Author

TRUST BETRAYED
WHEEL OF FORTUNE

I know that it is always interesting to learn the backstory of how a novel

came into existence and that includes knowing about the author's life-story. 

So read the following sections and I am sure you will gain even more enjoyment 

from having read the novels

I was born in 1942; and was educated at Wellingborough Grammar School. From there I went to Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge in 1961 where I read law, graduating with an honours law degree in 1964. I was admitted as a Solicitor in 1970. 

I married my wife Denise in 1982 and we have four grown-up children. 

In 1974, I became a partner of Burnhams Solicitors, which had offices in Wellingborough and Northampton. I became senior partner in 1987 and remained in that post until I retired from private practice in 2000. In the course of my legal career I covered most areas of contentious (including advocacy) and non-contentious work, specialising in particular in employment law. 

I was a director of Kinderquest Ltd and Staffquest Ltd from 1988 until 2002. This was a family group of companies established by my wife and her sister Debbie, which provided 50 workplace nurseries for Civil Service departments and several blue chip companies. We sold the companies to Bright Horizons Family Solutions (an American company) in 2002. 

I stood as the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate in Mansfield at the 1983 General Election. I was a Councillor on Wellingborough Borough Council from 1976 to 1987, serving as Chairman of the Development Committee from 1983 to 1987. 

I was a Governor of University College, Northampton from 1999 to 2005 serving as Chairman of the Governance, Employment and Administration Committee, and was a member of the steering committee of governors who negotiated the award of university status to the College, which then became known as the University of Northampton. 

In 2017, I published my first novel ‘Trust Betrayed’ and, in 2018, a sequel entitled ‘Wheel of Fortune’. Both are available on Amazon.

My father, H. A. Wrenn, was an author. He wrote mainly “Who Dunnit” novels. His hero was a solicitor called Mitchell who was the junior partner of a small firm of solicitors in a small market town in the Midlands. Father had six novels published in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Each one took him about a year to write in longhand, correct and perfect to a standard that he could submit to his agent. He would sit in his demob Home Guard armchair (in the winter by the fire) in front of the black and white television, which was always on, with Mother and his four children around him. 

Father wrote using a biro on reams of foolscap paper perched on his lap. He would only pause from his writing if there was a good thriller on the television - Maigret, No Hiding Place, Perry Mason - but would always engage in family conversation. He then realised he could write a play for television or radio in three weeks – sometimes in as little as one week - and send it off to the BBC or, if they refused it, to ITV, and earn just as much in royalties.

So, he then concentrated on writing plays. Some 12 plays were broadcast, one starring Anthony Steele on his return to the UK from Hollywood. Father did not write during the daytime because he was employed as the Headmaster of Wellingborough Grammar School.

As a schoolboy, little did I realise that I would one day become the junior partner in a firm of solicitors in a small market town in the Midlands - Wellingborough. Or that, following his retirement, I would employ my father as a clerk, sitting behind a barrister in the Crown Court - “devilling” as it was called. In that role he travelled to most Crown Courts in the Midlands, and in the Supreme Court in the Strand, London in a career lasting 12 years.

Nor did I realise that I would be caught up in a drama as exciting and personally horrifying as any investigation that Mitchell embarked on. To experience the adrenaline, excitement and fear that the hero of a thriller undergoes was not part of my career choice. But I survived the ordeal, and my firm and career recovered. It was an ordeal that I would not have wished on anyone, but I learned how to cope with disaster and to fight adversity. Whilst I was enduring my ordeal, I recognised that it was a unique experience, visited on very few people, to find oneself, unwittingly, the protagonist in a criminal investigation. The core of a novel was there.

But I was too busy to do anything about it. Twenty-six years passed. Occasionally I would think about the story, but I could not see how to develop it into a novel. And then, on a warm sunny evening, standing with a glass of red wine chatting to our future son-in-law Matt, the whole context of the story came to me in a flash. It was a ‘Eureka’ moment. Whether it was something that Matt had said, or a stray thought that had crossed my mind, I cannot remember. But there it was - a whole exciting story.

It was to be two months before I was able to find the time to sit down quietly with my laptop and start my novel. I had discovered that publishers required a novel to be at least sixty-five thousand words long. Apart from writing exam essays and drafting leases and Wills, I had never written a lengthy piece. How do I start? Could I really write a story that long? It seemed a daunting challenge.

But I need not have worried. The characters in the story took me by the hand and developed the narrative for me. By the time I had written twenty-four thousand words, the stage was set for the drama to unfold.

It was a beautiful sunny day in November. My wife and I had enjoyed our customary walk along the beach at La Herradura in southern Spain and we had returned to our holiday home. I was itching to write the finale. Whilst Denise sunbathed by the pool, I went indoors to write, away from the sun. The tension to finish the novel was unbearable. For four hours I wrote in a frenzy until, in a climactic finish, the story was told. Some sixty-six thousand words had been written. 

I could write a novel!

Excited beyond measure, I saved the text and then rose from the table. I felt as I did after taking my Finals at University: exhilarated and exhausted. But I was thrilled by my achievement. Whether anyone would wish to read it, of course, was another matter.

It is not a question that most solicitors think about or have need to think about during their professional career. But for a few it is an agonising question. There are no guide books, so far as I know, that tell you how to proceed. Certainly, in my case in 1987 there were none. You are very much on your own. Indeed, as I write this, I remember having a heated discussion over the telephone with the then Chief Executive of the Law Society when I demanded that I got a definitive ruling to two contradictory answers that the Law Society’s Ethics and Guidance Department and the Solicitors’ Complaints Bureau had given me to a question that I had asked. 

I am sure that my senior partner never foresaw that his career as a solicitor would end in disgrace in prison. Some twenty years older than me, he was a dignified, kind, well respected, hardworking solicitor. Together, through hard work and commitment, we had revived an old established firm which had been in serious decline under the previous partners. I always understood that my partner had private means, and he was content to leave some fifty thousand pounds (then a large sum of money) in his capital account. I had no reason not to trust him. I did trust him. Every year a large London firm of accountants audited our accounts. There were no problems.

Narrow escape

My partner did not take many holidays, perhaps two or three a year, and then only for a week at a time. He liked to keep on top of his work. And he was always in the office by 8 am to open the post, whereas my routine was to arrive at 8.45 am.

So, it was a considerable surprise for me when, on the second day of his holiday, his secretary reported to me that clients of his had telephoned her to enquire about when they were going to receive the sale proceeds of their house. The file could not be found, and there was no money in client account. This set off a roller coaster of events, which form the core story in my novel entitled ’Trust Betrayed.’ Events which were exciting, bewildering, horrifying and humiliating all at the same time.

I was fortunate. On principle, we had always paid the extra premium to eliminate the excess on our professional indemnity policy. Although for some weeks I had to wait to learn if insurers would meet all the claims, they did so. Until then I was uncertain whether I faced bankruptcy. But not everything was covered by the policy and I suffered a net loss of seventy-two thousand pounds. My firm lost a lot of probate work. It took some four years of hard work for the firm to recover its balance. It took longer than that for the humiliation that I felt to burn itself out.

During that recovery period I received a writ seeking one million pounds of damages for loss sustained by the final fraud outlined in my novel. Our limit of indemnity was five hundred thousand pounds. Again, I went through the trauma of facing bankruptcy. Fortunately, the case collapsed and was settled for seventy odd thousand pounds.

Although I was the protagonist in discovering and exposing the frauds, it took a long time for me to accept that the man who had been my partner and a friend could perpetrate the frauds that he did. It was entirely out of character. The frauds required a cold devious cunning, and sheer audacious nerve, all of which was outside his character as I knew it. 

Ponzi operation

What had he been doing? He ran from home a second set of accounts through his own private Bank account. So, when he decided to defraud a client, he transferred the sum from our firm client account to his private Bank with a hand written note directing the Bank to pay the money into his private Bank account. The firm’s client account balanced. The accountants did not pick it up. He then repaid with interest the client who was pressing him most. Teeming and lading: robbing Peter to pay Paul. But the Ponzi effect of what he was doing meant that his operation was spiralling out of control. It was only a matter of time before the whole edifice came tumbling down. My intervention merely expedited it.

The detail of the exposure of his frauds are to be found in the novel. What surprised me was that no client approached me to complain that they had not received their money. 

Preventive culture

Were their lessons to be learned? The most important one, I think, is the opening of the post. There should be a rota between partners on who opens the post. We did not have one. All this, of course, happened before the age of the internet. There should be a system for inspecting emails.

Second, the accountants should demand to see all files, and do a spot check on a lot of them. Half a dozen files per fee earner is not enough.

Third, the payment out of client account must have the name or account number of the client or proper recipient on it. The discipline here is that it puts the firm’s accounts office on notice.

Fourth, the firm must as a matter of policy require every fee earner, including all partners, to take a minimum holiday period of 10 consecutive working days at least once a year. (A longer period is safer.) A problem is likely to raise its ugly head in that period.

Fifth, ensure that your client care letter makes it clear to clients that if they have a problem they must raise it with another partner in the firm, not with the offending partner.

Sixth, train every member of the staff, secretaries, receptionists, accounts clerks as well as fee earners, to report any activity which seems suspicious to them to another partner on a ‘non-attributable’ basis. The culture should be that no one should take offence at being investigated, but accept that the practice protects everyone.

Seventh, act fast and decisively on any suspicion.

Eight, do not delay in reporting any misappropriation of client monies or other serious breach of Solicitors Accounts Rules or false undertakings to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and insurers, and, if appropriate, to the Police. Delay can have very serious consequences for you and your firm.

Finally, remember Ronald Reagan’s maxim: “Trust but verify”.

You may have to act.

TRUST BETRAYED was written by RICHARD WRENN and is available in paperback from Amazon or on Kindle.

This article was originally published in ‘The Journal’ magazine of the Law Society of Scotland.