UPDATE: **'INQUEST - 24 January 2018'** The Complete Mystery of the Death of Kevin Halligen: An Update 15 January 2018

I think that the passing of latest alias/name was to Gatton, not Brunt.

Posted up-page by Get'emGonçalo..

Further update by MMRG, 8am, 23 January 2018

REPLY BY H.M. CORONER, SURREY, RE THE DEATH OF KEVIN HALLIGEN

MMRG has received the following update from HM Coroner:

An inquest will be opened on 24th January at 10am, and you are welcome to attend.

Kind regards

Helen Jones

Coroner's Support Officer

Coroner's Unit

Investigation Support & Criminal Justice Department

HM Coroner's Court, Station Approach, WOKING, Surrey, GU22 7AP

Tel: 01483 637300   Fax: 01483 637300

Email: coroners_officers@surrey.pnn.police.uk

I'm more than interested to learn exactly what Adrian Gatton's game is here.

"I'm more than interested to learn exactly what Adrian Gatton's game is here."

Likewise.

https://guernseypress.com/news/uk-news/2018/01/24/detective-accused-over-madeleine-mccann-search-cash-died-of-brain-haemorrhage/

An acute subdural haemorrhage is "usually the result of a serious head injury" and if CPR were administered, he was obviously found with signs of life.

So who called the emergency services ??

I was far from satisfied with Brenda's inquest.
I fell this may have echoes of same given one connecting factor is the McCanns.

Mark Willis wrote:Adrian Gatton‏ 

[ltr]@AdrianGatton[/ltr]

 29m29 minutes ago
[size=4]More[/size]
[size=36]@skymartinbrunt Maddie investigator Kevin Halligen’s inquest at Woking Coroner’s Court. Given name: Richard Powell (his latest alias, as he told me). Occupation: Intelligence and Security Officer (sic). Cause of death: acute subdural haemorrhage. #Halligen #McCann[/size]

Subdural hematoma.

Did he fall or was he pushed...................

polyenne wrote:Did he fall or was he pushed...................

..or complications from the traffic accident that he said were intentional?

I had a friend who was involved in a serious accident with his cross motocycle when he was 15yo and recovered from it but he died 10 years later caused by a bleeding in his head and doctors at the hospital said it was related to the crash.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Subdural-haematoma/

"A minor head injury is more likely to lead to a subdural haematoma if you're over 60 years of age, taking blood-thinning medication such as warfarin, or have a history of alcohol misuse.''

Is this how inquests usually work? A pathologists isn't there personally but the inquest is told a summary of what they concluded?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-detective-who-mysteriously-11905888

"A private detective who had been accused of exploiting the search for Madeleine McCann to fund his lavish lifestyle died of brain haemorrhage, an inquest has heard.
The body of Kevin Halligen - described as a "James Bond-style" investigator - was found at his secluded mansion in Surrey earlier this month.
Mystery surrounded the 56-year-old's death, with reports he had been discovered covered in blood and that detectives had launched a probe.
But today, Woking Coroner's Court heard that a post-mortem examination showed Mr Halligen's cause of death was acute subdural haemorrhage.


The court was told a pathologist said there was "no sign of an assault"
Mr Halligen gained notoriety when his firm, Oakley International, was used by Madeleine's parents to help search for their missing daughter.
The court heard that paramedics were called to the private detective's home in Normandy on January 8, where they performed CPR.
Despite their efforts, he could not be saved.
His death was reported to the coroner under the name of Richard Powell, and the court heard he is also known as Kevin Richard Halligen, Richard Halligen and Kevin Patrick Halligan.
His occupation was given as "intelligence and security officer.....".

A subdural haematoma is merely the term for a bleed contained within the cranium. What I don't understand is the lurid media reports of a blood-soaked body and the house splattered with blood. By its nature this type of bleed is internal. Click-bait reportage, I suspect!

I’m still intrigued as to who put the call in to the paramedics.

According to press reports, Halligen's death was reported to Associated Press by Adrian Gatton.

The report concentrated almost entirely on Halligen's dealings with the Find Madeleine (McCann) Fund .Co. Ltd.

Squandering half a million or so from the Madeleine Fund was nothing in comparison to Halligen's past heinous crimes.

If the McCanns and their representatives has been on top of the contract with Oakley International, they would have know full well that the 'company' was not fulfilling it's contractual remit.

According to Kate McCann's book 'madeleine', an independent consultant was employed by the fund to liaise with Oakley and oversee the work they were doing.

According to the press report, the Surrey police were called to the property where a man had fallen ill and later died. They, the police, said the death was unexplained and they would be preparing a report for the coroner. Here I ask - is it usual to call the police because someone had fallen ill and subsequently died, isn't more sensible to call the paramedics? As far as I'm aware the UK police don't respond to calls reporting an illness, even if the person later died - unless of course the circumstances are suspicious.

Had the paramedics been routinely called, Halligen would have been taken to hospital - who would have diagnosed the cause of his illness and death

So again I ask - what game is Adrian Gatton playing. Adrian Gatton who, coincidently, produced the 'McCanns and the Conman' abduction documentary, mysteriously reporting the death of the conman Kevin Halligen and centering the report around the McCanns.

I smell rotten sea-bass.

I read the paramedics were called, CPR was given but he died in the house. On that basis, the police would routinely be called.......especially if there was “blood all over the house”.

A pathologist? 

Name please, not usual for a court to hear evidence from A Pathologist  what is theA pathologist credentials ? This usually has to be confirmed by the court. I.e. Name and qualifications etc. 

I smell a rat here!

A private detective accused of exploiting the hunt for Madeleine McCann to fund his lavish lifestyle died of an acute subdural haemorrhage a coroner has heard.

Kevin Halligen, 56, gained notoriety when his firm, Oakley International, was used by the toddler’s parents to help search for their missing daughter.

Woking Coroner’s Court heard that paramedics were called to Mr Halligen’s home in Normandy, Surrey, on January 8, where they performed CPR, but he could not be saved.

A post-mortem examination showed the cause of death was acute subdural haemorrhage and the court heard that a pathologist said there was “no sign of an assault”.

Mr Halligen’s death was reported to the coroner under the name of Richard Powell, and the court heard he is also known as Kevin Richard Halligen, Richard Halligen and Kevin Patrick Halligan.

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/15893622.Detective_accused_over_Madeleine_McCann_search_cash____died_of_brain_haemorrhage___/

Inquest Date
08 Jan 17 10:00 Julie Baker 49 Guildford D
11:00 Edward BOLT 84 Coulsdon D
09 Jan 18 10am Terrence SMITH 33 Stanwell PIR
Viktor IVANELO 21 Guildford D
10 Jan 18 Donald FROST 85 Hook D
11 Jan 18 10am Henry HESELTON 31 Guildford W
12 Jan 18 10am David MARSHALL 33 West Molesey D
Ricardo MARTINEZ-BALDA 93 Addlestone D
15 Jan 18 Maria FERNANDES 85 Addlestone D
16 Jan 18 10am Paul JEFFERY 61 Horsham W
17 Jan 18 10am Jonathan HILDEBRAND 55 Godalming W
18 Jan 18 10am Lily HAZELDINE 8 Days Alton PIR
10am Christine LEE 66 Chertsey PIR
10am Lucy LEE 40 Virginia Water PIR
10am Amber FRANCIS-PUTTOCK 1 Day Crawley W
14:00 Kevin WHALEY 56 Dorking D
Derek CONNETT 69 Guildford D
Reginald STEVENSON 70 Lingfield D
19 Jan 18 10am James PHELAN 42 Walton on Thames W
24 Jan 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
25 Jan 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
26 Jan 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
10:00 Marjorie SELLORS 90 Cobham D
29 Jan 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
30 Jan 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
31 Jan 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
10:00 Leon SPOONER 19 Feltham W
1 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
10:00 Cheryl SPOONER 58 Aldershot W
2 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
5 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
6 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
7 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
10:00 Benjamin COOK 17 Gomshall W
8 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W
10:00 Henry HESELTON 31 Guildford W
9 Feb 18 10:00 Sean BENTON 20 Deepcut W

https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/people-and-community/birth-death-marriage-and-civil-partnerships/death/surrey-coroner/upcoming-coroner-hearings

Richard Powell Kevin Richard Halligen Richard Halligen  Kevin Patrick Halligan - who?

What was this - Casey's court?  A good starting point for the Ministry of Silly Talk.

Verdi wrote:According to press reports.....

So again I ask - what game is Adrian Gatton playing.  Adrian Gatton who, coincidently, produced the 'McCanns and the Conman' abduction documentary, mysteriously reporting the death of the conman Kevin Halligen and centering the report around the McCanns.

I smell rotten sea-bass.

The rat has put in a complaint of plagiarism by that sea-bass.
I'll just say this, Mr Verdi, regards Mr Gatton: He managed to have a program shown on national TV. If it was in any way detrimental to the Mcs it would never have got past the tea boy.
Sea-bass food for thought? 

Sorry, OT.  Little or no mention of Deepcut inquest yesterday, as far as I know?  No surprises.

polyenne wrote:I read the paramedics were called, CPR was given but he died in the house. On that basis, the police would routinely be called.......especially if there was “blood all over the house”.

and maybe the police were needed to gain entry?  If the house is split into 4 flats maybe someone heard a thud or noise,  became concerned and couldn't get in to see what was going on.

This is a FWIW type post.

I'm sure there's a good number of posters here who've never heard of the on going QAnon posts on 4chan & 8chan.

For those who don't. Roughly, QAnon is said to be a person/persons very close to the Trump administration dropping nuggets of info regarding the cleaning up of corruption within the US government. He's mention earlier that the alleged illegal surveillance (amongst a whole load of other stuff) was done with the help of GCHQ and other British security services.  

Anyway very recently he was asked to what extent it affected the UK. Something was said about May, but the point of this post was, he said SIS was 'cleaning house'.

A short investigation into Adrian Gatton, TV producer and investigator (and an invitation)

by MMRG, 27 January 2018

with thanks to CMOMM members who assisted with the report

The man who has been most vocal for the past fortnight, i.e.since Kevin Halligen’s death was reported on 13 January, has been journalist-turned-TV-producer Adrian Gatton.

We now know that Adrian Gatton is significantly connected to the Madeleine McCann case and the continuing cover-up of the truth.

He has told us these things:

1 He is a ‘friend’ of Kevin Halligen
2 He was the producer of that thoroughly misleading documentary ‘The McCanns and the Con-Man’
3 He seems to know more about Kevin Halligen’s death than anyone else
4 Just over a year ago shared on social media a photo of Kevin Halligen taken ‘last year’ looking ‘the worse for wear’. That alone suggests quite a close friendship:
5 He has pronounced – in advance of any post-mortem being published or any announcement by the Coroner – that his friend Kevin Halligen’s death was due to alcoholism and was ‘definitely not foul play’.

On that last point, he may turn out to be correct. But what else do we know about Adrian Gatton?

He has both written articles for the print media, and has produced dozens of TV documentaries.

Dealing first with his print journalism, here are some of his articles:

Crime boss crony arrested over Hatton Garden raid The Times, Sun 7 August 2016

British hostage held by al-Qaeda in Algeria was shot by troops in failed rescue bid The Sunday Telegraph, Sun 14 September 2014

Exclusive: Death in the desert - did a security man see it coming?
The Independent, Thu 12 September 2013


The mystery of Lord Mandelson's finances
The Daily Telegraph, Sun 11 July 2010 (2 blog links)


Mandelson named in spy files on oligarch
London Evening Standard, Fri 24 October 2008


« All previous articles


See LINK: http://journalisted.com/adrian-gatton



This is what Adrian Gatton says about himself

“I am a freelance television producer and director who has made programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in the UK, and for PBS in the United States. I have worked for series such as Dispatches, Cutting Edge, True Stories, The Money Programme, Panorama (developments), Sleepers (undercover), Mark Thomas, other investigative, crime and contemporary history programmes. I have produced a series of original Channel 4 News investigations, worked as an occasional reporter (Channel 4 News) and also as a documentary director (First Cut, C4; Cutting Edge, C4 and for Channel 5). I have written for national newspapers including The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, The Evening Standard, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The Times and The Sunday Times. I was a staff features writer at The Big Issue and have also written for Time Out, as well as specialist magazines such as Druglink, Metal Bulletin and Inside Housing”.

There is more about him here:

https://adriangatton.net/

and here:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1472868/


Gatton, Halligen, and ‘The McCanns and the Con-Man’

In a series of tweets reproduced on the CMOMM forum by Get’emGonçalo, Gatton has revealed more about his knowledge of Halligen, and in turn about his role in the McCann case.

Here is what he said in his six tweets published on CMOMM:

‘Standard practice in corporate/intel/security/private investigations for intel work to be sub-contracted to specialists. Halligen attended some meetings, negotiated contract and fees (v. important), housed the operation at the Jermyn Street office’

‘Halligen was not in charge of the investigation into Madeleine McCann. Henri Exton was in charge, and his own team did collection (gathering intel), witness and source interviews, analysis, tasking, surveillance, cover, efits report-writing etc.’

Meanwhile Halligen undermined the real op by spending the money to find Madeleine on his ‘high roller’ lifestyle e.g. he didn’t pay the team doing the real on-the-ground-ops to find Madeleine, the ex-MI5 A4 surveillance team...)(emphasis: ex-MI5)’

‘Hope that provides a bit of clarity. Halligen did the deal through his company, but others did the serious work . In short, Halligen was a con-man who took that money but the work WAS done (eg see the Smith efits, adopted by Op Grange)’

‘Watch my ‘McCanns and the Con-Man’ for more context , though it only relates a fraction of the story’

‘Detectives from Operation Grange have the ‘Final Report’ Some say it served as a roadmap for the investigation . One question though: which edition of the report did Op Grange receive and did they receive the draft editions also?’

From these six tweets, it is plain that Gatton is repeating the rubbish we were expected to believe in ‘The McCanns and the Con-Man’.

In short, for those who have not yet seen the film, the narrative of the film was this:

1 The McCanns were serious - and desperate - about ‘finding Madeleine’

2 Having first hired the disreputable and corrupt Barcelona-based detective agency Metodo 3, the McCanns were now seeking to hire a more effective detective agency (as Metodo 3 had found nothing)

3 Despite the Find Madeleine Fund Trust having a full set of experienced and responsible directors; despite the McCanns’ private investigation being led by the vastly successful Cheshire-based businessman, Brian Kennedy; despite the experienced team they had all around them (former Head of Media Monitoring, Clarence Mitchell, top lawyer Edward Smethurst, and top libel lawyers Carter-Ruck, to name but three); despite doing the due diligence you would expect from such a high-powered team, and, lastly, despite the fact they must have known of Halligen’s dark dealings when working for disgraced firm Trafigura and their lawyers Carter-Ruck…they decided to appoint a con-man Kevin Halligen. We were expected ,by watching Gatton’s, film to believe that this experienced team of advisers were all duped by the seductive charms weaved by Halligen???

4 We were supposed to believe that Halligen’s side-kick Henri Exton was the genuine article; a true professional, honestly and fearlessly searching for the truth about what really happened to Madeleine

5 We were supposed to believe that the carefully-filmed car chase, shown in the film, was a genuine hunt for a genuine suspect - when it must have been obvious to most that this piece of footage had merely been pre-arranged to provide some ‘evidence’ of a supposedly genuine search for a supposedly real suspect, capable (as they hoped) of deceiving viewers

6 We were supposed to believe that Henri Exton was the ‘mastermind’ behind what was represented as a very sincere investigation, resulting in what appeared to be an impressive piece of work: ‘The Report of Operation Omega’

7 We were supposed to believe that Exton’s report was now the basis for future work by Operation Grange (“a roadmap for their investigation”) and that this hero (Exton) had uncovered new truths about the Madeleine McCann case that had not already been found by the Portuguese Police, Leicestershire Police, Scotland Yard and Metodo 3 combined, and

8 Finally, we were supposed to believe that Exton’s two efits of two very different-looking men were supposed to be e-fits of Operation Grange’s new ‘top suspect’ – despite the fact that the man who was supposed to have helped to draw up these two e-fits, Martin Smith, had gaily told the Irish police in September 2007 that he was 60%-80% sure that the man he’d seen four months earlier was Gerry McCann. This despite the fact that he admitted he had (a) only seen the man for a few seconds at most (b) in the dark (c) in a weakly-lit street (d) he had been unable to see all the man’s face because the child was in front of it, (e) he had not seen the man for at least a year and, last but not least (f) he had categorically told the Portuguese Police that he would never be able to recognise the man if he saw him again.

The claims of Gatton as set out in his six tweets

If we are to believe all or any of the claims made in Gatton’s six tweets, he tells us:

A He knows all about how genuine intelligence operations are run

B He knows (did Halligen tell him?) that Halligen ‘attended meetings’ (he doesn’t specify what meetings and who they were with)

C Halligen housed the operation at ‘Jermyn Street’ – suggesting that this was a genuine base for a genuine operation

D Then he tells us that Halligen wasn’t in charge of the operation at all; it was really Henri Exton who was in charge

E Exton did piles of real, genuine, intelligence work: “collection (gathering intel), witness and source interviews, analysis, tasking, surveillance, cover, efits report-writing etc.”

F Halligen spent most of the money he received on his ‘high-roller’ lifestyle

G Gatton’s film ‘The McCanns and the Con-Man’ is supposed to provide ‘context’ i.e. provide a useful factual background

H There could be different versions of Exton’s report, including one or two drafts, and this may be significant in some way.

Evaluation

Clearly Gatton has in his own mind obviously swept aside all the evidence that Madeleine may have died in her parents’ apartment and that her body may have been hidden and that a huge cover-up of the truth may have taken place.

We may assume that he has been friends with Halligen for some time and therefore also friends with the other two members of the team who worked alongside Halligen: Henri Exton and Tim Craig-Harvey, who both appeared in the ‘McCanns and the Con-Man’ film.

All three – Halligen, Exton and Craig-Harvey – had, between them, extensive involvement with the state security services and the British defence industry. Exton was formerly the Head of Covert Intelligence at MI5, in which role he would have access to the highest levels of intelligence, whether this was used for legitimate or illegitimate purposes.

We are expected also to believe that Exton, with his previous high level MI5 connections (and leaving aside the matter of his two highly controversial efits) had produced a report - on the grandly-styled ‘Operation Omega’ - which contained valuable information about what had really happened to Madeleine McCann. We are sure that it did not.

Gatton has made a film for Channel 5 which purports to propound as true the eight points we listed above, namely that:

1 The McCanns appointed Halligen & co as part of a genuine search for Madeleine

2 The McCanns sincerely believed that Halligen & co were going to run a genuine investigation

3 The McCanns (and their advisers) were ‘duped’ by Halligen

4 Henri Exton was a true professional trying hard to establish the truth

5 The car chase shown in the film was genuine

6 Exton’s ‘Operation Omega’ report was a genuine assessment of what really happened to Madeleine

7 Exton’s report was an immensely valuable tool for Operation Grange, giving them new leads, and

8 The two e-fits of two different-looking men are genuinely supposed to be the face(s) of a man, carrying a child clad only in pyjamas, allegedly seen by Martin Smith and members of his family at about 10pm on Thursday 3 May.

We respectfully suggest that none of these eight points is true.

What Gatton failed to include in his film

The idea that Gatton’s film provides any true context is ludicrous. Here’s what Gatton did not tell his viewers:

1 He didn’t tell them that there was any evidence, let alone a great deal of evidence, that Madeleine had died in her parents’ apartment

2 He didn’t tell them about how the McCanns first hired Metodo 3, whose boss lied and claimed they had found Madeleine alive and were ‘closing in’ on the kidnappers

3 He didn’t tell them about how Brian Kennedy then appointed Gary Hagland to look for Madeleine, despite his only professional qualification being in money-laundering regulations

4 He didn’t tell them that Halligen only formed his U.S.-based company in June 2007 after Madeleine was reported missing

5 He didn’t tell them that the McCanns’ PT chief, Clarence Mitchell, had falsely boasted to the media that Halligen’s company were ‘the big boys of international private investigation’

6 He didn’t tell them that Halligen was paid all or most of his £500,000 fee upfront

7 He didn’t tell them that Halligen was sacked after no more than 4 months’ work, following widespread reportes in the media that there had been a blazing row amongst the Directors of the Find Madeleine Fund about Halligen’s performance

8 He didn’t tell them that Henri Exton had once been employed as the Head of Covert Intelligence for MI5

9 He didn’t tell them that Halligen, Exton and Craig-Harvey all had, between them, extensive links to the British government’s security services and the Ministry of Defence and the defence industry

10 He didn’t tell them about the true circumstances under which the Smiths allegedly claimed to have seen a man carrying a child in pyjamas

11 He didn’t tell them that Martin Smith had identified Gerry McCann as the man allegedly seen by the Smiths.

Conclusions

Gatton has done a great deal of investigative journalism and made TV documentaries on many controversial and important issues, including cases where there have been cover-ups.

For all we know, these may have all been excellent films including many worthwhile revelations.

Gatton will have many high-level contacts. On the evidence he himself provides and from the evidence of his film ‘The McCanns and the Con-Man’, these contacts are likely to include high-ranking police officers, prominent people in the media, and members of British government security services e.g. MI5 and Special Branch.

Gatton’s film ‘The McCanns and the Con-Man’ was shown five months after the Met Police-BBC Crimewatch McCann Special was transmitted on 14 October 2013 and seems designed to completely reinforce the conclusions of that programme, with which we profoundly disagree.

It is very likely that Gatton would have had a number of conversations with Operation Grange before his film was transmitted.

Gatton may well be capable of being trusted completely when he makes films of other issues. But as we have seen, based on the evidence of his film and what he has told us in recent days, he cannot be relied on when it comes to the issues of what happened to Madeleine McCann, and on what is the real truth behind the now-notorious Halligen-Exton private investigation.

Adrian Gatton has taken to Twitter to give us little snippets about Halligen’s death. He was clearly much involved in Halligen’s life. He made a misleading film about Halligen and Exton which backed up the McCanns’ version of events. He claimed that Exton’s ‘Smithman efits’ were the main clue being followed up by Operation Grange, which most on CMOMM know is unadulterated rubbish.



Sign up for CMOMM, Adrian, and tell us all you really know about your friend Halligen/Powell and about what really happened to Madeleine McCann. You’ll be made welcome if you tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

MMRG

City Spy: Oh no! Spymaster falls for conman

Monday 16 May 2011 12:34



What is about Air Marshall Sir John Walker, ex-spymaster at the Defence Intelligence Service (DIS) and one of the City's great and the good, and con artists?

Last month, Sir John admitted to being duped by convicted fraudster, "trillion dollar conman" Russell King, who is so evasive he is known as Lord Voldemort (the Harry Potter character who cannot be named). First London investment bank sent its adviser Walker to check out King, and apparently found nothing awry in his schemes promising billions in Bahraini investment for the bank, a minerals bonanza in North Korea, and the takeover of Notts County Football Club (with Sven-Goran Eriksson at the helm). The Serious Fraud Office is now investigating this house of cards. Of King, Sir John now admits: "He was good at chat... he was a conman."

* This wasn't the first time Walker had been led astray. In 2003, when he was on the board of private security company Inkerman, Sir John was "pleased to announce" the appointment of Kevin Halligen as CEO of an Inkerman subsidiary (according to Inkerman's old press release). It was Halligen's big break into the world of corporate spookery and the release spoke of Halligen's role on MoD "special projects" (though his expertise was really in, erm, batteries). But doubts about him soon arose. After he left Inkerman, Halligen - by then parading as a full-blown ex-spy - bagged the half-a-million-pound contract to find Madeleine McCann (but allegedly spent most of his time in bars and strip clubs and buying mansions). Now he sits at Her Majesty's leisure pending extradition to the US on £1.2 million fraud and money-laundering charges for a contract in which he promised to free two captive Trafigura staff in Ivory Coast (the appeal judgment is expected soon).
From top shelf to, er, Loaded

Paul Raymond, the late old rogue of Soho, made a mint out of top-shelf magazines before the advent of the internet, but the rise of online smut hit his publications hard. Now reborn under the name Tri Active Media, the business seems to be booming again. Following a bunch of acquisitions from IPC, Tri's website now boasts of a host of big name mags such as Loaded, SuperBike and HiFi News. Accounts show Tri turned losses of £950,000 into a profit of £917,723 last year - not bad given the economic climate. Turnover was £7.5 million, up from £6.5 million before. Not a mention of any smutty mags (Loaded excluded) on its website, but City Spy wonders if it has completely kicked its old habits. The accounts discuss the successful takeover of a business called Euroticus Media during the period. One wonders how the staff of Tri's Royalty magazine get on with these new colleagues...

* By the way, with talk resurfacing of another round of magazine disposals from poor old IPC, Tri's name is being mentioned in some circles as being a potential bidder again...
What time is it? Dizzee knows

How to sell luxury watches? Link up with the music industry. Sounds weird, but it's true. Watchmaker Raymond Weil has supported the music industry from classic to rock over the past 10 years. This year has also seen the brand's involvement in the sponsorship of the BRITs and Home House Live, support of the Nordoff Robbins music industry fundraiser and for the first year, the Classic BRITs.

Keith Sheppard, CEO and founder of Steerwell, UK licensee of Raymond Weil, says: "Music has definitely proved to the zeitgeist for selling
watches - we have seen exceptional sales of our new watch the Maestro through our patronage of the music industry. We've managed to tap into and supported some great opportunities from Dizzie Rascal's number one UK hit record Dirty Disco to offering a platform for emerging talent such as Dutch Uncles."

* Barratt chief executive Mark Clare claims to "prefer new build" homes - even though he lives in a house more than 100 years old. His counterpart at Bovis Homes, David Ritchie, also lives in an old house - 500 years - in Kent. And Ritchie insists: "The privilege of being a chief executive of a housebuilder is that I'm in a lucky position where I have been able to put a little bit more money into the house I live in and have a little bit more of a garden. But it's not through lack of being impressed with what we deliver. If I was in my mid-twenties again, as a trainee accountant with a very modest salary and scraping together my 5% deposit, and I was looking to buy a three-bedroom property, I think the three-storey town houses we offer are fantastic value for money. I would live in one tomorrow if I was in my twenties just getting married and potentially thinking about having a family." David, we get the message.

* Hundreds of jargon-bearing words from Gulfsands Petroleum in its Stock Exchange announcement detailing its Syrian operations - all "Triassic formations" and "coring operations". But not a mention of the little matter of civil unrest...

* Meanwhile, it's gung-ho times for the Saudis, who have just launched a blitzkrieg of radio recruitment ads for executives to join its state-owned Aramco oil company. City Spy can't quite work out who the Saudis are trying to reach. Is the afternoon audience of indie rock station XFM - where Aramco features in practically every ad break - really where it wants to be drilling for talent?

* Keen to buy the former home of the In and Out Club? Please post a certified banker's cheque for £180 million to Allsop, receivers of the 1.3-acre plot, once owned by Simon Halabi. It is almost a year since Jones Lang LaSalle was appointed to find a buyer. Since then a parade of those hopeful of turning a site with 300-foot frontage on Piccadilly into a hotel have fallen over due diligence. "We just want someone serious now," warns a frustrated agent.

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/markets/city-spy-oh-no-spymaster-falls-for-conman-6401746.html

Kevin Halligen: On the run from friends, the FBI and his fake wife too

by Joana Morais [archives]



THE wedding guests arrived in black limousines to see a British secret agent marry his US government lawyer bride, surrounded by the strictest of security.

From the grand 19th-century Evermay mansion, where the ceremony took place, the guests had commanding views of America’s power base, Washington, DC.

It is a city where former intelligence operatives and military men mix warily with politicians and power-brokers, looking for lucrative government security contracts.

Among the guests at the wedding were a former CIA station chief and a security adviser to Barack Obama. The best man had once been special operations marine colonel.

The guests were some of the best-informed people in the capital. Yet none knew that the wedding was a sham, the priest was an amateur actor and Richard Halligen, the groom, was an imposter.

Halligen, 50, is better known as Kevin Halligen in Britain (or more precisely Halligan with an “a”, according to his birth certificate).

The wedding was part of a illusion that has seen him take in some of the most senior figures in the intelligence world on both sides of the Atlantic with a mixture of charm and trickery.

On the way he has made considerable sums from the Madeleine McCann fund and more than £1m from a deal involving a company accused of dumping toxic waste. He has left a string of creditors behind. His debts are said to amount to more than £3m.

Halligen is now on the run after last being spotted with a girlfriend at the Royal Crescent hotel in Bath.

His pursuers include the former head of undercover operations for the UK police, a City lawyer, a Washington lobbyist, his former bride and a former head of the SAS, who blames himself for helping to launch Halligen into the world of intelligence and security.

The United States justice department, on behalf of the FBI, has issued an indictment seeking his arrest for an alleged £1.2m fraud.

The secretive nature of the security and intelligence community provided the perfect cloak for the talented Mr Halligen. It is a world where people do not talk openly about their past exploits, because they are frequently matters covered by the Official Secrets Act.

A Dubliner by birth, Halligen came to England in the late 1970s and held a series of consultancy jobs as an electronics specialist. His first spell as a director was for his girlfriend’s catering company in Surrey, from which he resigned in 2001.

However, the stories he spun to colleagues and girlfriends about his history were much more colourful. They say he claimed variously to have worked for GCHQ, MI5, MI6 and the CIA, or at least implied as much.

In his résumé he claimed to have worked on government defence projects for more than 20 years. “Kevin,” he wrote of himself, “has operational experience in Northern Ireland and the Middle East and retains close links with special projects, special forces and the international government security community.”

He also claimed to have contributed to a high-level report assessing Britain’s resilience to terrorist attacks. However, this, like his claims to have briefed the Pentagon on Iraq, was at best fanciful.

His first entry into the private security business was as technical director for the Inkerman Group, a company set up by Gerald Moor, an ex-army intelligence officer. The job ended abruptly in 2003 after Halligen drank Moor’s stocks of champagne and “irreplaceable” burgundy while house-sitting for a couple of weeks.

At the same time, the company vetted Halligen and found worrying anomalies. “Nothing seemed to check out. He had two different birth mothers, according to the forms he had filled out,” said Moor.

Once in the security world, however, Halligen began forging business contacts and friendships. A key to this was his membership of the exclusive Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge, central London.

Membership is usually open only to those who have served in the UK’s secret services or special forces, but his name was nonetheless put forward in 2002 by two of the club’s staunchest members: Major Donald Palmer, its then chairman, and Major-General John Holmes, a former commander of the SAS and former director of special forces.

Both men — who knew Halligen through business — now bitterly regret helping him. “We were all taken in,” said Holmes, who now devotes considerable amounts of his time to finding Halligen.

“I feel partly responsible because I introduced him to people, my friends, some of whom are now owed money. I just want to see that he is brought to book.”

Using his contacts, Halligen set up his own companies. His initial venture Chimera (dictionary definition: “vain or idle fantasy”) was short-lived, and Halligen formed Red Defence International in 2004.

It was a crisis in Ivory Coast in September 2006 that was to transform Halligen and his company’s fortunes.

Claude Dauphin, the president of the Dutch company Trafigura, had been seized with another executive in the African state. They were accused of dumping toxic waste near the country’s largest city, Abidjan, which had poisoned thousands of people.

Halligen’s company was paid £460,000 a month to identify the key power brokers in Ivory Coast and negotiate the executives’ safe return. This did not turn out to be enough, however.

By now Halligen was operating from plush offices in Washington and, at some point, had acquired a defence department security pass. He used the cash from Trafigura to hire the services of some of the most powerful private security organisations in the city.

By January 2007, there was real concern. The Christmas deadline for the release of the two executives had passed and their families were becoming desperate.

Halligen met the Trafigura’s British lawyer, Mark Aspinall, at a Washington hotel and asked for an extra £1.2m for a lobbying campaign to persuade the US government to intervene in the dispute.

Aspinall’s London law firm was given the money by Trafigura and paid it into a personal bank account that had been set up by Halligen in Washington.

The money went into his account on January 10 and the following day £1m went out to pay for Halligen’s palatial new home in Great Falls, Virginia.

The two Trafigura executives were freed the following month when the company paid £120m to the Ivory Coast government.

The deal had little to do with Halligen; but the company was so relieved that it did not inquire how he had spent the money intended for lobbying.

Aspinall, meanwhile, had struck up a friendship with Halligen during the crisis. When Halligen asked him to invest in Oakley International, his new Washington company, Aspinall handed over £300,000 and later made a personal loan of another £150,000. He has not seen a penny of that money since.

Halligen is thought to have made £1m in profit from the Trafigura work on top of the money that he spent on his home. He spent thousands of pounds staying at the Willard hotel in Washington — where he met his “bride”, Maria Dybczak, a trade lawyer for the commerce department, when he accidentally stepped on her dress.

Dybczak has spoken to The Sunday Times but did not wish to be quoted in the article.

Halligen had told Dybczak that he had previously worked closely with MI5 and MI6. Sometimes he also claimed, for effect, that he had met her in Bosnia years earlier. He did not tell Dybczak that he already had a wife in Britain whom he had married in 1991 but never divorced. .

His £360,000 wedding to Dybczak, in spring 2007, was the perfect opportunity to confirm his entry into the Washington elite. Just 40 hours before the ceremony was due to take place in Washington’s most expensive home, Halligen dropped his bombshell.

He told Dybczak that his spy masters in Britain would not allow his name to be made public on a marriage certificate. “He said he was in ops so black that he could not allow his name to be on anything,” said a source close to Halligen.

The couple persuaded the catering manager, who was the director of a local theatre group, to play the role of the priest.

When Halligen slipped the £120,000 ring on his new “wife’s” finger, the scores of powerful guests had no idea.

One of the guests was Andre Hollis, a lobbyist who became chief executive of Halligen’s Washington company. “It was like a global intelligence debutante ball,” he said. “And nobody knew it was fake.”

Not even the best man, Colonel John Garrett, a defence lobbyist for the blue-chip Washington law firm Patton Boggs, was let in on the secret. Nor was the most powerful guest in the room, Noel Koch, a security expert who has now become a deputy undersecretary in the defence department.

He said: “We found out later that it was not a real wedding. The priest was an actor.”

Koch says Halligen was a curious character: “He used to be difficult to understand because many of the conversations were sotto voce. It was like we’re all spies together and the walls were listening.”

Also on the guest list from England were Palmer, Aspinall and Henri Exton, a former national head of undercover operations for the police.

It was Exton’s expertise that was to be used in the hunt for Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine had been missing for a year when Brian Kennedy, the millionaire philanthropist who had invested heavily in a fund to find the little girl, contacted Halligen’s firm via Exton.

At the initial meeting, Halligen seemed impressive. He offered the McCanns undercover surveillance and intelligence gathering in Portugal, as well as promising to provide satellite imagery and details of telephone traffic from the night Madeleine disappeared.

The contract was agreed with Oakley International, and the money was paid into the company’s American account through a middle company called Housing Agent Holdings.

Former colleagues say Halligen was out of his depth and had no experience of such investigations. So the detective work on the ground was done by Exton and other contractors, who produced a series of reports pointing to new leads.

Halligen was supposed to provide the technical data such as the satellite imagery from his contacts in Washington. “As far as I am aware,” said one source, “all he came up with was a Google Earth image.”

The McCanns themselves were increasingly concerned about Halligen. “He had this sense of cloak and dagger, acting as if he were a James Bond style spy,” said a friend close to the family. “The McCanns found him hard to deal with, because he was forever in another country and using different phones. He promised the earth but it came to nothing.”

The contract came to an end in October last year and was not renewed. Halligen’s company had received £500,000, but the contractors who did the work are owed more than £300,000. Cheques bounced despite Halligen’s promises.

Exton, who was more than £100,000 out of pocket, switched his investigation into Halligen himself. As a result of his initial inquiries, he approached Aspinall, who was also concerned about his investment.

In October last year, as the pressure mounted, Halligen decided he needed a holiday in Rome. He told Dybczak that his “former employers” in London had leaked details of his undercover operations in Northern Ireland and he needed to go into “hiding”.

While texting Dybczak to say he loved her, he flew first-class to Rome with a new girlfriend and her dog, paid for by his company. They settled in the five-star Cavalieri hotel and enjoyed its Michelin three-star restaurant. The £12,700 bill was paid for on his company credit card.

Back in Washington, it was dawning on Hollis that nobody had been paid and the Madeleine money had gone. The £50,000 he invested in the company had also evaporated.Exton and Aspinall called in a forensic accountant to look at the books and the results were alarming.

In just over a year Halligen had skimmed off £600,000 from the company for his personal benefit. More than £150,000 had been spent on improvements on his new house. Payments to labourers, electricians and plumbers were all itemised.

After the first tranches of the Madeleine fund money went into the account, Halligen withdrew more than £130,000 for his personal use. The payments were often disguised as transfers to Dybczak, but she has confirmed the money was for his benefit.

Halligen is now believed to be back in Britain travelling with an old girlfriend. Dybczak has not seen him since he left Italy. He owes her £45,000, and her parents have not been paid back £170,000 they lent him. Patton Boggs, his lawyers, are also owed cash.

Having amassed a file of evidence, Exton called in the FBI, which is now seeking the “secret agent”.

Insight: Jonathan Calvert and Claire Newell

in Times Online

Madeleine McCann investigator didn't listen to ANY tip-offs given to hotline - and squandered £500,000

By Daniel Boffey In Washington
Updated: 12:06, 29 August 2010

A private eye whose company was paid £500,000 from a public fund to find Madeleine McCann squandered the money on a series of bizarre schemes that had no chance of locating the missing child.

Kevin Halligen, who claimed to have experience in the British secret services, was arrested last week in an Oxford hotel after an FBI manhunt over an unrelated £1.3million fraud case in America.

His investigations company, Oakley International, was taken on in March last year by the Find Madeleine Fund and her parents Kate and Gerry McCann.



But The Mail on Sunday can reveal today that despite setting up a hotline for potential informants and witnesses, none of the hundreds of calls received by a call centre hired by Halligen, 48, was listened to by Oakley investigators - and Halligen also bragged to his colleagues that he had executed a series of peculiar tactics to find Madeleine.

He claimed to have hired an actor to pretend to be a 'drunken priest' who would seek confessions as he toured the bars of Praia da Luz, the resort where Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.

And he told colleagues that a family with a Madeleine lookalike daughter had been paid to set up home in a nearby resort in order to tempt out a potential kidnapper.

Meanwhile, a paper trail obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows that Halligen, a former director of a catering firm, launched an extraordinary spending spree on hotels, cigar bars, restaurants and luxury goods while he was in the pay of the Find Madeleine Fund, and in the period shortly after he was fired last summer.

Documents show that in his first two months as lead investigator in the search for Madeleine, Halligen spent £7,000 on a personal chauffeur.

A few months later, on a short trip to New York with a girlfriend, he lavished £1,600 on Salvatore Ferragamo leather goods, £5,500 on handbags, £500 on an Italian meal, £150 on a pair of designer glasses and £900 on a three-night stay at the five-star Renaissance Hotel.

And in a one-month visit to Washington, where he owned a £1.5million mansion, he spent more than £3,000 on dining out and £6,000 on a room at the US capital's Intercontinental Hotel.

He also paid out more than £50,000 on plumbing and mosaic tiling for his house in Great Falls, Virginia - a property in which he has never spent a night because of constant home-improvement work.

The revelations will dismay everyone who donated to the Find Madeleine Fund. But perhaps of most concern is the lack of attention paid to the hundreds of phone calls received by the Madeleine hotline.

Halligen and Oakley International, based in Washington, failed to listen to a single call received on the hotline set up for potential informants by Kate and Gerry McCann last year.

Johan Selle, the director of operations at iJet, the US firm that managed the Find Madeleine phone line, revealed that for a year nobody even asked his company if they could listen to any of the calls received.

Mr Selle said his operators, in Annapolis, Virginia, had answered 'hundreds of calls', but the information seemed wasted - possibly squandering valuable leads.

He said: 'We delivered Oakley a report with a summary of the calls and said if they wanted to come back they could listen to the recording, but nobody did.

'For someone with an understanding of the case it would be very easy for some to say that maybe 80 or 90 per cent of the calls were hogwash, but there may be a percentage where one would say maybe we should listen to this one or listen to that one. But our understanding is that this never took place.

'We are not sure whether Halligen provided our report to the family or to the trust or to those working with them or to the teams working after him, because no one came back to us.

'We sent the report to Oakley group and our assumption was that they were using it as a piece in the puzzle. But it appears that wasn't the case.'

The firm says it was not paid for it services by Halligen or Oakley International.



Two of Halligen's former colleagues in the investigation, John Taylor and Dr Richard Parton, said they became concerned early on in their working relationship with the self- styled 'super-spy'.

Dr Parton, whose company Psyintel was employed for its expertise on interview techniques, said he and his partner had been encouraged by Halligen to get involved with the high-profile case.

Halligen had also mentioned other future projects that could net them millions of pounds, although these schemes never came to fruition.

But Dr Parton said fears over Halligen's suitability for the job first arose when the private detective suddenly asked him to stop calling him Richard, the name by which they had known him for several years. He then also raised details of Halligen's extraordinary tactics to find Madeleine.

Dr Parton, who claims he was later left with an unpaid invoice for £50,000, said: 'It was very strange. I had met him years earlier and it had been Richard. Then before a meeting with some people who wanted a presentation on my techniques, I was asked to call him Kevin from then on. I thought it was odd but he was so secretive and that was just the way he was.

'Whenever we had a meeting he would also always immediately say that he needed to leave for a flight. Every time. He would always also try to get the conversation around to talking about the psychological characteristics of a sociopath.'

Dr Parton added: 'I repeatedly told him his investigators on the ground in Portugal were not doing a proper job but he insisted lots of things were going on I didn't know about.

'That is when he told me about some of his schemes, such as the drunken priest seeking confessions from people drinking in the bars of Praia da Luz and the family with a girl who looked similar to Madeleine. This family were set up, apparently, in a resort near to Praia da Luz just to sit and wait and see what happened.

'It was all such a waste of money and time.'

However, it was only later, when tape recordings of interviews undertaken in Praia da Luz were sent to Dr Parton and Mr Taylor, in Washington, that they started to fear the worst for the investigation.

Mr Taylor said: 'The quality of the interviews was terrible, very amateurish. The noise in the background was bad, the interview questions were useless and the subjects were irrelevant. I told them to stop wasting time and money on such low-key figures - homeless people and receptionists who knew nothing.'



Things came to a head after Halligen reneged on repeated promises to pay their invoice. Dr Parton said: 'I took him to one side and asked when I was due to be paid. Three days later he disappeared. He had fled to Rome with his girlfriend.'

It was then that Dr Parton and Mr Taylor started to contact others who had been hired by Oakley International. Mr Taylor added: 'He would hire lots of people to do work but only pay a few of them. Meanwhile, he was spending lots of money on his own lifestyle. It only gave the appearance that work was being done.'

They also contacted Maria Dybczak, a trade lawyer for the US Commerce Department, whom they understood to be Halligen's wife. It emerged she had agreed to go along with a fake wedding service to keep up appearances for Halligen.

Dr Parton said: 'She admitted she wasn't proud of it but she had been tricked, too. He claimed that a job he was doing with the CIA meant that he couldn't have his name on a marriage certificate.

'She was manipulated into going along with a fake wedding with an actor posing as a priest. He said they would get properly married a few weeks later, but that never happened.'

Shortly afterwards Halligen fled to Rome with a girlfriend, named in a writ filed by another former colleague as Shirin Trachiotis, a glamorous doctor based in Washington.

Almost immediately after arriving in Rome on their first-class Lufthansa tickets, Halligen withdrew hundreds of thousands of pounds more from Oakley International's bank accounts and spent £8,000 on a luxury hotel before slinking back to the UK a few months later.

Dr Parton said: 'He has left a trail of debts across America and the UK. But the horrible truth is that he stole from the McCanns what they really couldn't afford - time.'

Following a short hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court last week, Halligen was refused bail and was remanded in custody until December 2, when the next stage of his case for extradition will be heard.

The US Department of Justice issued an indictment for Halligen, from Surrey, earlier this month alleging that he tried to defraud a London law firm.

They claim he took £1.3million as part of a deal to secure the release of Dutch business executives arrested in the Ivory Coast. Instead, it is claimed, he spent it on a mansion, a gift to his girlfriend, cash machine withdrawals and debit-card transactions.

Kate and Gerry McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell refused to be drawn on the details of Oakley's investigation, much of which, it is understood, the McCanns were unaware of. He said: 'The first phase of the contract was satisfactorily seen through, such as the setting up of the hotline. Towards the end of it there were question marks about delivery and the relationship was terminated.

'Given Mr Halligen is in custody it is inappropriate to comment further.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231757/Madeleine-McCann-investigator-didnt-listen-ANY-tip-offs-given-hotline--squandered-500-000.html