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BILL FAIRCLOUGH (Full Name: John William Percy Fairclough)

Born - 1950

Born - Stockton-on-Tees Durham England

Occupation - Chairman and company director

Languages - English and French

Nationality - British

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

Parents - Dr Richard Alan Fairclough (1915 – 1987) and Margaret Fairclough (1918 – 1995)

Brother - Peter Richard Stafford Fairclough (1948 – 1996)

Sister - Jane Margaret Jackson (1944 – 2014)

Spouse - Josefina Repancol Fairclough (1996 – present)

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

Useful website links - http://www.fairesansdire.org http://www.theburlingtonfiles.org http://uk.linkedin.com/in/billfairclough http://www.fairesansdire.org/home/?section=3

SYNOPSIS OF BILL FAIRCLOUGH'S BIOGRAPHY

Bill Fairclough, full name John William Percy Fairclough, (born 31 August 1950) is the Non-Executive Chairman and owner of Faire Sans Dire, a global intelligence and investigatory organization. He is also the nominal author of The Burlington Files, a series of spy novels based on his and his family's lives.

Bill Fairclough started his career as a trainee accountant at Cooper Brothers (later to become Coopers & Lybrand and after that PricewaterhouseCoopers) and somewhat altruistically lived a double life from the early 1970s. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Cooper Brothers he established Faire Sans Dire in the late 1970s to provide a conduit whereby intelligence agencies involved mainly in law enforcement could more easily work together. The goal was to help prevent the exponential spread of international organized crime.

After leaving Coopers & Lybrand in July 1983 Bill Fairclough continued to work in the international financial services industry until January 1999 while still retaining control of Faire Sans Dire. From 1999 he switched roles and Faire Sans Dire became his main occupation, albeit covertly until 2010 (Ref 1), while simultaneously taking on directorships (overtly and covertly) in various companies mainly in the financial services sector but also in property, healthcare and other industries.

In July 2009 Bill Fairclough was approached again to try to make some films loosely based on his experiences. At the time he was still running Faire Sans Dire and acting as a director for various property and finance companies. Through intermediaries he contacted two well known film production companies to assess their appetite for making films comprising a pot pourri of unusual concepts and experiences based on his somewhat unconventional dual existence.

Despite all their initial enthusiasm the negotiations came to nothing. Both film production companies advised Bill that he must first present his material in book and/or film script format. Sadly his approach to one US Corporation eventually landed on stony ground when MGM filed for bankruptcy. MGM produced many of the James Bond films. The other household name film production company approached was based in the UK but had a full production agenda for many years ahead.

Accordingly, on 5 March 2014 the first novel in The Burlington Files series, Beyond Enkription, was published on Amazon as a paperback and eBook and copyrighted by an English company, The Burlington Files Limited (Ref 2) of which Bill was ostensibly the majority shareholder. The official date of publication marked the fiftieth anniversary of the opening chapter in Beyond Enkription and was “coincidentally” on purpose Bill Fairclough’s father’s birthday. In 2015 a hardcover version of Beyond Enkription was published by Dolman Scott.

CONTENTS

1 PERSONAL LIFE

2 EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

3 OVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE

4 COVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE

5 THE BURLINGTON FILES

6 SYNOPSIS OF BEYOND ENKRIPTION

7 REFERENCES

PERSONAL LIFE

Bill Fairclough had a brother and sister and was the youngest of three children. Both his siblings are now deceased. His elder brother Peter attended Keble College at Oxford University studying history and despite his frequent absences obtained a third class degree which was more than his younger brother Bill achieved at university.

Bill Fairclough’s father, the son of an ex-headmaster of Putney Grammar School, was an Oxford Scholar from Keble College where he obtained a first and a doctorate in chemistry. His parents met during the war when his father (ostensibly working for Imperial Chemical Industries - ICI) was working secretly on creating bombs to wipe out the Nazis’ industrial hinterland. Bill's parents married in Yarm in 1941.

After Bill's father, Richard Fairclough, retired from ICI he ran an antiquarian and second hand book shop in Yarm during the late 1970s and the 1980s until his death in 1987. The book shop, which mainly exported antiquarian books to overseas libraries, was used in the 1980s as a front for various intelligence and recruitment purposes by both his youngest son and some intelligence agencies.

When not gated (or being otherwise punished for unruly behaviour) at boarding school Bill Fairclough spent most of his childhood and early teens in the North East of England not far from the banks of the River Tees. As a child he lived in Billingham and then (in a vast white house once lived in by the poet Percy Shelley) in Norton by the “green” overlooking the duck pond. In his early teens he lived in Middleton St George and later in Yarm but also rented flats near nightclubs he worked in or controlled during the late 1960s near Stockton-on-Tees and Jesmond in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

In his youth Bill Fairclough survived numerous life threatening events such as serious accidents, severe illnesses and multiple car and boat crashes. On three successive holidays as a teenager his escapades included sinking a 35 foot pleasure cruiser in the River Trent; escaping from a flat burnt to ashes in Ealing; and being diagnosed with acute appendicitis while touring the mountainous regions surrounding Innsbruck. He lived life in the fast lane.

In 1971 he left the North East of England in a hurry, bound for Soho, London’s West End and a new job at Coopers in the City of London at their prestigious Head Office in Gutter Lane Cheapside. To his employers at Coopers it was understandable that anyone like Bill Fairclough would prefer to work in their large Head Office rather than their relatively small offices in Middlesbrough and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He already had a reputation as a fraud and trouble spotter. 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 and receiving unwanted attention from protection racketeers (including allegedly corrupt police mainly in Newcastle and Sunderland) all along the North East coast of England from Scarborough to Whitley Bay.

On arrival in the West End of London in 1971 he maintained a triple existence not only working for Coopers but also moonlighting in clubs and the music industry while unwittingly assisting the intelligence services (see covert professional life below). In the music industry he acted as an accountant for several promoters, agents, managers and artists while dabbling in the fun side of the business including co-managing some rock groups in Europe such as Ange and Little Bob Story. In the early seventies, the highlights of his involvement in the music industry included:

(1) helping produce a number one single for Ange while visiting Phonogram's recording studios in Paris;

(2) drumming with Keith Moon of the Who at the Roundhouse in London;

(3) performing on stage with George Melly at Ronnie Scotts in Soho;

(4) dressed in a pin stripe suit to provoke the audience, pretending to whip Stacia Blake (of the band Hawkwind) on stage at some of Hawkwind's concerts for which he was purportedly made an "honorary" Hells Angel; and

(5) hiring Wembley Stadium after reaching an oral agreement with Colonel Tom Parker for a weekend performance by Elvis Presley which never happened as Elvis decided he didn't want to perform overseas at the time!

He turned down various offers to manage UK and American rock bands as he found working with the intelligence services more exciting and to his liking as a moonlighting "pastime".

From the mid 1970s until the mid 1990s Bill Fairclough spent much time working overseas. He was based in Nassau Bahamas and the Americas on and off up until the mid 1980s. Bill continued to face many near death experiences on land, water and in the air. He suffered from a toxic variety of life threatening illnesses including a few attempted poisonings. He also survived several other attempts on his life by those who would have preferred that his investigatory talents weren’t covertly locked onto their criminal empires.

Bill Fairclough was married in 1983 and by 1987 his wife had two children. After a separation lasting six years their marriage ended in divorce in 1995. He remarried in August 1996.

In February 1996 his brother was reported to have allegedly committed suicide prior to a planned move down South from Yarm.

EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Bill Fairclough attended Red House School in Norton Stockton-on-Tees and then obtained a scholarship to St Peter’s School York. He was nearly expelled from Red House School on more than one occasion for his rebellious behaviour. However, once safely ensconced as a scholar at St Peter's School York he was safe from expulsion as the expulsion of any scholar was not only unprecedented but in any event it would have reflected badly on those who awarded it.

St Peter's School York is one of the oldest schools in the world having been founded in 627AD by Saint Paulinus. Bill was far removed from being a saint! Mind you, neither was John Johnson ("JJ"), better known as Guy Fawkes, one of its former pupils. As noted in The Burlington Files, JJ was in reality the first pseudonym attributed to Bill whilst being used as an intelligence asset in London: the intelligence agencies knew a little about history.

In his last term at York Bill Fairclough took the Oxford scholarship entry exam with a view to following in his father's scholarly footsteps at Keble College. Bill was assured through his father (by a very close friend and fellow scholar at Keble, one Douglas Price) that he had done exceedingly well in the exam and was unquestionably on course to obtain a scholarship in English literature at Keble College having apparently excelled all the others taking the scholarship exams. (Douglas Price devoted most of his life to Keble College which has a prestigious society named after him.)

Accordingly Bill attended an interview at Oxford University with Douglas Price in attendance. They had met before at Bill's father's houses on many occasions. However, he was not only refused a scholarship but also refused entry to Keble College. Even his brother's position had become precarious but he managed to remain at Keble on the proviso that he relinquished his rooms there which he did. Bill had been turned down for egregious misbehaviour after a party attended by him and Peter his brother, the night before and the morning of his interview. Consequently he was immediately suspended from school. He left for Soho rather than return to face the music and later went to the University of East Anglia instead of Oxford University.

From September 1967 until July 1968 Bill spent only seventeen days at East Anglia University in Norwich preferring the “University of Life” in Central London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne working in and running night clubs. Even so, he passed his first year exams at Norwich with flying colours (obtaining the equivalent of a first) and then left prematurely without notice.

Bill Fairclough also attended Newcastle Polytechnic to study accountancy after being articled to a partner at Cooper Brothers in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He obtained top marks in many of the exams including several "100%" marks on his papers. He qualified first time as a Chartered Accountant in 1974. In 1980 he became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. In 1994 he became a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments. In 1995 he became a member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers and is now a life member. In January 2016, after over 40 years as a qualified Chartered Accountant, Bill resigned from the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

From the late 1980s at various times Bill Fairclough was registered with the UK and other financial and banking regulatory bodies to be a director of businesses operating in the financial services sector. Since then many of them have changed their names. In the UK those authorities included the SFA, IMRO, the PIA, the FSA (via the ICAEW) and the Bank of England which now all come under the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority. In the USA he was similarly licensed by the SEC; in Japan by the Ministry of Finance; and in Hong Kong by their SEC.

OVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Bill Fairclough worked at Coopers & Lybrand (or Cooper Brothers) from 1969 to 1983. While working in Coopers’ Technical Department he wrote (with others) the firm’s Manual of Auditing, several UK statements of standard accounting practice (SSAPs) and other publications (eg on the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related anti-boycott legislation). Later, when a manager, he became the first Secretary to Coopers’ International Executive Committee reporting to the International Firm’s CEO, the first of whom was Sir Brandon Gough.

At Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) Bill Fairclough also was involved in investigating major frauds and malpractice. When working for Coopers & Lybrand he was based in either the UK or Nassau but also worked extensively in Europe, the USA, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America.

In 1983 Bill Fairclough was hired by Citigroup based in the Strand London and became the Deputy CFO for their Europe/MEA operations which at the time held assets in excess of the UK’s Lloyds and Midland global banking groups combined.

Apart from carrying out normal accounting responsibilities when at Citigroup, Bill Fairclough investigated alleged breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related anti-boycott legislation in the Middle East. He also had a mandate from the Group's CFO based in Wall Street to investigate suspected politically sensitive frauds and other misdemeanours in all the areas Citigroup operated in excluding North America. Citigroup now calls itself "Citi" and remains one of the largest banks in the world. He parted company with Citicorp pursuant to conducting a series of covert investigations which had global consequences for the group which faced unprecedented fines and its global management structure was completely overhauled at the behest of regulators.

In 1986 Bill Fairclough joined the Barclays Bank Group and worked his way up the ladder. Inter alia he was a director of Mercantile Credit, Ebbgate Holdings (BZW now Barclays Investment Bank), Barclays Stockbrokers, Barclays Financial Services and Barclays Holdings (Ref 3). In 1999 he left Barclays after having been a Group Senior Executive for four years following an eighteen month secondment to Reuters Group where he was a director of many companies in the Instinet Group (including Instinet Holdings) which was in the main later acquired by NASDAQ.

At Barclays Bill Fairclough was responsible for several disinvestments such as the sale of Mercantile Credit to GE Capital after its head office at Churchill Plaza in Basingstoke had almost been burnt to the ground (Ref 12) in what was suspected arson and indeed investigated as having possibly been a terrorist attack. The fire was put down to an electrical fault but some of those investigating were more concerned with how the electrical fault occurred than how the fire started. Bill was also responsible for several acquisitions (eg the purchase of Fidelity Brokerage). While at Barclays, (including when he was seconded to Reuters) he was mainly based in London but also on occasion in New York and Hong Kong. During this period of his career he worked in many countries in Europe, the Far East and the Americas.

Since 2000 after leaving Barclays, Bill Fairclough has been a director of several companies involved in activities other than the provision of financial services. He also ran his own regulated forensic accountancy practice. In 2010 his involvement with Faire Sans Dire became public knowledge after he opened the organization’s first website.

To date, after well over three decades, there has been only one investigation Faire Sans Dire was involved in where Bill Fairclough’s or Faire Sans Dire’s name entered the public domain. That one was connected with The Money Portal plc (Ref 4). Various legal actions took place relating to investigations conducted by Bill who was also The Money Portal’s Finance Director (Ref 3) at the time.

In 2005 Bill Fairclough failed to get the case brought against him summarily struck off by Mr Justice Forbes (of fame for presiding over the Harold Shipman serial murders trial) (Ref 5). The case was primarily sponsored by one of the company's founding directors who in 2006 was disqualified from acting as a director for ten years and later bankrupted in and extradited from Australia and imprisoned until his trial in England in respect of criminal charges brought against him by the Serious Fraud Office.

Mr Justice Forbes argued that Bill Fairclough's strike-out case was so exceptional (eg it included a solicitor who confessed to destroying a company computer with a hammer and garden shears) that it should go to a full trial but said The Money Portal had only just “squeaked home” (Ref 5). It is of note that Mr Justice Forbes was not normally a judge in commercial cases. Furthermore, he had apparently made it known that he was close to retirement at the time with an unblemished record of never having had any of his judgements appealed which he was presumably proud of and wanted to retain unblemished.

Not only this strike-out case but the ensuing linked trials involving people connected with Faire Sans Dire's investigations were not exactly good advertisements for the quality of British justice or the Serious Fraud Office's investigatory capabilities. Furthermore, had the case gone to trial a few of the plaintiff's directors and legal representatives might have been astonished to discover that the case hinged on various overseas matters that they appeared to have overlooked in the strike out case.

Immediately after the strike out hearing in October 2005 The Money Portal tried to reach a settlement with Bill Fairclough presumably because they did not wish the case to proceed to full trial. It was not until July 2006 that Bill Fairclough and The Money Portal’s Chairman (Richard Hambros of the Hambros Bank dynasty) reached an out of court settlement to Fairclough’s satisfaction (Ref 6). By that time the founding director referred to earlier had admitted to some of his previous misdemeanours which had been the subject of investigations led by Bill Fairclough. Immediately after the settlement, Bill was rehired by The Money Portal to undertake more covert investigatory work for them.

COVERT PROFESSIONAL LIFE

To the extent considered legally acceptable and unlikely to harm any person Bill Fairclough's covert life is explained between the lines of The Burlington Files in which the character and adventures of the main protagonist, one Edward Burlington, are based on Bill, his life and his experiences. To date only the first novel, Beyond Enkription, in The Burlington Files series of six novels has been published though.

In the 1970s Bill Fairclough worked with Alan Pemberton CVO MBE (Ref 7) and Barrie Parkes MBE (Ref 8) to covertly help combat corruption and Fairclough’s skills and experience were used to investigate some extraordinary international frauds and diplomatic misdemeanours. In 1978 Bill formed Faire Sans Dire which means to do without speaking. It was his family’s motto and incorporated in its crest of arms.

The organization was established to provide a conduit such that intelligence agencies involved mainly in law enforcement could liaise with one another more easily in order to help tackle and reduce international organized crime. The rationale for that was during the Cold War those on both "sides" wanted to put a stop to certain types of organised criminal activities but were prevented from liaising one with another for that purpose for political reasons. Faire Sans Dire bridged the gap by providing anonymity to those who wished to halt heinous crimes such as people and drug trafficking across borders by those taking advantage of the uncooperative stances taken by the authorities who were at "cold war" with one another politically speaking.

Those who worked for or with Faire Sans Dire were not only from intelligence backgrounds but also included senior retired police officers, lawyers, accountants and retired members of elite military units such as the SAS, SBS and their equivalents from other countries' special forces.

Since 1978 Faire Sans Dire has been involved in confidential assignments in over 100 countries. It remains in existence today as an intelligence and investigatory organization fronted by an English company called Faire Sans Dire Limited (Ref 9) which maintains links with Faire Sans Dire's many associates around the world. Most of its work continues to be carried out covertly on a not for profit basis but Bill Fairclough rarely operates any more in an executive capacity.

The nature of Faire Sans Dire’s work has typically been focused on using intelligence sources to detect, prevent and investigate fraud and corruption anywhere in the world. From its inception Bill Fairclough has been the owner of Faire Sans Dire, the legal structure of which has changed from time to time. He has normally either acted as its Executive or Non-Executive Chairman.

Obviously Bill Fairclough's activities while running Faire Sans Dire all of which bar a small part of one assignment remained covert during the last three decades or so cannot be divulged other than to the extent they have been covered in the "fictional" Burlington Files series of which Bill Fairclough was the nominal author. Indeed, all of the information in the public domain concerning Bill Fairclough's investigations into The Money Portal scandal has never been put into its proper perspective publicly. It is unlikely that it will ever be explained in full for legal reasons.

THE BURLINGTON FILES

Bill Fairclough started writing The Burlington Files in 1975. However, it was only in 2009 that work on the project began in earnest. The Burlington Files series is based on Bill Fairclough’s experiences running a double or triple life including the activities undertaken by Faire Sans Dire. The intellectual property rights of The Burlington Files are vested in an English company, The Burlington Files Limited and its subsidiary companies (Ref 10).

Beyond Enkription is the first stand alone novel in the series to be published (Ref 11). At circa 180,000 words it is believed to be the longest spy novel published in the 21st century or was so at the time of publication. It took circa 10,000 hours to write and research. For most people working in the UK that is equivalent to more than five years’ work and that is for just one book in the series. Part of the core plot in Beyond Enkription is centred on the misspelling of “encryption”.

There are expected to be six novels in the series. Beyond Dekription, the second novel, has been drafted and is undergoing a review and editing prior to its publication. The other novels are at varying stages of production. All the novels were written in such a way that they could more easily be converted to become the bases for either full length feature films and/or television series. Bill called them novelogs.

In summary, The Burlington Files is a series of unusual espionage novels based mainly on the life of Bill Fairclough and loosely on the lives of his family and his colleagues. Many of them worked for decades as governmental employees or assets or employees of intelligence agencies such as the CIA or MI6 (and indeed privately for Faire Sans Dire itself). The action and plots rapidly spread across the globe as time passes. The series covers a chain of interconnected plots (and family life) running from the Second World War through to the Edward Snowden era.

Beyond Enkription is a standalone novel in its own right.

SYNOPSIS OF BEYOND ENKRIPTION

Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 in the heart of the disco fevered 1970s, the Cold War and the escalating Irish Troubles in the purportedly united British Isles.

Roger and Sara Burlington have been involved in espionage since 1939. While Roger is still a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sara’s address book appears to be more like a Who’s Who of NATO’s intelligence services than a housewife’s little black book. Both Roger and Sara desperately wanted their sons, Hugh and Edward, to follow in their footsteps but things didn’t go to plan given Edward’s rebellious nature.

As a consequence, 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 has to pay and persuades Roger to exact revenge. Meanwhile Edward is sent to supposed safety from London town to Nassau in the Bahamas to continue his career as an accountant.

However, the CIA has a representative on the Joint Intelligence Committee and is therefore already aware of Edward’s exploits and capabilities. They turn him into their asset within 48 hours of his landing in Nassau.

Meanwhile Hugh’s involvement with MI6 becomes increasingly intriguing as the entangled plots and layered webs of deceit, betrayal and revenge reverberate across the world and throughout the Burlington family and their trusted supporters.

REFERENCES

1. Intelligence Online http://www.intelligenceonline.com/corporate-intelligence/consultants/2010/01/28/bill-fairclough,79161250-BRE-CAN

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

3. Bill Fairclough recent past directorships http://companycheck.co.uk/director/906528948/MR-JOHN-WILLIAM-PERCY-FAIRCLOUGH-FCA-MSI-MCT

4. The Money Portal scandal and disclosure of Fairclough’s investigatory role is revealed in the public domain http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1592179/Scandal-forces-out-14bn-funds-king.html

5. The Money Portal strike out attempt by Fairclough http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/the-money-portal-trial-a-tale-of-pillocks-parasites-and-aberdeen/a269307

6. Settlement arrangements between Fairclough and The Money Portal plc http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/tmp-ends-bitter-battle-with-former-directors-through-settlement/a275292

7. Yeoman of the Guard http://yeomenoftheguard.com/officerimages.htm#pemberton and No. 112 at http://yeomenoftheguard.com/exons.htm

8. Faire Sans Dire http://www.fairesansdire.org/home/?section=2 and http://companycheck.co.uk/director/904498710/MR-BARRIE-NORTHEND-PARKES

9. Faire Sans Dire Limited http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06552657/FAIRE-SANS-DIRE-LIMITED/directors-secretaries

10. The Burlington Files Limited has two subsidiary companies, Beyond Enkription Limited and Beyond Dekription Limited http://companycheck.co.uk/company/08005044/THE-BURLINGTON-FILES-LIMITED/group-structure#group-structure

11. Beyond Enkription ISBN: 1497314186 and ISBN 13: 9781497314184; Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906166; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform North Charleston South Carolina USA; and ISBN: 978-1-909204-72-0 Dolman Scott 1 High Street Thatcham Berkshire RG19 3JG England

12. Bill Fairclough's role in managing the recovery of Mercantile Credit after the fire was the subject of an article in Accountancy (Institute of Chartered Accountants' official magazine) July 1991 - http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/5872218/from-devastation-survival

13. Addresses and places Bill Fairclough lived in or operated from for protracted periods in England (excluding those not disclosed for reasons of confidentiality) included:

(a) In Northumberland and County Durham: 4 Bank Road Billingham; The White House The Green Norton Stockton-on-Tees; 13 Castle Close Middleton St George Darlington; and several locations in Portrack (Stockton-on-Tees); Middlesbrough; and Jesmond (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

(b) In Central London: 13 Montagu Square W1; 4 Quebec Mews W1; 65 Harley Street W1; 17 Draycott Avenue SW3; 51 Thurloe Square SW7; 124 Regents Park Road Primrose Hill NW1; 21 Rosslyn Hill Hampstead NW3; 238 Randolph Avenue W9; 5 Hamilton Place W1; 107 Sussex Gardens W2 and several locations in the City of London

(c) In Surrey: several locations in Epsom; Sutton; Weybridge; Cheam; and Wallington