A BANKER who enjoyed sex parties and luxury holidays as kickbacks for his role in a £1billion fraud was facing a lengthy jail term yesterday — along with five associates.
Senior HBOS worker Lynden Scourfield, 54, forced struggling clients to use a pal’s firm.
In return he was treated to hookers and X-rated bashes with girls including porn star Suzie Best.
Suzie, 31, romped with fellow escorts at a string of X-rated bashes for the fraudsters which involved wads of cash and stashes of Viagra.
Scourfield, 54, who she likened to diminutive Hollywood star Danny DeVito, was last night facing a lengthy jail term along with five associates for a £1billion loan scam.
He had targeted 200 failing businesses — and forced them to use a consultancy company run by his pal David Mills, 60.
High-risk loans of £245million were agreed which would never be repaid.
In return Mills rewarded Scourfield and his workmates with luxury holidays — and the services of ¬several high-class hookers.
One of their favourites was Suzie, 31, a £300-an-hour escort from Barnsley, South Yorks, who describes herself as “bisexual” with a “high sex drive”.
She met up regularly with Scourfield and his friends — who she dubbed “the posh tw*t bankers” — in a a rented West London apartment.
Suzie, whose services include spanking and humiliation, told a court how she did girl-on-girl shows for them and also performed sex acts on some of the men.
In her evidence Suzie, who features on porn websites, said that Scourfield had a hairy back and suffered from premature ejaculation.
In December 2005 Scourfield was among a group who went for a meal with three escorts at the Royal China restaurant on central London’s Baker Street.
One of the hookers who kept a diary wrote: “Then drinks at flat and quick s**g. Easy £1,500. Home late and drunk.”
Referring to another party two months earlier she added: “11pm Churchill Hotel, Portman Square W1. Drink G/G/G show songs, sex strap-on toys stockings classy.”
Mills also treated Scourfield to business-class trips to Bangkok, Moscow and Barbados, a six-star, all-inclusive Med cruise and the use of an Amex credit card.
A £2million, 100ft yacht called Powder Monkey was also purchased, along with properties around the world.
WE WERE MADE TO PAY PRICE
By JONATHAN REILLY
VICTIMS of the HBOS scammers told yesterday of their ordeals at the hands of the disgraced banking group.
Among them was chicken farmer Justin Riggs, whose £375,000 loan ballooned to £382,000 after three years — despite him paying thousands in fees and charges.
Dad-of-four Justin, 56, of Stanford in the Vale, Oxfordshire, said: “I almost went bankrupt. I’d ordered 3,000 more chickens, but couldn’t afford the feed. I had to cancel the order and slaughter the 12,000 birds I had.
“No one wants to sell land but under pressure I had to. It annihilated my business.”
Nikki and Paul Turner started a record label, but ran up massive debts after falling for the fraud.
The couple, from Peterborough, wanted to borrow £160,000 for their start-up, but Scourfield lent them more than £850,000.
As they struggled under the debt, they were advised to use David Mills’ firm to help “turn around” the business.
Instead they paid £65,000 in fees while being handed poor advice, meaning the company’s debt eventually topped £1million.
Yesterday Nikki, 46, called for the bank to compensate them. She said: “What happened at HBOS Reading was fraud on an industrial scale and its perpetrators caused immense distress to us and many others. “It feels like we have been serving a prison sentence for the last 13 years — now they’ll know how we feel.”
Bristol-based engineering company Bradman Lake Group footed the bill for some of Scourfield’s trips and ended up going bust with debts to HBOS of £36million.
Another company, Clode, was left with debts of more than £20.5million and tie-maker Theros almost £21million.
Porn mag publishers Remnant, who supplied girls for the banker’s parties, were left owing £16million.
Meanwhile, Mills’ firm Quayside Corporate Services was hammering their targeted businesses with hefty fees and expenses — forcing many to go bust.
HBOS, which left taxpayers with a £20.5billion bill during the 2008 credit crunch, eventually wrote off debts estimated at £245million.
However, sources close to the investigation say the total value of the fraud could be close to £1billion.
The scandal came to light during a six-year probe believed to be the most complex in Thames Valley Police’s history.
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It was revealed yesterday that Scourfield had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to corrupt, one count of money laundering and four counts of fraudulent trading on August 12 last year.
Scourfield, of Greenford, West London, has been on remand in prison ever since while Mills, his wife
Alison Mills, 51, fellow consultant Michael Bancroft, 73, and HBOS banker Mark Dobson, 56, went on trial.
They were convicted yesterday after a four-and-a-half month trial at London’s Southwark crown court.
They were found guilty of offences including conspiracy to corrupt, fraudulent trading and conspiracy to conceal criminal property.
Accountant John Cartwright, 72, was found guilty of conspiracy to conceal criminal property but Jonathan Cohen, 57, was cleared of involvement in the conspiracy.
The court heard that Scourfield had worked as a director of impaired assets for HBOS based in Reading, Berks.
He appointed Mills’ firm Quayside Corporate Services — where Bancroft and Cartwright also worked — to administer bank loans to companies in financial difficulty between 2003 and 2007.
It was to prove a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Prosecutor Brian O’Neill told the trial: “Scourfield advanced huge sums to the businesses, and ¬continued to do so well past the point when it would have been obvious to any honest banker that the bank debt could and would never be repaid.”
He added: “Lynden Scourfield was the goose who was laying golden eggs. David Mills just had to keep feeding him and feed him he did.”
The court heard that more than £28million passed through the personal accounts of Mills and his wife Alison, from Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire.
Mrs Mills also played an active role in the scheme, inviting Dobson and Scourfield and his wife Jacqueline to trips to Ascot racecourse.
Scourfield and Bancroft and their spouses also celebrated her 40th birthday in Barbados.
Mrs Mills ran many of her husband’s companies and Scourfield’s colleague Dobson was responsible for two high-risk accounts on behalf of HBOS.
Cartwright, of Hyde, Cheshire, also received £200,000 for his role in the fraudulent trading at textile company Magenta.
Bancroft, from Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, who was dubbed Mills’ “man on the ground”, received “around £1million” in direct payments.
Many of the businesses loaned money went bankrupt.
Anthony Stansfeld, Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police, said: “Conspirators embarked on a spending spree involving yachts in the Mediterranean, villas in Barbados and Majorca, prostitutes, overseas bank accounts, and a general high life.
“This has been at the expense of the shareholders of the bank, and many medium and small companies which have been bankrupted and ruined. Little will be recovered.”
THE BOOTY
DAVID Mills’ treats for Lynden Scourfield included business-class trips to Bangkok, Moscow and Barbados.
Mills also splashed out on a £2million yacht and owned a sprawling home in Todenham, Gloucs.
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