01/10/2013 00:00
TW
0

THE Majorca-basedc Scottish millionaire who bank-rolled the Lib Dems at the last election, Michael Brown, was yesterday jailed for two years for what a judge at Southwark Crown Court described as “very deliberate and pointed” dishonesty. The Glaswegian gave a record-breaking 2.4 million pounds to the Lib Dems last year and also leant, the then party leader, Charles Kennedy his private jet, first went public in Majorca last October when he gave the Bulletin an interview about his plans to set up a foundation in honour of his late father, an executive with a whisky distillery, and raise funds to help charities in the Third World - until then few people could put a face to the Lib Dem's millionaire mystery backer. Whast is more, as political parties in Britain are forbidden from accpeting foreign money, the donation was subjected to an investigation by the Electoral Commission after it was revealed that Brown had made the donation from an overseas bank account via his company 5th Avenue Partners which has offices in London, Geneva and Palma. However, 5th Avenue Partners was already under srutiny as part of civil action taken against Brown by a leading UK bank.
In April, on his 40th birthday, Brown was arrested at his luxury home in the village of Esporlas, just outside Palma and extradited to the UK, via Madrid, to stand trial for “having given false information in a affidavit and obtaining a passport by deception”, he told the Passport Office his travel document has been destroyed in a washing machine. In July, Brown appeared before remand hearing in London and pleaded guilty to one charge of perjury corresponding to the affidivit and having obtained a passport by deception. Brown is however only expecetd to serve half of his own year sentence as he has already spent 159 days in custody.
The once burly, pig-tailed, larger-than-life Brown, who held charity golf tournament in Camp de Mar last year, has cut off his pig-tail and lost a lot of weight while being held in Wormwood Scrubs. Earlier this summer, British and Spanish police raided his two Majorcan homes, Brown has another in Camp de Mar where he moored his half-a-million pound yacht and his Palma office seizing objects of art, a Porsche Cayanne - which is still parked outside the National Police station in Palma, a Bentley, computers and boxes of documents. What all this will mean for the donation Brown made to the Lib Dems remains to be seen.
Althoguh the Electroal Commission initially ruled that the party could keep the 2.4 million pounds, investors in Michael Brown's 5th Avenue Partners, have been demanding that the Lib Dems return the donation whichju they claim is part of their money. Detectives investigating Brown's alleged money laundering activities have been granted court permission to demand that the party handed over all documents relating to his donation and the Lib Dems are undertood to have made contingency plans should they have to make a refund, although it will cost each party member 30 pounds.