Another day, another voluntary ban taken by pension scammers, this time by those involved in the Henley Retirement Benefits and Capita Oak Pension Schemes. It seems there is still no justice for the victims of these financial crimes and there are no consequences for the directors of Transeuro Worldwide Holdings nor Imperial Trustee Services.

These scammers take a voluntary slap on the wrist and are still free to move on to their next venture.

Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, said:

“A ban from being involved in pension transfers is not a strong enough deterrent for other pension scammers. We need to see tougher penalties such as hefty monetary fines to make it clear that this behaviour will not be tolerated.”

We couldn´t agree more, as stated in a previous article, “The wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all“, where we highlighted that a mere ban is pointless. Also, the time frame it took for this ban to be enforced is laughable.

• Capita Oak was registered by HMRC on 23.7.2012 (PSTR 00785484RM) by Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Transfers of 31 Memorial Road, Worsley and Premier Pension Solutions of Moraira, Spain.
• BBC You & Yours reported on the Capita Oak Scam 20.10.2014
• Capita Oak was wound up in the High Court in 2015.
• 2018 voluntary bans taken.

So, it took all this time for (some, NOT ALL) of the scammers involved in the Henley Retirement Benefits and Capita Oak Pension Schemes, to just get a ban. They have not been prosecuted and some of the main players are still at large. None of them have been ordered to pay back the funds they stole in larger than normal commissions – funds which were originally promised to the victims.

As always, there is a string of firms connected through this case, so bear with me whilst I outline the long list:

• The directors connected with Transeuro Worldwide Holdings were the focus of this investigation
• Transeuro helped fund three introducer firms: Sycamore Crown, Nunn McCreesh and Jackson Francis
• Victims were transferred into SIPPS and pension schemes operated by Omni and Imperial Trustees
• More than £100m was paid into SIPPS, more than £10m into Capita Oak Pension Scheme and more than £8m to Henley Retirement Benefit Scheme
• The funds were then invested in assets which paid the scammers 46% in commission

Victims of Henley Retirement Benefit Scheme and Capita Oak Pension Scheme were cold called and given the hard sell, with promises of high returns. The usual spiel which – if you are considering a pension transfer – should not be believed.

Bans were given to:

• Sycamore Crown director Stuart Greehan (also known as Stuart Chapman-Clarke) agreed to a nine-year voluntary ban
• Karl Dunlop, director of Imperial Trustee Services, agreed to voluntary bans of nine years
• Ian Dunsford, director of Omni Trustees agreed to a voluntary ban of seven years
• Stephen Talbot accepted a nine-year disqualification undertaking for failing to explain what happened to millions pounds’ worth of assets

The words ¨accept¨ and ¨agreed¨ are used here, which gives the impression they all sat down to a nice lunch and “agreed” that they may have made a mistake and therefore “accepted” their bans! These people are financial criminals who left many lives ruined. The victims – many of which were already in financial hardship – now have no pension fund to look forward to.

The Serious Fraud office opened their investigations into the Capita Oak Pension and Henley Retirement Benefits Schemes, as well as Westminster and XXXX’s Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund, back in May 2017. It is, however, anyone´s guess when this case might be pushed through the high court.

Stephen Ward – The Death of Trust