading subsidiaries were later sold to NASDAQ.

While at Barclays, including when Bill was seconded to Reuters, he was 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.

It is of 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. Parts of the Barclays Group were later to become centres of duplicity and dishonesty many years after Bill left Barclays in 1999. They never fell under his direct chain of command in the latter stages of his career at Barclays.

However, when at Barclays Bill was involved in many investigations into alleged frauds and malpractices. During his thirteen years at Barclays, many con-artists including several senior group executives and directors within the Barclays Group silently walked the plank for breaches of their contracts. Sometimes they were soon followed by their peers who had been foolish enough to have aided and abetted or turned a blind eye to their colleagues’ misdemeanours.

At Barclays, Bill’s daily chores varied as his seniority grew. For those parts of the Barclays Group for which he was responsible he had typical finance director responsibilities. They included having to deal with a smorgasbord of internal and external malpractices and frauds, attempted or otherwise, as well as producing often complex management and statutory accounts. Bill enhanced Barclays' profitability by introducing sub-LIBOR mismatched swap back-to-back funding to Mercantile [99]. In so doing, Fairclough even challenged the Inland Revenue's board of directors [100] on grounds of unfair competition and won. As a result, Mercantile’s profitability increased notably.

In the eighties Bill helped expand Barclays' agricultural finance business, the Highland Group run by Ed Robson [101]. Through acquisitions and de novo growth in Eire, Canada, Germany and Denmark, the Highland Group became the world’s second largest provider of agricultural finance behind the Deutz-Allis Group [102]. Along with Ed Robson, Highland’s CEO, Bill even tried to acquire Deutz-Allis too! Moreover, Bill helped develop joint ventures with Fiat [103], Citroën [104] and Peugeot [105] and created forestry and fast cheque processing businesses.

In 1990 he was part of a small Barclays team (reporting to Owen Rout [106]) responsible for the restructuring of the Mercantile Group. At that time, it broadly represented 25% of the Barclays Group in terms of assets/profitability. In 1991 Bill sold Mercantile Credit [107] to GE Capital [108] days after the Mercantile Group’s head office in Basingstoke had almost been burnt to the ground [109]. Bill also assisted GE Capital start its UK business using what it had acquired from Mercantile Credit as its base. Fairclough was the chief accountant and then the finance director of Mercantile Credit in the early eighties.

In BZW Bill helped rapidly establish the Thamesway Group as the world’s premier soft commission broker (per Greenwich surveys). Thamesway's business expanded rapidly to include market moving anonymous multi-currency program trading across global bond and equity markets. Thamesway was cannibalising BZW's core business to such a degree that in 1993 it was sold to Reuters. The sale included Bill Fairclough who re-joined Barclays in 1995. Bill helped Reuters develop the business it had acquired across several countries, six of which were started from scratch, in less than eighteen months after it acquired Thamesway.

On his return to Barclays, Bill Fairclough was, inter alia, appointed a director of Barclays Holdings and a group senior executive [110]. During over a decade in Barclays, Fairclough worked with many of Barclays' luminaries including Oliver Stocken [111], Martin Taylor [112] and John Varley [113] as well as many other charming and notable characters, dozens of whom he helped pursue their careers in pastures new.

In Bill Fairclough's latter years at Barclays in the late nineties he was on the board that built the first online retail broking business outside of the USA. He was involved in scouting for acquisitions but since they rarely worked out as planned, he didn't recommend many. However, he did simultaneously sell 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 Organisations

Since 2000 after leaving Barclays, Bill Fairclough ran his own regulated forensic accountancy practice. In addition, he was a director of not only reasonably well-known companies in the financial services sector but also several companies involved in activities other than the provision of financial services. In 2010, his involvement with Faire Sans Dire became public knowledge after he opened the organisation’s first public website [114].

To date, after more than four decades, there has been only one series of covert investigations Faire Sans Dire was involved in where Bill Fairclough’s or Faire Sans Dire's name unintentionally entered the public domain. That was pursuant to lawsuits unexpectedly citing John William Percy Fairclough. He was accused of having carried out investigations that, inter alia, were purportedly incompatible with his fiduciary duties as a director. The investigations related to The Money Portal and were not incompatible as explained in the ensuing section.

The Money Portal

Various legal actions took place relating to investigations into The Money Portal [115]. The investigations were initially conducted by Faire Sans Dire and Bill Fairclough. Fairclough was also The Money Portal’s finance director for almost a year [116]. Subsequent connected investigations were undertaken by the Serious Fraud Office [117] and others. It should be noted that during its life The Money Portal was at times a public or private limited company.

The original case against Bill Fairclough and the strike-out case brought by Bill Fairclough relating to The Money Portal were listed in the High Court of Justice [118], Queen's Bench Division [119] under Case No. HQ05X00357. Another case relating to The Money Portal against Bill Fairclough was lodged in the Employment Tribunals [120] as Case Number 3300888/2005. It is unlikely many people can access the High Court records given, inter alia, that the case never went to trial and was settled out of court.

The scandals relating to The Money Portal were spread over several years and related to one founding director (Anthony James Morris) in particular [121]. In 2005 Bill Fairclough failed to get the case brought against himself summarily struck off by Mr Justice Forbes [122]. The judge was of fame for presiding over the Harold Shipman [123] serial murders trial [124].

The case against Fairclough was a fabrication, primarily sponsored by one of the company's founding directors, Anthony James Morris. In 2006 Morris was disqualified from acting as a director for ten years. Later he was bankrupted in, extradited from Australia and imprisoned until shortly before 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 that it should go to a full trial. The reasoning behind that was that central to the case was a solicitor who confessed to having destroyed a company computer with a hammer and garden shears. Mr Justice Forbes said The Money Portal had only just squeaked home and thereby passed the baton on to the judge selected to preside over the full trial.

It was 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 with an unblemished record of never having had any of his judgements appealed. Presumably, he was proud of this and no doubt wanted to keep his flawless reputation.

The strike-out case, the ensuing criminal trials and related civil proceedings connected to The Money Portal and Morris were convoluted and complicated. They were not exactly good advertisements for the quality of the British justice system or the Serious Fraud Office's investigatory capabilities.

Immediately after the strike-out hearing in October 2005 The Money Portal tried to reach a settlement [125] with Bill Fairclough. They did not wish the case to proceed to full trial for obvious reasons. It was not until July 2006 that Fairclough and The Money Portal’s chairman (Richard Hambro [126] of the Hambros Bank dynasty [127]) reached an out of court settlement to Fairclough’s satisfaction.

By July 2006, Morris had admitted to some of his earlier misdemeanours and accepted his disqualification from acting as a director for ten years. Since those misdemeanours were, inter alia, the subject of the original investigations led by Bill Fairclough it raises many legitimate questions about just why Fairclough’s strike-out attempt failed.

Within days of the settlement, Bill Fairclough was rehired by The Money Portal to undertake additional confidential investigatory work for them. It was not long thereafter that, as aforesaid, Anthony James Morris was bankrupted in and extradited from Australia and imprisoned in England in respect of criminal charges brought against him by the Serious Fraud Office.

As for Bill Fairclough's failed attempt to strike-out the case against him, some promotional material [128] posted somewhat obtusely by the opposing legal team on 31 January 2007 was still floating around in cyberspace last time anyone looked. Given the benefit of hindsight, one might have thought the barristers concerned would have ceased crowing about their Pyrrhic and perplexing victory against what they described as Fairclough & others!

4 COVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Autobiographical Disclosures​

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. The lead character, one Edward Burlington [129], is based on Bill Fairclough. Accordingly, Edward Burlington's escapades in the series are based on Bill Fairclough's life and his experiences to the extent they can be disclosed.

Only the first autobiographical novel in The Burlington Files series of six novels has been published [130]. The novel, Beyond Enkription, focuses on Bill Fairclough's life in 1974 [131]. Disclosures herein are mainly limited to assignments and investigations carried out in the early seventies or referred to in Beyond Enkription. Other assignments and investigations involving Bill Fairclough are disclosed to a limited degree, but only where they are already in the public domain.

The duality of Bill Fairclough's existence is clearly visible during his progression up the ranks at Coopers & Lybrand in the seventies and eighties. John, Phil or Bill Fairclough or Johnson or other pseudonyms (even including Pemberton [132]) was known to just as many East End of London grandees as dynastic City of London scions. The likes of David Hobson CBE [133], Charlie Kray [134], Lord Benson [135], Ronnie Scott [136], Gerald Ronson CBE [137], Paul Raymond [138], Sir Brian Garton Jenkins GBE [139], Ronnie Knight [140], Robert Maxwell MC [141], Ralph Gidley-Cooper [142], Sir Brandon Gough et al all knew him.

However, he preferred socialising in the West End of London to the City of London in haunts like Ginger’s Embassy Club [143] in Bond Street or in Ronnie Knight's A&R Club [144] at 142 Charing Cross Road. Ronnie Knight's wife, film actress Barbara Windsor [145], was a close friend of Ronnie Knight's manageress (Esmé) who shacked up with Bill Fairclough (aka Phil or John Johnson then) in the early seventies.

In the late seventies Bill Fairclough drifted to North London, by Primrose Hill in Regent's Park. In North London he frequented mainly private clubs like the Reilly Brothers’ Log Cabin [146] in the Caledonian Road. Nonetheless, he still frequented West End clubs such as La Valbonne [147] (62 Kingly Street), the Cromwellian Club (later known as Coco’s at 3 Cromwell Road) [148] and the Revolution Club [149] (14-16 Bruton Place).

When based in the Bahamas the Pink Pussycat [150] was his favourite club and, in the United States, New York’s Studio 54 [151] was his club of choice. He was an honorary member of many celebrity clubs and casinos in those days.

Faire Sans Dire

In its heyday Faire Sans Dire was a niche intelligence led security and investigatory organisation with global clout. It provided a variety of risk management and intelligence gathering services as explained on its website [152]. It is not known if Faire Sans Dire is still operational.

In the seventies (and later) Bill Fairclough worked with Alan Pemberton CVO MBE [153] and Barrie Parkes BEM [154]. Their mission was to covertly help contribute to combatting corruption [155]. Messrs Pemberton and Parkes combined their considerable skills and ability to make the most of Bill Fairclough’s financial aptitudes. They investigated 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.

Bill Fairclough formed Faire Sans Dire in a small flat in Regents Park Road London overlooking the Queens Pub [156] by Primrose Hill. Faire Sans Dire's first successful operation, which arose purely because of a chance meeting (if chance meetings happen), was to arrange for the interception of some stolen software on the Hungarian border with Ukraine near Beregsurány. The software comprised guidance systems which helped enable cruise missiles to locate their targets. It had been stolen from the United States and arrived in Budapest via a diplomatic pouch despatched from Nassau in the Bahamas.

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 organised 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. Often the traffickers would intentionally take 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. They included senior retired police officers, lawyers, accountants and retired members of elite military units such as the SAS [157], SBS [158] and their equivalents from other countries' special forces. Sometimes their roles were purely advisory [159]. 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 and Bill Fairclough have carried out and/or been consulted about assignments and investigations in over 120 countries. Most of those assignments were for either Faire Sans Dire's clients or for businesses which Bill Fairclough worked for. Faire Sans Dire has operated under many guises but a company called Faire Sans Dire Limited [160] has existed from time to time [161] when required to act formally on behalf of the Faire Sans Dire organisation.

Unlike Ian Fleming [162] (and James Bond), Bill Fairclough was a longstanding member at Les Ambassadeurs [163], one of the most renowned sophisticated casinos in Mayfair, London and the world. Fairclough and others from Faire Sans Dire used it regularly for meetings. Why? No one could get in without extensive background checks having been undertaken. Similarly, other upmarket casinos in London were used by Faire Sans Dire personnel and associates. Fairclough used to colloquially refer to the dining room and library at Les Ambassadeurs as Faire Sans Dire's canteen and his office respectively [164].

Much of Faire Sans Dire's work has been carried out on a pro-bono basis. For most of its existence Bill Fairclough had been the owner of Faire Sans Dire. The legal structure of Faire Sans Dire has changed from time to time. Fairclough normally used to act either as its executive or non-executive chairman. Other directors over the years included his son Charles Peter Richard Fairclough [165].

Since 2018 Faire Sans Dire has closed its public website. However, it has 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.

5 ASSIGNMENTS & INVESTIGATIONS

For more than four decades, Faire Sans Dire and Bill Fairclough spent much time ensuring their participation in investigations remained undercover and anonymous. Hence, citing detailed independent verifiable sources for most of their assignments is by and large impossible now. In addition, for legal and other reasons, much of their involvement in investigations and assignments cannot be divulged. Accordingly, only smatterings of carefully selected assignments are alluded to, sometimes nebulously, either here or in The Burlington Files.

Since 2010 when Faire Sans Dire opened a public website, Bill Fairclough has publicly acknowledged his and/or Faire Sans Dire's involvement in a small number of specific investigations and assignments. This has primarily been done by alluding to or referring to them in Beyond Enkription, the only published autobiographical novel in The Burlington Files series. A few of those assignments and investigations (one way or another already in the public domain) are summarily and anecdotally disclosed below in a limited or redacted manner.

John Poulson & Reginald Maudling

The John Poulson [166] scandal and subsequent resignation of Reginald Maudling [167] are referred 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. The offices were situated on the floor above Cooper Brothers' offices where Bill was employed as an articled clerk.

Coincidentally, in those days he worked on the audit of and investigations into what was Teesside Council. Also coincidentally, when he was a young boy Bill Fairclough had met Reginald Maudling, then the Home Secretary, at a Conservative Party fund raising bash in Norton, Stockton-on-Tees at which Harold Macmillan [168] (the local Member of Parliament and friend of Bill's father) attended when Prime Minister. When young, Bill and his brother Peter once had the dubious honour of sitting on Harold Macmillan’s lap for a photo shoot. Luckily, no photos have since been retrieved.

Heathrow Bullion Robberies

Coopers & Lybrand investigated thefts of bullion, other precious metals and gemstones worth millions of pounds from supposedly secure premises near Heathrow in the early seventies. Bill Fairclough was on the team that investigated them as 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. The crooks then inserted mirrors close to the sources of the laser beams. Once carefully slid into place next to the sources of the laser beams, the mirrors acted as receivers and rendered the alarm systems useless. Those responsible were never identified or caught. An inside job was suspected.

Milton Obote & Idi Amin

On pages 72, 143, 465 and 467 of Beyond Enkription, references are made to corruption et al involving Milton Obote [169] and Idi Amin [170] in Uganda. In the seventies Bill Fairclough investigated their involvement in money laundering. They had apparently transferred dozens of suitcases full of cash from Rhodesia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia to Europe.

On one occasion, these money transfers resulted in the assassination of a Ugandan diplomat working with Faire Sans Dire. He was shot while descending from a plane at Kampala airport. The assassins might have had the common sense and decency to wait until the diplomat was on terra firma, a good distance from the plane before shooting him. The barrage of bullets started a fire on board the aircraft which nearly exploded.

People & Body Part Trafficking

MI6 [171] used Bill Fairclough to help investigate an international human and body part trafficking gang. The gang comprised African, Middle Eastern and Asian diplomats and intelligence agencies linked to organised crime in the seventies. Their operations are as described in detail in Chapters 1 to 10, 13 to 20, 30 and 36 of Beyond Enkription.

Fairclough infiltrated the network responsible for these criminal activities while unwittingly working for British intelligence. Bill survived four known murder attempts while doing so. The trafficking was but one part of this gang’s international criminal activities which included mass murder, drug running, extortion, blackmail and multi-million-dollar frauds.

Operation Smiling Buddha

As explained in depth in Chapters 11 to 13 of Beyond Enkription, Bill Fairclough investigated India's Operation Smiling Buddha [172] and nuclear proliferation issues in 1974 relating to both India and South Africa. Unfortunately for Bill, South Africa's Bureau of State Security (BOSS) [173] got involved.

Purportedly, Fairclough became embroiled with these issues by accident while he was vetting the working capital needed for a rights issue by one of Coopers & Lybrand's clients. BOSS handled the case in its normal aggressive and irresponsible way.

Bahamian Banking Frauds

While working with Coopers & Lybrand in the Bahamas in the seventies, Bill Fairclough investigated rogue Caribbean banks such as the British American Bank Limited [174] (in compulsory liquidation). Many such banks had been solely established and used to defraud depositors.

In the seventies British American Bank Limited was renowned 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. Collectively, these crooked Bahamian banks pillaged hundreds of millions of dollars from avaricious US citizens seeking higher returns.

Robert Vesco

Chapters 22, 23 and 28 of Beyond Enkription refer to Fairclough’s investigating drug trafficking, fraud and related crimes committed by Robert Vesco [175] in the Caribbean. Vesco was a friend of two other reprobates, Lynden Pindling [176] and Carlos Lehder [177], whom were subject to related investigations by Fairclough (see later).

As noted in Everipedia and Wikipedia [178], Bill Fairclough’s investigations did not go unnoticed so Vesco charged his mistress and henchman to abduct and murder Fairclough. As explained in Beyond Enkription, they failed.

Oswaldo López

While operating in the Caribbean in the seventies and eighties, Bill Fairclough kept the Honduran President’s financial and other activities under surveillance. President Oswaldo Enrique López Arellano [179] was up to his chin in bribery, fraud and other crimes in Honduras.

Allegedly, his crimes were mostly tied to looting United Nations’ humanitarian aid packages for hurricane relief as alluded to in Chapter 21 of Beyond Enkription. He was also famous for dipping into banana export taxes collected by the Honduran Government. By then, Honduras had been classified as the longest standing genuine banana republic.

Black Coral Thefts

Millions of dollars' worth of black coral thefts in the Caribbean in the seventies are referred to in Chapter 28 of Beyond Enkription. These were investigated by Bill Fairclough. The thefts Fairclough was interested in were allegedly committed by former FBI and CIA operatives. Those responsible were never caught.

Thanks to Bill Fairclough’s role in heading up the investigations, he was nearly murdered on two known occasions. The first was as described in Beyond Enkription. The second was another vengeful attempt a few years later by a senior Bahamian law enforcement officer turned politician.

Haïti Air Inter

As described in detail in Chapters 28 and 31 to 35 of Beyond Enkription, Bill Fairclough investigated breaches of international aviation financial and safety regulations by Haïti Air Inter [180] in the seventies. Yet again, Bill Fairclough was nearly killed on more than one known occasion during the latter stages of these investigations which were linked to his other Haitian assignments. The attempts on his life were hardly surprising given that Fairclough’s task was in essence to obtain evidence to shutter down Haiti from the rest of the world.

Jean-Claude Duvalier

Haiti’s not so secret paramilitary police, the Tonton Macoute [181], fired guns at and crossed swords with Bill Fairclough in the seventies. Fairclough was investigating Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier [182] for corruption. As described in Chapters 28 and 31 to 35 of Beyond Enkription, it was not that difficult to find crimes against humanity and corruption in Haiti for which Baby Doc was responsible. Bill Fairclough survived at least two known attempted murders during these investigations.

Luckner Cambronne

While investigating Baby Doc in the seventies, Bill Fairclough also focused his research on money laundering and other crimes involving Luckner Cambronne [183]. Cambronne was colloquially known as the Vampire of the Caribbean. Fairclough’s investigations are explained further in Chapters 31 to 35 of Beyond Enkription.

Luckner Cambronne's businesses supplied blood and cadavers to the USA for medical use. If there were insufficient available for shipment, his henchmen (the Tonton Macoute) would murder anyone they could find on the streets of Port-au-Prince at night. Well, they had to meet the quotas demanded of them by their US clients, mostly high-class segregated all white hospitals.

Sir Lynden Pindling & Carlos Lehder

As described in Chapters 21 and 22 of Beyond Enkription, Bill Fairclough was engaged in investigating Sir Lynden Pindling and his criminal links with Carlos Lehder and other major drug traffickers.

Fairclough also investigated and pre-empted an attempted $56 million fraud against the Crown Agents [184] in Nassau in the seventies. The alleged fraudsters included senior Bahamian politicians. They were associates of Sir Lynden Pindling, not that he was ever accused of conspiracy in relation to the attempted fraud. As noted in other publications, Fairclough also helped investigate matters relating to Pindling's “nation for sale” scandal [185] in the seventies and eighties.

Citigroup Corruption Allegations

Between 1983 and 1986 [186], Faire Sans Dire investigated allegations of corruption in respect of Citigroup. It was not long before the investigations spiralled once the global extent of the corruption became clear. Issues were identified concerning allegations in respect of false accounting, other frauds, tax evasion and breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act including the related anti-boycott legislation.

These investigations had worldwide consequences for Citigroup. It had to pay unprecedented fines and penalties to large numbers of tax authorities. Furthermore, its global management structure where “country heads” effectively ruled their roosts, was utterly overhauled at the behest of regulators.

Iran Contra Scandal

Faire Sans Dire was involved in investigations relating to Manuel Noriega [187], Oliver North [188] and the Iran Contra scandal [189] in the mid-eighties. The Iran Contra scandal nearly toppled US President Ronald Reagan [190]. The extent of Faire Sans Dire’s involvement is explained where possible in the Panama Papers section of Faire Sans Dire's website [191], its press releases [192] and Bill Fairclough’s related articles on LinkedIn [193].

Apart from in 1974 as revealed in Beyond Enkription, when Bill survived several known attempts on his life, 1984 and 1985 proved to be by far the most dangerous years in Bill's life courtesy of his involvement in these matters and the Citigroup corruption allegations which were linked.

Data Protection Act 1984

In the eighties Faire Sans Dire copied all the available physical and computerised records of a foreign bank without obtaining its permission. The team of several dozen operatives was based in Upper Brook Street in Mayfair and working 24/7. It took circa six months to complete the exercise. For the duration of the entire operation, there were ex-SAS on guard on the roof of the large building. No one thought to mention such activities might be in breach of the Data Protection Act 1984!

Suspected Barclays Arson

In Basingstoke in 1991, Barclays' Mercantile Credit’s Head Office was gutted by fire [194] and the water used to stem the flames severely damaged those parts of the building below the ninth floor. Arson and possibly terrorism were suspected but never proven. At the time Bill Fairclough and his team were clandestinely conducting various investigations into Mercantile’s overseas activities. In addition, certain board meetings were routinely being attended by a dozen or more Special Branch [195] officers most of whom were armed with sub-machine guns.

The fire was supposedly started by electrical faults on the two floors that housed the bank’s accounting staff . No one suffered serious injuries from the fire, but all the physical accounting records were destroyed. Even safes melted in the searing heat as did their contents including hundreds of floppy disks.

Jeffrey Archer

In 1994 there were rumours abounding that Bill Fairclough was involved in the Department of Trade and Industry investigations into alleged insider dealing involving Lord Archer (Jeffrey Archer) [196] and his sycophants. Notwithstanding the massive media coverage, there were no prosecutions despite the publication of what appeared to be either overwhelming evidence or just too many coincidences.

Accordingly, allegations made against Lord Archer in 1994 were unsubstantiated. However, in 2001 he was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice (in respect of a trial in 1987) and sentenced to four years in prison [197].

£6 Billion Black Hole

In the nineties, Bill Fairclough covertly led a team of over 100 accountants investigating a £6 billion black hole in the City of London. At that time, the world’s stock markets were still shuddering from fears of further disclosures of the sort of rogue trading Nick Leeson [198] had undertaken that had bankrupted Barings Bank [199]. Barings was the UK’s oldest merchant bank and Fairclough knew it well as it had been one of Mercantile Credits’ largest back-to-back funding counterparties. Furthermore, Fairclough had coincidentally already been involved on the fringes of the Barings Bank investigations.

No one on the team was made aware of precisely what they were investigating because no one knew! In any event, had it leaked the impact would have dwarfed the carnage that Nick Leeson's rogue trading had caused to global markets early in 1995. As it happened all but about £50 million of the missing billions was accounted for and put down to sloppy accounting practices. The £50 million little black hole left unexplained was suspected to have arisen because of fraud. It was never thoroughly investigated like so many known unknowns in the financial services sector.

Airship Industries

From about 2000, Bill Fairclough started investigating allegations of fraud and other crimes relating to Airship Industries [200] and its successor companies. Its history included a period when it was controlled by Alan Bond [201], a notorious and prolific Australian fraudster. The allegations were all the more serious because of the companies' links to the US Department of Defence, British Military Intelligence and the UK defence industry. One successor company was even chaired by Air Marshall Sir John Walker [202], an ex-chairman of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee [203].

Many hundreds of people who were persuaded to invest thousands or millions of dollars, lost all their investments over several decades as company after phoenix company went bust. Some prospective shareholders were persuaded to invest by an illegal Spanish boiler room in 2000/2001 as reported in Citiwire [204] in 2005. Others may have just taken a punt having possibly relied on the notable and purportedly reassuring names on some of the successor companies' boards [205] prior to their collapse.

At least Air Marshall Sir John Walker still had enough common sense to resign his position as chairman of the Advanced Technologies Group before, along with other creditors, calling in administrators to investigate alleged wrongdoings [206].

Osama bin Laden & MV Nisha

While attending a meeting in the Autumn of 2001 after 9/11 in the main board room of one of the world's most prestigious banks, Bill Fairclough was offered a job. It included a £10,000 a month board meeting attendance fee provided he became the non-executive chairman of an offshore financial services company. He turned down the offer and investigated the company instead, after extracting as much information as he could about them from them.

The information Faire Sans Dire obtained from its investigations and passed on to the appropriate authorities indicated that some of the proceeds from the Barlow Clowes [207] frauds may have been stolen and used to fund terrorism. That included the funding of a phantom fleet of an estimated 20 vessels [208] owned indirectly by Osama bin Laden [209]. Bin Laden hatched a plot which rather like the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers in New York relied on letting nature do the damage.

The plot was to create a tsunami on the River Thames flowing through London at high tide on Xmas Eve 2001. How? By blowing up the Thames Barrier with 26,000 tons of high explosive on board one of possibly two ships named MV Nisha [210]. Had the plot been successful, hundreds of thousands of people may well have been killed or injured.

Rumour had it that one ship was intercepted by the Special Boat Service and scuttled along with its crew and 26,000 tons of sugar on board that had been converted into high explosives. In terms of power that was the equivalent to one of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki [211] in 1945.

Exactly what happened remains a mystery. There were probably two ships named MV Nisha, one being a decoy. The UK Government issued a DA-Notice [212] concerning the incident(s) amid conflicting press statements [213] and many loose ends as noted by The Independent in particular. Precisely what happened may never be known.

Nigerian Corruption Case

In 2002 Faire Sans Dire was trying to get a Nigerian politician to testify in a corruption case. They located him in a graveyard in Lagos and had his coffin exhumed. As half expected, the coffin was full of sand. Faire Sans Dire later found the politician in Kampala and after considering his options he agreed to testify.

The 2003 Iraq Invasion

In 2003, just days before the US led invasion of Iraq, on his own initiative Bill Fairclough contacted the Iraqi Intelligence Service [214] at the highest levels within the Iraqi playing cards [215] with a message they could not ignore. His aim was to help the USA and its allies and significantly reduce casualties (on both sides).

From the perspective of those working in Iraqi intelligence, they could not ignore Faire Sans Dire's message just in case Saddam Hussein [216] had planted it as disinformation to test their loyalty. The message was a classic Morton's Fork [217] which had to be reported to Saddam Hussein. It set out details of whom to contact to receive huge bribes in consideration for the surrender of Iraqi army divisions to the advancing coalition forces.

Bill Fairclough's plan sowed distrust, division and confusion among Saddam Hussein's elite. The army had no way of telling who had signed up, if anyone, and why those contacted had been selected for such treacherous reasons (e.g. because they were known or suspected dissenters). It is not known how many Iraqi army divisions were affected by this ploy.

The Money Portal Scandals

Scandals involving The Money Portal, its regulators and other notable City grandees commenced in 2004 [218]. The scandals lasted several years and some of those involved were imprisoned. The scandals were alleged to include the second largest pension funds fraud ever in the UK after that of Robert Maxwell, who was once a Coopers & Lybrand client whom Bill Fairclough had (coincidentally) also investigated. The allegations relating to The Money Portal pension funds fraud were never proven as the Serious Fraud Office somewhat lackadaisically lost the case.

Edward Snowden

Faire Sans Dire often reported the whereabouts and activities of Edward Snowden [219] ahead of the global media. The articles [220] were published between 17 February 2012 (long before Edward Snowden was headlining global media) and 27 February 2014. They included articles about surveillance in cyberspace in general terms without naming the operations. Other articles published later made specific reference to the secret terms used such as the Optic Nerve (GCHQ) [221] surveillance scandal and the PRISM [222] scandal which were supposedly secret cyberspace surveillance operations.

The articles' titles do not necessarily show they were about Edward Snowden and are still accessible via Faire Sans Dire [223]. It is of note that Edward Snowden's disclosures, like Julian Assange's [224] leaks via WikiLeaks [225] rarely (if ever) directly alleged wrongdoing by Russia, China and other non-NATO major cyberspace actors. It's interesting to note that Edward Snowden first fled to Hong Kong China [226] and then moved to Russia [227]: what a coincidence?

DPRK Arms Smuggling

Who would have thought a typical Faire Sans Dire bog-standard investigation checking background information on defendants in a court case in Belarus in 2013 would end up in North Korea? As usual with bog-standard investigations, they can go awry. The assignment referred to was mundane ab initio. However, it ran on for months and way beyond budget.

Faire Sans Dire’s investigations finally led it to New Zealand. By then the investigations had encompassed arms smuggling and money laundering activities from Moldova to the DPRK or North Korea and back again. Thanks to the digital age we live in, it wasn’t necessary to visit most of the countries through which laundered funds had tumbled.

Companies House Data Disclosures

Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Request [228] in 2015, Faire Sans Dire unearthed some extraordinary facts about English company directors [229]. This may account for other references herein as to just how confusing and misleading the results of basic UK Companies House searches can be. The results of the request were published in a satirical article by Bill Fairclough on LinkedIn and on Faire Sans Dire’s website dated 6 November 2015 entitled The UK Government Admits 945-Year-Old Director Found Alive and Still Active.

Bizarre Assignments & Investigations

Since the seventies Faire Sans Dire has come across its fair share of bizarre mistakes, frauds, misdemeanours, malpractices and crimes. A few of the more interesting ones encountered are disclosed in a Faire Sans Dire news article entitled Background Checks & Tales of the Unexpected dated 3 September 2016 [230]. The pot pourri of assignments and investigations referred to by Faire Sans Dire include various crass errors. These mistakes are not only perpetrated by Faire Sans Dire's clients, who are anonymously referred to, but also law enforcement agencies such as the FBI.

Typical Assignments & Investigations

Some of the few examples cited above lasted years and comprised dozens of interconnected assignments and investigations involving many of Faire Sans Dire's associates. The examples disclosed disregard run-of-the-mill assignments or investigations into quotidian frauds/deceptions in the bricks and mortar or cyberspace worlds or where they converge. Given that Faire Sans Dire had representatives or associates in over 120 jurisdictions it is easy to see how over four decades it became involved in so many assignments and investigations.

For the record, Faire Sans Dire's staple diet included investigations relating to: governmental corruption, industrial espionage, terrorism funding, intellectual property theft, bribery, coercion, blackmail, insider trading, boiler room dealing, front running program trades, investment scams, falsified asset valuations, falsified prospectuses, related supplier and/or customer invoicing frauds, collusive accounting frauds, tax frauds, forgery, fraudulent related party transactions, cyber-attacks et al, data deletion or loss, money laundering, wire transfer frauds, expenses frauds, conflicts of interest, regulatory breaches, Nigerian/Ghanaian scams, security breaches, criminal offshore activities, family trust/divorce disputes and straightforward thefts and other crimes.

Legal & Related Issues

For legal, security, practical and other reasons, it is impossible and would be imprudent to provide detailed citations evidencing who was involved in what, where, when, how and why in the investigations and assignments referred to above. However, many of the assignments referred to above are cited in The Burlington Files series. Indeed, detailed timelines are divulged in Beyond Enkription. All this data can be viewed in conjunction with Bill Fairclough's overt career and Faire Sans Dire’s disclosures over the years. When combined, to some extent those disclosures evidence that such activities took place without compromising any persons or organisations involved.

Other than as explained and disclosed herein and in The Burlington Files series (to the extent it is published), Bill Fairclough’s and Faire Sans Dire's involvement in assignments shall remain forever confidential. Of course, that 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. Had it been, much of The Money Portal saga as most know it would look as if it belonged on another planet. What appears on the web about The Money Portal is in many instances as far removed from the truth as Donald Trump's perception of himself. It is unlikely that Faire Sans Dire's involvement will ever be explained in full for legal reasons.

6 PERILOUS & BIZARRE MOMENTS

The following disclosures in this section of Bill Fairclough’s biography were obtained from Bill during several interviews. He did insist on the right to edit them and rewrote most of them. Fairclough also had the right of veto which he exercised. He also invoked the fifth amendment several times. In fact, to put all that into perspective, about 100 memorable moments, drawn up when preparing The Burlington Files, were completely redacted from a list of a few hundred interesting adages, about 80 of which are included below.

Some of the details of Bill’s life-threatening or near-death incidents and other bizarre experiences summarised below have been partially redacted or masked to some degree for legal reasons. Most of the incidents that are dealt with in The Burlington Files series have been given short-shrift or omitted, inter alia, to avoid spoilers. In addition, it was agreed that for security and related reasons, disclosures relating to incidents that occurred after 1991 would generally not be disclosed in this section of this biography.

If these disclosures appear a tad far-fetched, then it should be borne in mind that certain bizarre, death-defying and life-threatening incidents have been omitted. Furthermore, many of the more bizarre and more complex events disclosed here have been redacted or masked for legal reasons. In addition, there are no direct references given below to any of Bill Fairclough’s or Faire Sans Dire's assignments and/or investigations some of which are disclosed above.

School Days - Perilous Moments 1955/1967

While living in Billingham and Norton, Stockton-on-Tees in the North of England in the fifties and early sixties Bill Fairclough survived a few narrow escapes from death. Most of them involved his brother Peter (called Hugh in The Burlington Files series). Their mother (called Sara in The Burlington Files series) was his saviour and victim on more than one occasion.

• In 1956 Peter persuaded Bill to parachute from the top of their three-storey home onto a concrete pathway at the bottom of the garden some 40 feet below. He survived uninjured after landing in a bush by mistake.

• In 1957 during a bit of rough and tumble in the back of their parents’ old Rover 12 car [231], Peter pushed Bill out of the car while travelling at 50 mph. Bill bounced along a grass verge by the side of the road until his mother stopped to admonish Peter. Later, she collected her youngest son who was shaken but not stirred as he chased after the car.

• In 1958 Bill fell through the ice on Norton duck pond into about four feet of icy water. He nearly drowned but was rescued just in time. He soon recovered after a bout of hypothermia. Again, it was arguably all Peter’s fault. He had dared his younger brother to walk across the iced-over pond.

• Their mother was sometimes the victim though. She actually passed out as Bill chased Peter across the main road running through Norton Green. Peter had run across the road before two buses going in opposite directions passed by. Bill gave chase without looking and miraculously ran unscathed between the buses, both of which ended up on the pavements on opposite sides of the road. Most who’ve read The Burlington Files would have thought that nothing could faze Sara Burlington.

• Bill got acute appendicitis while on a school sponsored tour in the Alps and nearly died. He was rushed to a hospital in Innsbruck, Austria and underwent an emergency operation in the nick of time. When he came around, the school group, which included his brother, had left for England. The local Cardinal, later to become Pope John Paul 2 [232], visited him as did his mother whom the press described as being in a mercy dash to save her youngest child.

• While in Austria, in the confusion no one remembered Bill didn’t have his own passport. He had crossed Europe on the school group passport. That didn’t daunt his mother though. She calmly smuggled him across four borders back to England as if it were a training exercise for her youngest son. What else would you expect from Sara Burlington?

• Mind you, as you would expect of Bill, this was but one of three holidays in a row in the early sixties fraught with danger (as noted above). On the other two holidays his boat sank and the flat he stayed in was burnt to ashes. Whether the brothers in any way contributed to these calamities can only be the subject of speculation.

• Once ensconced in St Peter's School York, Bill’s appetite for risk taking increased exponentially. However, in contrast with his earlier days, while at boarding school the nearest thing to a life-threatening event arose was when blowing up a derelict house on Clifton, Rawcliffe and Poppleton Ings. The home-made explosives had been obtained during several weeks of chemistry lessons, but the fuse failed. Accordingly, a makeshift substitute, a piece of paper, was used. It only lasted seconds before triggering an almighty explosion.

School Days - Bizarre Events 1955/1967

At Red House School, a preparatory school in Norton, Stockton-on-Tees, it wasn’t long before Peter and Bill were nicknamed the terrible twins albeit Peter was the elder by some 18 months. They caused havoc wherever they went in those golden days in the fifties and early sixties.

• The twins faced attempted murder charges in 1958 for bombarding their sunbathing neighbours with sharpened bamboo canes. This was in their Cowboy and Indian phase when, on being invited to parties, they had been known to bring other people’s horses along and tie them up inside if it was raining or snowing. The attempted murder charges were dropped once the police established their ages. No life changing damage was done to those of their neighbours and their guests who were admitted to hospital.

• In 1958 Bill was almost expelled for misbehaviour in Latin classes supervised by Bertram Surtees-Raine, the headmaster [233]. On being asked to translate “was” (“fuit”) he accidentally inserted a “ck” in the translation. His parents persuaded Surtees-Raine, a formidable character, to be lenient. It was, after all, an innocent mistake.

• Later that year Bill was nearly expelled again. This time he got into a fight with another boy and broke a master’s tyre pump over his head causing collateral damage to the boy’s head. Bill’s parents persuaded Surtees-Raine to be lenient again. After all, the other boy was older than their youngest son and shouldn’t have picked a fight in the first place. More importantly, Bill’s parents bought a brand-new replacement tyre pump which worked wonders.

• Bill started smoking in 1959 and drinking in 1961 while at Red House School. He only stopped in 2011 which, when added together, represented 100 years of sin. At about that time in 1960 he was yet again nearly expelled, despite having pleased Surtees-Raine by passing the 11+ exams with aplomb when only ten years’ old.

• On this near expulsion occasion Bill was displaying his leadership qualities during a snow storm. He led a hand-picked team of precision snow-ballers, including Peter his brother, and surrounded a nearby school. No one could come or go for about an hour without being pelted with snowballs. The police were called but the hostage takers had melted away. On interrogation by Surtees-Raine, the headmaster noted that all those rounded up for missing lessons were all each other’s alibis. This was essential training for Bill’s future.

• Bill had inherited a ruthless streak: doubtless his mother was responsible! In 1961 he carried out a revenge attack on someone who had pulled a chair from underneath him thereby fracturing his coccyx which bedevilled him with pain throughout his life. As one would expect, he blew up the nasty boy’s father’s Bentley R [234] to remind him he would never be safe again. The improvised explosive device was a large banger and the car’s petrol tank. It was a taste of the future for this nasty kid. Some ten years later he had to leave England for good in one hell of a hurry to escape Bill’s fury.

• Bill’s final near expulsion from Red House School was for assaulting a visiting football team. His distraught parents persuaded Surtees-Raine to be lenient again on specious grounds. As Bill’s parents put it, surely just one of his pupils accompanied by a friend wouldn’t take on an entire football team unless they had been brutally provoked.

• Before leaving Red House School, Bill was drummed out of the scouts. A special ceremony took place during which all his badges and medals were cut off in front of the whole scout troop. Allegedly, Bill had not been clean in thought, word and deed. He claimed he had been seduced by the new petite trainee French teacher. She claimed assault. It boiled down to her word against his and Surtees-Raine wasn’t sure who to believe so there was no expulsion, just a humiliating ceremony. At that time no one had the proof Bill was gifted a few years later when he accidentally bumped into her in Quimper in Brittany, France.

• Talking of gifts, while still living in Norton, Bill was given a puppy by a friend and hid Scamp the puppy in the annex he lived in [235] knowing his parents would object if they found out. After a couple of weeks, Tigger the cat found Scamp the puppy and brought him into the living room by the scruff of his neck while all the family were watching television. A few weeks later Bill’s parents had Scamp put down.

• Bill’s mother understandably kept an eye out after the French mistress episode. In fact, she spied on her younger son. Indeed, on a later occasion she put a knife to his throat and swore she would kill him if he made anyone pregnant. But all’s well that ends well. Bill’s father didn’t believe his youngest son when he called to say he had won a full fee-paying scholarship to St Peter's School York. His incredulity was understandable. Even Bertram Surtees-Raine felt his tolerance had been vindicated and the success of “JWP Fairclough” was etched in history on the plaque in the assembly hall listing Red House School's scholars.

Armed with a scholarship Bill headed for boarding school in York. As his father said, God help them. During his time at St Peter's School York, as already noted, Bill was far from a saint. However, being a scholar made him safe from expulsion despite being perpetually in trouble for drinking, smoking and other law-breaking. (Those who bestowed scholarships were loath to remove them as that would reflect badly on themselves.) Bill was gated for well over 50% of his time at school. Being gated meant that every ten minutes outside of lessons he had to get a master’s or prefect’s signature to prove he was still on the premises. Similarly, when attending lessons, he had to collect signatures too.

According to two masters at St Peter's School York in the sixties, to the best of their knowledge Bill Fairclough was the most gated, beaten and punished boy in the school’s history since it was founded by St Paulinus of York in 627AD. They should have known too. One of them, Mr F J Wiseman (a Latin teacher) wrote the official Recent History of St Peter's School [236] and the other, a house master (of School House [237]) and history teacher called Mr K H Rhodes [238], helped Mr Wiseman write the book because of his unique knowledge of the school. Ignoring three years at university, Mr Rhodes had spent his entire life at the school having literally been born on the premises; his mother was even a matron at the Manor House [239].

A few examples of Bill’s exemplary behaviour are worth citing to give a flavour of what St Peter's School York had to withstand. It goes without saying that he denied any involvement in several of these matters.

• Underneath what was the Manor House, a few rooms were secretly built by the pupils for recreational purposes such as smoking and drinking. Needless to say, Bill was a regular visitor. They may still exist.

• On one occasion in the sixties a master was shot. Apparently, no one held a grudge against the master concerned. Those involved were allegedly just testing the gun’s iron sights. The master recovered. The gun was never found. No one was apprehended for the crime.

• Just as Bill had been ceremoniously removed from the scouts, so he was unceremoniously removed from St Peter's School's Combined Cadet Force [240]. While on an army shooting range, he orchestrated the eradication of self-selected targets with his classmates instead of shooting as instructed at the intended targets. Maybe the UK Ministry of Defence should have noted this incident.

• Bill inadvertently got involved in a protection racket. At the time he was the youngest person ever to be named in a phone-tap court order. Before going to boarding school, he was already earning more than the average family in the UK courtesy of his having become a successful numismatist. Accordingly, when asked to sell large numbers of rare gold coins he naturally obliged without giving it a second thought. What teenage numismatist wouldn’t?

• The treasure trove of coins had been stolen to pay off gambling debts accumulated by members of an illegal casino in York. The coins were worth well over £100 each. The casino was allegedly run by people connected to the school. Well, they had to be, or they wouldn’t have approached Bill via a day boarding prefect. Precisely what Bill knew at the time is unknown, but he appreciated the free supplies of some of the best Brazilian cigars you could buy in the UK in the sixties. He also profited from trading the coins.

• Turning to more mundane matters, Bill was arrested for underage drinking on more than one occasion in more than one country but often carried his brother Peter’s ID with him. That helped minimise the number of times he was caught except when they were out causing trouble together.

• As for driving laws, Bill bought his first car in 1966 before he was legally old enough to drive. He didn’t bother about trivial issues such as a driving licence, car insurance, car tax or MOT testing for the cars he bought and sold until he had crashed a few. Allegedly, his brother’s driving licence helped him avoid being arrested on several occasions. Nevertheless, the police reported him (or his brother!) for various offences to either his parents or Mr J Dronfield or Mr P D R Gardiner, St Peter's School's headmasters in 1966 and 1967 respectively [241] .

• From 1966, Bill always had a car stashed away in a rented garage a stone's throw from the Manor House in which he was a boarder. It was easier to escape being gated that way once he had forged the requisite signatures or absented himself from lessons on medical grounds.

After-school Days - Perilous Moments 1967/1973

Bill’s life was hectic on many simultaneous fronts after leaving St Peter's School York in 1967, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and later leaving the UK for the Bahamas in 1974. His activities in 1974 were as narrated in Beyond Enkription. From 1967 to 1973 he was involved in night clubs, casinos, discos and the music business while supposedly studying to become a Chartered Accountant at Coopers & Lybrand. He also became ensnared in and infiltrated organised crime gangs while unwittingly working for MI6 and Special Branch.

• As a sign of things to come, Bill failed his first driving test after driving into a lorry. However, more seriously, while driving a DAF 55 [242] in the early hours after a heavy drinking session in the Croft Spa Hotel [243] near Darlington in the late sixties, Bill hit an obstruction in the road and plummeted down an almost sheer fifty-feet drop. He was temporarily concussed and awoke to find himself covered in petrol and trapped inside an upside-down car which was wedged between rocks. His first thought was where’s the cigarette he was smoking!

• Bill managed to force a buckled door to bend enough to escape. A local farmer had called the emergency services, but they weren’t required, by Bill anyway. He lived to die another day. Contrary to the advice given to him by the farmer, he managed to help himself to a large whiskey before the police arrived. In so doing he rendered any attempts to breathalyse him futile; the law has changed since then.

• Following a large win at a casino in Stockton-on-Tees, Bill decided to fly to Nice in France. From there he hitch-hiked to Ventimiglia in Italy on the French/Italian border to see his girlfriend. On the way back, he lost all his money in a casino in Menton in France which didn’t help matters as he was feeling extremely unwell. He lay low in the luxury of the plush Hotel Negresco [244] in Nice for a couple of nights until he was repatriated by the British Consulate.

• In the Hotel Negresco, he secretly stayed in one of their lounges for free. On repatriation, he was flown out as the sole first-class passenger, the front of the plane having been screened off from other passengers. On landing he was taken by ambulance to a hospital where he was diagnosed as seriously ill with some form of typhus.

• In the late sixties, near Hartlepool in the North of England, Bill Fairclough avoided what he thought was going to be a gangland style execution by jumping out of a car as it pulled up at a roundabout. The car was being driven by a night club owner he knew. Coincidentally, the club they were going to visit was torched that night. Those allegedly responsible for the arson were the Luvaglio mob (involved in the infamous one-armed bandit murder [245] in 1967) on which the original film Get Carter [246] starring Michael Caine [247] was based. However, many thought the Kray brothers [248] might have been responsible as Luvaglio claimed he had been framed by them.

• In Darlington, again in the sixties in the North of England, two bouncers known to Bill had been following him and attempted to murder him. He left them alive, hanging from a lamppost by the chains they had on them. The chains were those the bouncers had tried to tie him up with before abducting him and disposing of his body.

• In Stockton-on-Tees an attack by thirty or so mercenaries on a night club Bill was involved in was repelled. It was believed that the attackers were hired by gangsters from the West End of London. Several of the bouncers defending the club suffered irreparable brain damage and other injuries from which they never recovered or died soon afterwards. The same could be said of those carrying out the attack.

• In 1971 Bill was driving down South and raced his father’s high-powered Hillman Hunter [249] with a sports car. The race ended up in a forty-vehicle pile-up outside Aylesbury thanks mainly to the sports car braking too hard. After checking those involved were uninjured, Bill drove away thinking his father’s car had only suffered minor bumps and bruises. He collected his brother Peter from Oxford and drove up North at speed. The car was taken to a garage for minor repairs. Bill was told it was too dangerous to drive and was scrapped. The mechanic could not believe the car had just travelled over 200 miles at an average speed of 80 to 90 mph.

• Later in 1971, Bill was walking along the beach at Seaton Carew in the North of England with an old friend who was gesticulating with his hand when a thirty-two-calibre bullet lodged in the back of it. The trajectory of the bullet was such that had it not hit his hand Bill would have died instantly from a shot to the head. It was probably fired using a Remington rifle [250]. The assassin was never traced. It was thought those who had recently bought the lease to a local defunct night club may have been responsible. Bill was present when the lease was sold.

• At a party in the North of England in 1971 several armed gangsters tried to shoot their way in to snatch Bill. They were shot at and fled. Sadly, some of them were injured.

• In 1972 in the Cromwell Road in London Bill was shot at several times after leaving the Cromwellian Club [251]. He had been trying to get the hostesses to go on strike. The club frequently changed ownership. Over the years it was used by the likes of Jimi Hendrix [252], The Animals [253] (whom Bill had known from his days up North) and Elton John [254]. It was one of Bill’s favourite haunts for over a decade.

• In 1973 a West End gangster issued a contract on Bill’s life after meeting him in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London only to disappear himself. He was locked up for ten years without parole for armed robbery.

• In 1973 on bonfire night Bill and a girlfriend of his were visiting a night club in Soho. She threw some firecrackers over the bar for a laugh, but it backfired. Several guests drew hand guns and started shooting at one another. Miraculously no one was shot dead or even injured by shrapnel.

After-school Days - Bizarre Events 1967/1973

• In 1967 Bill got a scholarship to Keble College Oxford but after one of his interviewers witnessed his behaviour it was not awarded as explained in Beyond Enkription.

• In 1969 in Stockton-on-Tees Bill was breathalysed over 100 times outside one of his night clubs. If he ever tested positive the police would take him and his car home.

• In 1969 the police chased Bill across the Yorkshire Moors but lost him. He slept that night at a stranger’s house lying on some coal buckets to keep dry.

• In 1970 after a visit to Change Is night club [255] (owned by Bob Monkhouse [256]) in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North of England, Bill was told he had a Chartered Accountancy qualification exam on bankruptcy and liquidations in the morning. At about 2.00am, somewhat worse for wear, he borrowed a book on the subject and read it. Previously, he had no idea those subjects were on the syllabus. It was only then when he was 20 that he discovered he had a photographic memory. He passed the exam.

• In 1970 Bill rented a spacious four bedroom flat above a fish and chip shop for £3 a week. It was by the docks in Portrack, Stockton-on-Tees. The flat was surrounded by a gypsy encampment next to two huge reeking collapsible gas storage cylinders. If you left a window open, the duvet would soon accumulate up to a centimetre of grease.

• In 1971 while on a holiday in Yarmouth and the Norfolk Broads yet another cabin cruiser Bill was sailing was holed and nearly sank.

• In 1972 Bill was ejected from Annabel’s Club [257] in Berkeley Square, London and refused membership. Rumour has it that since then blackbirds no longer sing at night in Berkeley Square.

• In 1972 Bill drove from Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne to Piccadilly Circus in London within three hours in his modified Jaguar Mark 1 [258]. That’s about 280 miles at an average speed knocking on 100 mph. To many notable drivers, including Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn, Tommy Sopwith and Roy Salvadori [259], who had raced in that model of the Jaguar Mark 1, Bill was driving quite sedately, actually.

• In the early seventies if Bill lost at the Mazurka Casino [260] in Soho he would usually stay the rest of the night in the luxurious and secure men’s toilets at Euston Station. The toilets were individually large enough to lie down in, always thoroughly cleaned at about 2.00am every morning and only cost 2p a night. What’s more, a free bath and breakfast was always available at several Bloomsbury hotels if you knew how to con your way past their receptionists.

• In Paris, France in 1972 Bill was on his way to see an Ange concert. He later co-managed Ange, a French rock band. The taxi driver said it might be difficult to get there because of the riots going on outside a nearby Rolling Stones' concert [261]. In fact, there wasn’t even a queue outside the Rolling Stones' concert and the rioting was fans trying to get into the Ange concert.

Beyond Enkription - Perilous Moments 1974

Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 and, inter alia, covers Bill Fairclough’s involvement in Operation Standpipe [262] and his ensuing months in the Americas.

Without wishing to spoil the book, as it is based on Bill’s life and experiences, one can conclude that in 1974 he survived. In fact he lived through at the very least: four attempted murders in the UK; one close encounter with a black gang in Chicago's South Side; one attempted murder in Brazil; one attempted murder in the Bahamas; and two attempted murders in Haiti.

Beyond Enkription - Bizarre Events 1974

All the bizarre events relating to Bill’s activities in 1974 are covered in the novel, Beyond Enkription.

Later Years - Perilous Moments 1975/1991

As indicated earlier, the more recent the events the less information is available in the public domain for legal reasons or to prevent spoiling the remaining books in The Burlington Files series. Nevertheless, there are some disclosures up to 1991 made below that may be of interest. Since 1991 Bill has survived eight life-threatening situations. The last known attempt on Bill’s life was in 2012 in South America, almost exactly a year after he had a debilitating stroke which forced him into a wheel chair for a few months. Various photographs of Bill since the eighties have been made publicly available [263].

• In 1975 while swimming off Governor’s Beach (just West of the Nassau Beach Hotel [264]) in New Providence Island in the Bahamas, Bill was surrounded by a shoal of barracuda. He had to undergo on-the-spot training in how to float back to land with his arms out of the water. The training was given by a Cuban who’d lost part of his stomach to a shark. Afterwards, Bill confessed that he had never sweated in water before in his life.

• Bill was seduced and later abducted by the mistress of Robert Vesco and nearly murdered at the orders of Robert Vesco as noted earlier and chronicled in Wikipedia and Everipedia.

• The window in a private jet Bill was flying on in 1976 was smashed into smithereens by one of Bill’s briefcases that took off during a turbulent flight over the Dominican Republic on the way to Port-au-Prince.

• In the seventies Bill contracted cytomegalovirus [265]. According to Lancet [266] he had the lowest red blood count ever recorded in the UK. He was read the last rites twice because of this illness.

• In the late seventies Bill survived a head-on car crash. The other party involved was not so lucky. He was allegedly the leader of a criminal organisation.

• In 1977 a tropical storm damaged a plane on its way from Nassau to Chicago. It had to make an emergency landing on foam at Miami International Airport. Bill was on board.

• On another flight from Nassau in 1977, Bill was with a friend who just so happened to be a pilot. He noticed that the wheels may have jammed as it was coming into land at JFK Airport in New York. Bill’s friend ran down the aisle to warn the pilot just in time to avert a crash. The plane took off seconds before touching down and once the wheel mechanisms were working properly, it landed perfectly some thirty minutes later.

• In the late seventies in what was then Nassau International Airport, a senior Bahamian government official placed Bill in an airport warehouse and told him to find his suitcases. The warehouse had a corrugated iron roof, there were no windows, the doors were shut, and it was midday in July. He found his cases at the bottom of a pile from a jumbo jet after two hours lugging other cases aside. He was dripping.

• In the late seventies a storm struck Toronto when Bill was working there. He and his colleagues had to be moved several blocks clinging on to ropes chained between corner buildings as furniture swirled around them.

• In 1979 Bill landed at Heathrow Airport after having been diverted to Prestwick Airport in Scotland because of blizzards in England. All he had on was beach attire having left the Caribbean in haste. After attending a meeting in Whitehall, he went to a flat in Lambeth where he was savagely attacked. With the help of others, he chased off the intruders.

• In 1979 while heading to pick up a car that had been booked for him to collect at Miami International Airport Bill was shot at by unknown assailants. To this day he still believes it may have been a case of mistaken identity.

• In 1983 while swimming off the West coast of Fiji, a four to five-foot sea snake wrapped itself round one of his legs and slithered upwards. Part of this tidbit may have been redacted but Bill was not!

• In 1983 while deep sea fishing off Oahu in Hawaii Bill, along with several other tourists, nearly drowned in an unexpected storm. The waves were over 40 feet high and everybody on board bar the captain was tied together and tied to life rafts.

• In 1985 in Europe Bill was shot at in a night club but escaped after a vicious fight ensued high up on a fire escape.

• Later in 1985 in Malta Bill was poisoned after inexplicably being bitten by mosquitoes. There were over 200 bites on his back alone. When he woke up, he was in London. He had been jetted into the Hospital for Tropical Diseases [267]. Not long afterwards he was poisoned again, this time by unwittingly consuming a drink laced with an overdose of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD [268]). As that didn’t work either he was poisoned again a month or so later while eating a very tasty steak, but that failed too.

• Indeed, 1985 was not a year Bill may want to remember. In a high-speed car chase heading South down the M1 motorway in England, the other driver somehow jettisoned parts of his car’s under-carriage which just missed Bill’s car.

• Again in 1985, while driving at about 100 mph heading South down the M1 motorway in England, one of Bill’s car wheels burst into flames. He never discovered why. Nor did the police. A few days later, the Bomb Squad [269] took his car away for inspection having received intelligence that his car had been fixed.

• In Rio de Janeiro in 1987 Bill survived yet another abduction and murder attempt on the way to the airport. Bill used a pen to cut the neck of the driver and force him to change direction thereby getting to the airport on time. However, on his arrival, Varig Airlines [270] refused to take him on board until he had acquired a tie to wear. No wonder they closed in 2006.

• In London in 1989 Bill woke up to find his flat littered with burnt matches and burn marks all over the carpets. He assumed he had been drugged. He never found out the real name of the seductress responsible for the attempted arson.

• In 1991 Bill was reported as having been murdered. He had indeed survived a knife attack outside a Hong Kong night club in the early hours. What concerned Bill more than the failed attack on his person was how on earth the person who had made the report was so sure he had been murdered.

• In 1991 while on his way from London to New York Bill stopped off in St Lucia for a well-deserved break. He had a jet-ski race with another hotel guest and won outright. It was a Pyrrhic victory though. He had run out of fuel, couldn’t even see land, dusk was settling fast as it does in the Caribbean, he had no lights and no cigarettes. Luckily, one of several fishing boats sent out to find him did so and towed him back in the dark.

Later Years - Bizarre Events 1975/1991

• Bill became involved with a Columbian gang who like George Cockcroft alias Luke Rhinehart [271], the author of The Dice Man [272], lived by the throw of die. They were based in 48 Harley Street London in the late seventies and could often be seen going up and down Harley Street naked, much to the amusement of the girls from the Queen’s College [273] on the opposite side of the street! The gang used to select which crimes they would commit when and how in which countries by the throw of die.

• An area known as over the hill in Nassau on the South side of New Providence Island in the Bahamas was inhabited exclusively by blacks in the seventies. However, Bill was the only white welcomed in their clubs and only once experienced an unpleasant racial incident.

• In 1976 Bill became unintentionally involved in the Sex Pistols [274] fiasco on the Bill Grundy [275] television programme. A friend of his along with Malcolm McLaren [276] had funded their forthcoming tours which were by and large all cancelled. The deposits on halls booked for the tours were forfeited courtesy of breaches of morality clauses. Bill’s accurate recollections of bankruptcy laws proved invaluable.

• In 1978 Bill drove the length of Manhattan with no stops from West 219th Street by Baker Field to beyond Wall Street. Admittedly, he may have broken a light or two.

• Some PricewaterhouseCoopers partners worked out that during his lifetime Bill had consumed more meals at Simpsons in the Strand [277] in London than anyone else since it was founded in 1828. However, as one of them succinctly put it, proving it would be difficult given all the pseudonyms he had used to make reservations.

• One weekend in 1984 Bill flew from London to Hong Kong and back just to attend a party. The next year he arrived in Auckland, New Zealand on an Easter weekend only to find he couldn’t even buy a drink in his hotel. He had to buy a take-away bottle of wine from a nearby brothel. Predictably, he left early the next morning for Sydney, Australia.

• In 1985 while in Athens at a large corporate gathering Bill threw the wrong sort of Greek plate at the stage. It hit the guy performing on stage on the head. He was taken to hospital.

• In 1985 Bill attended a meeting at a pub in Puddle Dock in London after being released from police protective custody up North. Despite it being only about 11.30am there were over a dozen people in the pub all dressed identically in beige trench coats with matching hats. He was only meant to meet one person described thus. Someone must have been taking the Michael.

• In 1990 while undertaking surveillance for Bill in London, those involved played back some of the tape to check what had been recorded. Much to their bewilderment, they realised they had unintentionally taken pictures of what turned out to be a totally separate incident, a murder.

• In 1991 Bill’s maritime skills surpassed themselves. Within two consecutive months he had crashed a speedboat off Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the South of France and then had to abandon a sinking rowing boat in the Serpentine Lake in London's Hyde Park.

• Although out of scope for this section by virtue of having happened in 2016, once more Bill was in peril on the open seas. This time he was apprehended by the French Navy while travelling in a speedboat at 30 knots in a restricted area. He was exploring the waters by Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport in Guadeloupe which is technically part of France. He was sailing too close to the airport runway during a state of national emergency pursuant to a recent spate of terrorist attacks in France.

• After the fire at Barclays' Mercantile Credit's Head Office in Basingstoke in 1991 Bill had to try to rescue his bulletproof briefcase from his office which was almost inaccessible as the twelfth floor where it was situated had been gutted by the fire. With the help of some experts he managed to walk along the girders high up in the building and recover the remains of his briefcase. Apart from the fact that a Pentel pen had exploded inside the briefcase in the heat, its contents were still in perfect shape.

7 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 which he controlled. 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 (written for film adaptation) 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 autobiographical novels in the series. Beyond Dekription, the second novel, has been drafted and is awaiting 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 Fairclough christened them novelogs and they are not dissimilar to grown up versions of Anne Frank's Diaries [278].

In summary, The Burlington Files is a series of unusual espionage novels based mainly on the life of Bill Fairclough aka Edward Burlington 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 [279] 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 set in 1974 in the heart of the disco fevered seventies, the Cold War and the escalating Irish Troubles [280] in the purportedly united British Isles. It features, among others, Roger and Sara Burlington, Edward's parents, who 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 officers 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 had a representative on the Joint Intelligence Committee and was therefore already aware of Edward’s exploits and capabilities. They turn him into their asset within 48 hours of his landing in Nassau. Meanwhile Edward's brother Hugh seems to be somehow involved with MI6. That relationship 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.

8 WEB LINKS & OTHER DATA

There are many interesting web-links to Bill Fairclough and his past personal and/or business activities as explained in https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@burlingtonfiles/tales-of-theunexpected-fact-checking-disinformation-unredacted. Not necessarily mutually exclusive to the web-links etc set out in the formal References to this article are some interesting links and facts about Bill Fairclough and Faire Sans Dire which are set out below.

Barclays Group https://home.barclays + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclays

Beyond Enkription https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/beyond-enkription

Beyond Enkription Publishers https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Enkription-BurlingtonFiles-1/dp/1497314186 + http://bit.ly/BeyondEnkriptionPublishers

Bill Fairclough’s Directorships Excluding Shadow Directorships http://bit.ly/BillFaircloughDirectorships + https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/xO1Q7Tk3htRGf497OL_Qg3xznqs/appointmen ts + https://companycheck.co.uk/director/906528948/MR-JOHN-WILLIAM-PERCYFAIRCLOUGH/summary + https://opencorporates.com/officers?q=John+William+Percy+Fairclough&utf8=%E2%9C%9 3

Biographies http://bit.ly/BillFairclough-WikiBio + http://bit.ly/BillFairclough-WikiTreeBio + http://bit.ly/BillFairclough-Wikispooks

Blogspot http://theburlingtonfiles.blogspot.co.uk

Charles Fairclough https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/charles-fairclough + https://charlesfairclough.com

Citigroup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup

Cooper Brothers https://www.icaew.com//media/corporate/files/library/subjects/accounting-history/family-trees/family-tree-cooperslybrand.ashx?la=en

Coopers & Lybrand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PricewaterhouseCoopers#Coopers_&_Lybrand

Edward Burlington https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/edward-burlington

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theburlingtonfiles + https://www.facebook.com/CaguioaFairclough

Faire Sans Dire https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/faire-sans-dire + https://fairesansdire.org

Faire Sans Dire Co-founders https://www.fairesansdire.org/about-us/index.php

(1) Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE http://yeomenoftheguard.com/officerimages.htm#pemberton + http://yeomenoftheguard.com/exons.htm (see entry No. 112)

(2) Barrie Northend Parkes BEM https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/barrie-parkes-bem + http://companycheck.co.uk/director/904498710/MR-BARRIE-NORTHEND-PARKES

Faire Sans Dire Limited Past Directors https://www.fairesansdire.org/about-us/index.php, http://companycheck.co.uk/director/904498710/MR-BARRIE-NORTHEND-PARKES + http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06552657/FAIRE-SANS-DIRE-LIMITED/directorssecretaries

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fairclough_bill

Intelligence Online https://www.intelligenceonline.com/search?sqe=QmlsbCBGYWlyY2xvdWdo0

ISBN Numbers - 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 + 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 set out below. Pictures of some of the locations may be accessed by Google Maps and/or Instagram.

(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 other 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 Maida Vale W9; 5 Hamilton Place W1; 107 Sussex Gardens, Radnor Place W2 and several locations in the City of London

(3) Locations in Surrey: several locations in Epsom; Sutton; Weybridge; Cheam; and Wallington Surrey

London Espionage Tours https://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/indexd4a6.html?p=124 (Up market tours based on Bill Fairclough's life in London in 1974 have been enjoyed by many since 2015.)

MV Nisha https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/mv-nisha

News @ Faire Sans Dire https://www.fairesansdire.org/news/index.php (This page contains dozens of articles and press releases relating to Bill Fairclough’s and Faire Sans Dire's activities.)

News @ The Burlington Files https://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

Research https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@burlingtonfiles/tales-of-the-unexpected-factchecking-disinformation-unredacted

Reviews of Beyond Enkription https://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/page/endorsements (This webpage includes links to most of the reviews of Beyond Enkription as a book written for film adaptation as opposed to a novel per se.)

Secret Tours http://www.henriettaferguson.com/top-secret (Up market tours based on Bill Fairclough's life in London in 1974 have been enjoyed by many since 2015.)

Social Links https://www.theburlingtonfiles.org/page/social-links

Spooks https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bill_Fairclough

The Burlington Files https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/the-burlington-files + https://theburlingtonfiles.org

The Burlington Files Limited http://companycheck.co.uk/company/08005044/THEBURLINGTON-FILES-LIMITED/directors-secretaries

The Burlington Files Group https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08005044 (The Burlington Files Limited has three wholly owned subsidiary companies, Enkription Limited, Dekription Limited and Faire Sans Dire Limited.)

The Panama Papers & Faire Sans Dire https://www.fairesansdire.org/the-panamapapers/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=defa ult&search=bill+fairclough+beyond+enkription&searchToken=a6lnvgkot4cp3mg0yq5p63my 0

WordPress https://theburlingtonfiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/the-burlington-files

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSnLZUOTkdprirBiqaM9_4A

References & Citations from Everipedia Bio

There are over one hundred further references and citations on https://everipedia.org/wiki/bill-fairclough which are also available via links on https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Fairclough-119&public=1. All the photos relating to Bill Fairclough's biography included on Everipedia (and more besides) are available on https://www.instagram.com/fairclough_bill/.