Morning:
6°c
Bankrupt aristocrat in £1.6m theft from charity walks free
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent26 Nov 2009
An aristocrat walked free from court today despite stealing £1.6 million from the charity set up by his grandfather.
Investment banker the Hon Jonathan Davies, 65, spent the money on fine wine, golf and expensive gifts, and also paid off his daughter's school fees and the family's credit card bills.
The father-of-six, educated at Eton and Oxford, even handed £1 million to Joe Dawson, an inventor friend who was trying to develop a new type of spark plug.
The charity, which helped Bosnian war orphans, collapsed and cannot reclaim anything from Davies, who is bankrupt.
Davies pleaded guilty at Southwark crown court to 10 counts of theft between July 1999 and June 2000.
The charges involved just over £232,000, but police enquiries revealed he had spent £1,656,143.
Judge James Wadsworth imposed a two-year suspended sentence because of the defendant's poor health.
Earlier prosecutor Stephen Leslie QC told the court: "Many of us dream of having a bottomless piggy bank full of money that we can tap into whenever we need to solve our financial troubles.
"For most of us it remains a dream. But for Davies, he didn't need to dream about a piggy bank, he had access to one."
David Huw Williams QC, defending, said Davies had been declared bankrupt in 2003 and that his reputation had been destroyed.
Davies had suffered heart problems in the 10 years since the fraud was uncovered, and he and wife Veronica now lived a "modest" existence in a small flat in Balham lent to them by friends, the court heard.
Davies, who is married to the daughter of the late Sir William Godfrey Agnew, clerk to the Privy Council and a friend of the Queen, stole from the Dinam Trust which funds research into international conflicts, and health and animal charities.
The court heard that he started taking the cash in 1995 when he took over as secretary of the trust which was set up by the Baron of Llandinam, David Davies in 1926 funded by his wealth from mining and shipping.
As secretary he earned £37,500-a-year and was able to write cheques to himself.
It was only when the charity's debts soared from £20,000 to £1.5million that the alarm was raised and the police called in.
