Robbie Williams’ Wiltshire estate for sale again for £2.6 million less than he paid for it
Singer Robbie Williams paid £8,100,000 for Compton Bassett House, near Calne in Wiltshire in 2008. In the years since he’s tried to sell it several times but even now that it has been relaunched for just £5,500,000, will it sell?
The Steeple Times asks public relations guru The Hon. Alexandra Foley: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
My nanny.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
“Ut prosim” – “That I may do good”. I like medieval swords. I have them hidden all over my house.
Another rumoured sale of “Beckingham Palace” is reported
November 2012: In March this year, the blog that preceded The Steeple Times looked into reports that David and Victoria Beckham would be selling their Hertfordshire home, Rowneybury House (better known as “Beckingham Palace”). For all the talk of that sale, as far as we are aware, it still remains in their possession. In recent days another media source has reported that the house is indeed on the market and that the Beckham family are now moving to New York. This has now become a story akin to that of “the boy who cried wolf” and it’s one that we’ll only believe to be true when the removal vans actually pull up.
March 2013: In a further update, the story has resurfaced but the supposed price is allegedly now just £10 million. That’s quite a reduction.
Whenever there’s a quiet news day, British newspapers like to put out claims that David and Victoria Beckham are to sell their Hertfordshire mansion, Rowneybury House. Such a sale has never followed but that the Mail Online chose to run this as a lead article is indeed interesting in view of the footballer’s recent return to LA Galaxy.
Similar stories, for example, ran in the Mirror in April 2007 and again in September 2010. In the latter piece, an unnamed spokesman stated:
“We can confirm David and Victoria have had their UK home valued.”
Strangely all of these stories share a lack of credited sources and are written in the same vein on each occasion. Though Rowneybury House has certainly not come to the open market to date, today’s suggestion that the couple are selling as they think it “wasteful to hold on to when they never visit” would appear a sensible course of action.
Rowneybury House itself was built in the 1930s and used as a council owned orphanage. Bought by the Beckhams in October 1999 for £2,500,000, the couple vastly altered and enlarged the Grade II listed house to include 7-bedrooms, a recording studio, gym, pool room and indoor and outdoor pools. They even added a 52ft garden pavilion complete with a huge barbecue reputed to have cost £70,000.
In the grounds, which extend to some 24 acres, the Beckhams have added a petting zoo for their children as well as a soccer pitch, two full size golf holes, a floodlit tennis court and a helicopter landing pad. Three gazebos, one “romantic,” one “lakeside” and another “ornamental” were also constructed.
The sum total for all of this work is, for some reason, always quoted in the mainstream press at £18,000,000. Though it is obvious that vast expense has indeed been spent on Rowneybury House by the couple, the figure does seem a little exaggerated. Equally ludicrous is the suggestion that they will sell at a loss.
The Beckhams’ time at Rowneybury House has not been without drama. In 2002, police foiled an Eastern European gang who planned to kidnap them from the house and on occasions intruders were caught in the grounds. Further drama ensued in 2008 when the pair’s housekeepers, Eric and June Emmett, were arrested after being accused of stealing items of memorabilia.
I myself found myself involved in a story about the house when, in 2004, I worked for a PR firm who were representing an estate agent selling an adjoining property. The owners Mick and Lynda Allen, who I believe eventually sold their home, Rowneybury Bungalow, to the Beckhams, used the surrounding publicity to attempt to launch the pop career of their daughter Nikki. I am not certain how she subsequently fared.
The Beckhams, who are worth some £160,000,000, now spend the majority of their time in America and are said to prefer it there. When in the UK, they opt mainly to stay at either Claridge’s or The Savoy as both are more convenient for Mrs Beckham’s meetings at her design studio in Battersea.
Both the Mail Online and the Mirror suggest that Victoria Beckham has recently been looking at apartments “next to Hyde Park” so that she can maintain a smaller base in the UK. Perhaps a move to the £7,000 per square foot One Hyde Park development could be on the cards.
If this news is indeed finally true, it’ll certainly be the end of an era for the pad dubbed “Beckingham Palace” as a portmanteau of “Beckham” and “Buckingham Palace.”
Read Kimberley Dadds’s Mail Online piece at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2119709/David-Victoria-Beckham-sell-Beckingham-Palace.html
Read Lara Gould’s Mail Online piece at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2301669/Beckingham-Palace-goes-sale-David-Victoria-eye-London-life–wont-allow-developers-buy-it.html
A £15 million mansion fit for a self-made tycoon or an upwardly mobile WAG
While the youth of the Kings Road and Loughton have featured in the reality shows Made in Chelsea and The Only Way is Essex, their counterparts in Cheshire have yet to undergo the same social experiment. Having come across a fair few of their number though, I can only imagine their antics would result in television of comparable car crash proportions.
Cheshire itself is a county of contrasts: there’s the farming and hunting set and then there’s the new money. From the 1950s onwards an invasion of nouveau riche footballers and self-made business people came to Alderley Edge and Wilmslow and it is said that there are more Rolls-Royces per square mile here than anywhere else in the UK.
Though today’s Coronation Street actresses and Man United players generally favour brand new homes in Prestbury, the new wealth have not just consigned themselves to such. The likes of Take That’s Gary Barlow, for a time, owned Delamere Manor at Cuddington but sold it in 2005 due to his ever-growing commitments elsewhere. Equally, Neil Hamilton, whilst MP for Tatton, lived at The Old Rectory at Nether Alderley with his formidable wife Christine but when their days in politics came to an end, they too moved on. For a time, David and Victoria Beckham were the undoubted glitterati of this manor, but of those footballers still resident Wayne and Coleen Rooney are definitely now the best known.
In a “grey area between old and new” sits Swettenham Hall at Swettenham near Congleton. This 12,590 square foot Georgian mansion dates to 1795 but since it was acquired by Brian Kennedy, a double glazing, home improvements and mobile telephone entrepreneur, the house has been given a total makeover. The colourful style he’s given the house can best be described as being akin to: “Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen meets Austin Powers.”
Swettenham Hall is most definitely a party palace and along with the addition of a leisure wing consisting of a swimming pool, Jacuzzi®, plunge pool, steam room and gymnasium in 2004, Kennedy has also constructed a 47ft by 44ft helicopter hangar complete with a retractable helicopter pad.
Standing in 100 acres of grounds, the house does seem a tad expensive at £15 million especially since that the adjoining former farm buildings were sold off and converted into eight homes in 1999. The driveway is partly shared with these homes and for those seeking the ultimate in privacy, this could indeed be an issue. It is perhaps why Swettenham Hall has yet to sell.
Brian Kennedy is someone I hadn’t heard of until I came across Swettenham Hall but here is a fascinating man whose meteoric rise is frankly very clearly linked to windows. The son of a window cleaner from Edinburgh, this self-made tycoon started his career as a trainee manager at the Royal Bank of Scotland. He subsequently briefly worked as a trainee accountant but left when offered the chance to become youngest branch manager of Moben Kitchens at the age of 20.
At around this time, Kennedy acquired a stake in Farouche Kitchens and with a Rochdale born property entrepreneur named David Russell, he was transformed from a door-to-door salesman to a pioneer in direct sales. In 1988, when Farouche was sold, Kennedy netted circa £1 million. From here, this entrepreneur returned to his family’s roots by venturing into double glazing with Weatherseal Windows and then home improvements with Space Kitchens & Bedrooms.
In 1999, with the help of funds raised by private equity investors 3i, Kennedy paid £42 million for the well known brand Everest but sold part of his stake to the management for £63 million in 2003. In due course he added to his shareholding and then sold 21.5% of the company to Hutton Collins in a deal which valued the company at £150 million in 2007.
Ever the empire builder, Kennedy paid £29 million for a conservatory manufacturer named Ultrafame in 2006 and then also added another double glazing brand, Zenith Staybrite, to his portfolio in 2008. Many other business ventures followed but not being afraid to diversify, Kennedy formed Patrick Properties, whose portfolio is now valued in excess of £100 million, in 2002 and Kennedy Renewables, which specialises in wind energy, in 2009.
In the technology sector, a chance conversation in a Knutsford wine bar in 1995 led to him venturing into the mobile telephone market with a company named Genesis Communications. The business was sold to Dixons in 2002 for £31 million.
In January 2012, Kennedy merged his main Latium Holdings business with Jim Rawson’s Epwin Group to form Epwin Holdings. The merger resulted in a company with more than 2,500 employees and brands numbering Spectus, Swish, CET and Kestrel.
Of his success, Kennedy states:
“Business is common sense [and] dealing with people is common sense. I don’t think I have any particular flair. I think it is about common sense, taking the opportunity when it comes and hard work.”
Brian Kennedy’s wealth has allowed him to indulge many of his passions. A period of semi-retirement “drove [him] and [his] kids nuts,” but this Scotsman’s love of rugby resulted in him acquiring the Sale Sharks Rugby Club in 1999. He is said to have set the “club on a sound financial footing” and turned it into “one of the leading rugby clubs in Britain.”
Philanthropy is something that Kennedy, a Jehovah’s Witness, has also dedicated his wealth to. Through his Brian Kennedy Trust, he has supported a number of charities and organisations but it is for his role as the main backer of Find Madeleine Fund that he has come to public attention. Of his reasoning for backing the missing child’s parents financially, he stated:
“In light of the quite literally incredible accusations against Gerry and Kate McCann, which are clearly exacerbating their emotional torture, I felt compelled to offer, along with other like-minded businessmen, financial support and the full logistical support of the Latium team. That support is principally our in-house lawyer Ed Smethurst and [official spokesman] Clarence Mitchell.”
Kennedy’s donation attracted much press attention in 2007 in the weeks following Madeleine McCann’s disappearance and he continues to support them to this day. A very public spat involving him, Gerry and Kate McCann and a campaigner named Tony Bennett, who also was involved in The Madeleine Foundation, has been the subject of various legal actions. In October 2011, Mr Bennett was forced to publicly apologise to Mr Kennedy and separately an August 2009 Evening Standard article by Mark Hollingsworth “investigat[ing] the investigators,” was pulled because for “legal and editorial reasons.” In it, “someone who worked closely with [Kennedy]” was quoted as saying:
“He was appalled by the Portuguese police, but he also had visions of flying in by helicopter to rescue Madeleine.”
Angelina Jolie, another avid aviator, once commented: “Wherever I am I find myself looking out of the window wishing I was somewhere else.” We do not know why Brian Kennedy is selling Swettenham Hall, but Jolie is indeed one of the few with the resources to take these particular windows off his hands.
For more information about Swettenham Hall, Swettenham, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 2JZ, contact Edward Welton of Knight Frank on +44 (0) 20 7861 1114.
For more details about Brian Kennedy, go to: http://www.brian-kennedy.co.uk
For more details about the Find Madeleine Fund go to: http://www.findmadeleine.com and for information on The Madeleine Foundation: http://www.madeleinefoundation.org.uk/
Matthew Steeples updates readers on John Goodman’s return to jail
The conviction of John Goodman in West Palm Beach earlier this year was a tragedy for all concerned but the twists and turns that have followed have been quite something else.
Goodman, who sold his family business, Goodman Manufacturing, for $1.43 billion in 2004 and who also founded the International Polo Club Palm Beach, was found guilty of the offences of DUI Manslaughter and vehicular homicide on 23rd March.
In February 2010, Goodman had crashed his Bentley Continental GTC at speed into a Hyundai Sonata and in the process catapulted it into a canal. Whilst the driver, Scott Wilson, was left to drown, Goodman fled the scene of the accident and later claimed he did not know he’d hit another driver. On the night in question, Goodman had settled a $272 bar bill for himself and friends at The Players Club in Wellington, Florida at 12:52am and had later drunk more alcohol after the accident in a “man cave” to “alleviate [his] pain.”
In May 2012, Goodman was sentenced to 16 years in jail but shortly afterwards was released on a $7 million bond pending appeal. At exactly the same time, a juror in the case, Dennis DeMartin, self-published a “tell-all” book, Believing in the Truth, in which he revealed that he conducted drinking experiments to see if he could get drunk after three vodka and tonics. After DeMartin was called in for questioning by Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath, he stated:
“I’m only human. I made a mistake, just like John Goodman made a mistake… What can I say? I’m getting senile.”
John Goodman has spent most of the year under house arrest at his hacienda at 3665 120th Avenue, Wellington with his girlfriend, whom he also adopted as his daughter to protect his wealth, Heather Laurso Hutchins (also known as Heather Colby). In a further twist, Goodman was caught at the property by two of the $2,000 a day off-duty deputies employed to monitor him at 11pm on Wednesday in an upstairs bathroom with a small mirror. He was allegedly using it to pry open his ankle monitor and disable it with water.
Though Goodman claimed he had hit the monitor on a shower door accidentally, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of West Palm Beach County commented:
“I think he thought, you know, in my estimation he thought that was going to disable it. [It] doesn’t work like that… He paid the price for it because he’s back in the ‘Gun Club Hotel’ [Palm Beach County Jail]. That’s where he’s going to stay.”
“Think about what’s going on in America right now. You know you’ve got celebrities and people with a lot of money, they get arrested, they break the law. And, after a while they just think the rules don’t apply to them.”
“Well, guess what? That don’t happen here. He gets treated just like every other person that’s in my custody. He violates the rules, he’s back in jail.”
As a result, John Goodman will now temporarily remain in jail until the 26th November.
We await the next twist in this case with anticipation.
Read our original report on the case against John Goodman and his subsequent conviction at: http://thesteepletimes.com/the-fog/no-thank-goodnesses-for-goodman/
A pair of pillocks piddling about in a puddle
All of us who drive have made stupid mistakes but most of us, at worst, have knocked over a gatepost or pranged a door in a supermarket car park.
A couple named Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow, however, take the biscuit. This idiotic pair of millionaires, who are best known for having had five children by a surrogate and for having run a business into liquidation, somehow thought they could drive through a flooded ford in their Range Rover Sport in the early hours of the morning without incident.
The pair, who’d spent the day filming at a most naff sounding event named Essex Fashion Week with the “stars” of The Only Way is Essex, claimed that their vehicle spun around three times before starting to fill up with water. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow told the Mail Online:
“It went dark. We had to climb out of the window. I thought I was going to die.”
Plainly terrified of getting his “tuxedo” wet, Tony Drewitt-Barlow called the emergency services from the roof and supposedly, with the help of a police helicopter, an inflatable boat and fifteen firefighters, the couple were rescued an hour later.
Now, instead of issuing an apology for the havoc their recklessness caused, the Drewitt-Barlows’ are bleating:
“Tony is suffering from shock and hypothermia at the moment from having over an hour on the roof,” stated Barrie Drewitt-Barlow before he added:
“We went back yesterday to rescue some personal belongings from the boot, a couple of photo albums, clothes, and my laptop, but they had all been stolen. My laptop had all of our photos on. We have put a £5,000 reward up for the return of the photos and laptop.”
Maybe their possessions floated away. They must have left the windows open when they exited the vehicle and if the car really did fill with water, the computer and photo albums would be ruined anyway. Either way, whether stolen or not, the lack of gratitude of this couple showed towards their rescuers makes them utterly contemptible. After all, how much did this ridiculous episode cost?
One comment left on the Mail Online described the Drewitt-Barlow’s as a pair of “pillocks in a puddle.” We agree and simply had to make the image of this ludicrous couple’s foolishness The Steeple Times picture of the week.
Read the Mail Online’s coverage of this story at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214157/Millionaire-gay-fathers-rescued-roof-Range-Rover-wearing-tuxedoes-trying-drive-flooded-road.html
The joys and pitfalls of island life
Living on a private island would, to many, seem like a dream. The prospect of being able to do what you want, when you want and without having to pander to rules and regulations indeed does sound appealing. Swapping the rat race and daily commute for white sandy beaches, crystal-clear waters and peace and tranquility would undoubtedly tempt huge numbers of us. Taking up the mantle of Robinson Crusoe certainly has it’s merits, but what are the perils of owning an island and what is currently available?
On the leading website for the sale of islands, Private Islands Online, the most expensive undeveloped island on offer is the island of Patroklos in Greece. This relatively flat 643-acre undeveloped island boasts a “mild and pleasant” climate and 275-acres of cultivable land. It has about 150 goats and 5,050 olive trees and the agent suggests now is the perfect opportunity to exploit and develop tourism there. A price of £120 million is sought. So much for Greek austerity as whoever buys it will still have to shell out further to construct at least one residence.
An especially spectacular option, also available through Private Islands Online, is Petra Island, just 15 minutes by helicopter from New York City on Lake Mahopac. The island itself, which is said to have been for sale for a number of years, is 11 acres in size and is currently owned by Joseph Massaro, a sheet metal tycoon. The highlight here is a 1,200 square foot cottage designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and a 5,000 square foot residence, Massaro House, built to the same architect’s designs in 2008. Though the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation state of the latter: ““It’s not a Frank Lloyd Wright house, because it hasn’t been certified by the foundation,” this is a home that would certainly suit any James Bond villain. The agent declines to share the asking price, but it certainly at the higher end of the scale.
At a more modest price is Nautilus Island, off Brooksville in Maine. This 37-acre island was in the ownership of the same family for 130 years until 2004 and is named after the British war sloop “Nautilus,” that engaged the American vessel “Hazard” in battle in it’s waters during the American Revolutionary War.
The island includes a renovated 6-bedroomed main house, a farmhouse and a guest cottage. It also boasts open fields, perennial and kitchen gardens and a seaside vineyard for wine production. There is a protected harbour with a pier and moorings and over one mile of rocky coastline with gravel and shell beaches. A price of approximately £4.9 million is sought prior to auction on the 18th October through John Saint-Amour of LandVest.
Returning to Europe, Knight Frank offer a 65-acre island off Ireland’s west coast named Inishturk Beg at a price of £2.85 million. Sitting in Clew Bay, County Mayo alongside 364 other islands, receivers of an Egyptian-Irish businessman named Nadim Sadek are trying to find a buyer for a property that includes a main 7-bedroom house, 4 smaller properties, various outbuildings and an AstroTurf sports pitch.
Singing the praises of Insishturk Beg, Harriet Grant of Knight Frank comments:
“It is an easily accessible island and although it’s in the Atlantic it is very sheltered. And the island itself has plenty of natural shelter. It is an extraordinary development in which no expense has been spared. The electricity and water come straight from the mainland and it also has broadband access.”
British TV presenter Ben Fogle, who starred in the BBC reality show Castaway 2000, set on the Scottish island of Taransay, warned of the dangers of island ownership in an article in The Times recently when he commented: “A lot of people get seduced by the island dream without thinking of the realities.” Taransay came up for sale in 2011 and though Fogle put together a consortium that raised £1.5 million, he was beaten off by a landowner from the neighbouring island of Harris.
The Barclay brothers, owners of amongst other things The Ritz and The Telegraph Group, have had their fair share of trouble since purchasing the sister island of Sark, Brecqhou, in 1993. They have rowed with Sark’s government over everything from inheritance law to property taxes and whether they should or should not be allowed to use motor vehicles. Their case illustrates the perils of upsetting the locals.
Issues such as electricity provision, sanitation, the delivery of food supplies and how one would cope with an emergency may seem more mundane but also must be considered by those purchasing an island. Sir Richard Branson found this to his cost when the 8-bedroomed Great House on his £60 million Necker Island in the Caribbean burnt to the ground in August 2011. If he’d been on the mainland, his residence would most probably have been saved.
On this morning’s Desert Island Discs, Hollywood actress Goldie Hawn requested that the luxury she would like to take would be lip-gloss. Presenter Kirsty Young said she could have two tonnes of the stuff. Frankly, in reality though, anyone buying into island life would have to have a lot more practical things higher up their lists.
For more information on Inishturk Beg Island, Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, go to: http://search.knightfrank.com/gwr120043
For more information on the islands of Patroklos, Greece and Petra, New York, go to: http://www.privateislandsonline.com
For more information on Nautilus Island, Brooksville, Maine, go to: http://nautilusisland.landvest.com
Matthew Steeples gives his view on Julian Assange’s having been granted asylum by Ecuador
I spent much of the day yesterday watching the Occupy News Network live video stream from outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
For those who don’t know it, the Occupy News Network is the news source of the Occupy protestors who began “occupying” parks, financial districts and public squares throughout the world from 15th October 2011. With an aim of keeping their audience “abreast of developments in the global revolution,” the channel focuses on “expos[ing] police brutality and abuse of the law.” I was fascinated, amused and equally horrified by what I saw and I quickly became engrossed.
With a man named Pedro both behind the camera and conducting interviews, viewers of the live stream were exposed to the thoughts of the Assange fanatics stood outside the building in Knightsbridge where he is holed up. Here, in the lead up to the statement that Julian Assange would be granted asylum by Ecuador, the audience heard interviews with supporters, police and bystanders. Most, to be honest, talked utter junk and illustrated the paranoia and stupidity of their positions.
The first I saw compared the prospect of police storming the embassy to the “invasion of Iraq” before laughing as he announced that hackers had crashed the Met Police website. “We should give them [the hackers] an Olympic medal,” he added.
The next, a young girl of no more than 20, described my least favourite politician, Theresa May, as “The Witch of Downing Street” and then announced that the police “like to scare young girls… They like to give you a good shove.” A smartly dressed American man spoke of his Orwellian terror when he stated:
“I worry about my visa status. I am afraid of what might happen to me in both Britain and the USA. I might lose my job for being here. We’re starting to become worse than Russia.”
The first moment of amusement came when a pizza delivery man arrived. He was filmed being turned away by the police at the door of the embassy. Subsequently, he came on camera and was asked who the pizza had been meant for. “Someone called Julian,” he answered. “Don’t you know who he is?” Pedro asked. “No,” he answered in bemusement before wandering off. Taxis and another pizza delivery for “Julian” followed and all these innocent workers left rightly angry at the prank that one of the protestors was trying to use as a way to aggravate the police. The police showed sense and correctly did not react.
The next arrived when Pedro decided to interview a pair of bystanders from Yorkshire. He asked: “Is that near the sea?” before seeking their view on Mr Assange’s “plight.” They answered simply: “Who is he? Sounds like a load of old nonsense to us.” They didn’t have a clue who the Wikileaks founder even was and plainly had no interest in his case.
Commentary continued in the same vein and as the police repeatedly asked the film crew to step away from the highway they were obstructing, several arrests occurred. These and the police’s refusal to engage with them set a rather loud Brummie woman off into a gargantuan rant where she announced: “We should throw rocks at them when they [the police] storm the embassy.” Others, mostly masked, described President Obama and even their formerly beloved Guardian as “terrorists.” Assange, himself, was termed a “radical Ron Paul.” If these people are representative of Assange’s supporters, the likes of Sarah Saunders, Vaughn Smith and Jemima Khan would do well to distance themselves from him and this ragbag of nutjobs.
I pass the Ecuadorian Embassy several times each week and during Assange’s occupation, on many days there have been more police than supporters present. Sometimes there wasn’t even one person outside. This was indicative of the lack of support, but yesterday, on an occasion when a major announcement about their flawed superhero was due, the Occupy News Network were reduced to desperately stating:
“We need more numbers here. We really need some more people down here. We’re in Knightsbridge. We’re just near the Harrods tube exit. If you are in London, come now. We need you now.”
As the 1pm announcement approached, from what I observed, there were still more police and bystanders than supporters present.
When the announcement came that asylum had indeed been granted, I decided enough was enough and turned the Occupy News Network off. I later listened to William Hague’s wise statement about the situation and found myself in total agreement:
“We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the UK… We must carry out our obligation to extradite him to Sweden… This asylum is groundless as he is avoiding the legal processes of Sweden and Britain… This is is not about Wikileaks of the United States of America.”
Frankly, Julian Assange belongs in the asylum rather than being deserving of being granted such. Assange breached his bail and is, under Section 7 of the Bail Act 1976, eligible for arrest for that if nothing else. If he is subsequently sent to Sweden and charged, he should let justice take its course. He ought to realise that his innocence or guilt will be decided by the courts of a perfectly civilised liberal nation and that he has as fair a chance as the next man.
Mr Assange: you’ve made your point and you are not, as one of your supporters suggested, a “freedom fighter.” You are, instead, just a blabbing bail jumper who stands accused of rape. You have cost British taxpayers and your very own supporters hundreds of thousands of pounds and Ecuador will lose their standing in the world by harbouring you. To be totally honest, though, you should realise that the majority of us are bored of you and your “I’m above the law” attitude.
Please, Mr Assange, end this tedious charade, do the decent thing, proudly walk out of the front door of the Ecuadorian Embassy and hand yourself in. If you truly are an innocent man, we’ll all respect you a hell of a lot more.
For more information on the Occupy News Network, go to: http://occupynewsnetwork.co.uk/ and to view their news stream, go to: http://www.ustream.tv/user/occupynewsnetwork
How might Julian Assange escape to Ecuador?
Now that Julian Assange has been granted asylum in Ecuador, what are his escape options?
The First Post suggests that Ecuador could make him their representative to the United Nations as that “would make him immune from arrest while travelling to United Nations meetings around the world.” They also suggest he could be smuggled out or that he could even just “make a run for it…in disguise, perhaps trying to lose pursuers in the aisles of the nearby Harrods department store.”
The problem, however, for Assange is that whichever way he leaves 3 Hans Crescent, he has to cross British soil and pass the police waiting for him outside. Unless he’s cleverly disguised or carried out in a box, he will immediately be seized.
A way round this could be to have a helicopter hover above the embassy. A rope ladder could be sent down and Assange could then climb it. The helicopter would then spirit him away to a boat in international waters and he could sail away to paradise. This would probably be the Wikileaks founder’s ideal escape route as frankly it’s as far fetched as he is himself.
John B. Goodman sold his family business, Goodman Manufacturing, for $1.43 billion in 2004 and founded the International Polo Club Palm Beach. This socialite and protégé of the $7 billion Ponzi-schemer Sir Allan Stanford, claimed: “I don’t know what happened” when put on trial for smashing his Bentley into a Hyundai driven by Scott Wilson in 2010. Bizarrely, he attempted to adopt his girlfriend as his daughter to save his fortune and after spending years under house, John Goodman was finally jailed for 16 years for killing Wilson in December 2014. Here is a case of an individual some called a “generous and decent man” who truly screwed up.