The Wardman Wire

Run down and asset-stripping of former SPCK chain of Bookshops

Long-term readers will know that I have been working on the campaign to scrutinise the mismanagement, asset-stripping and rundown of the former SPCK Chain of Bookshops since August 2008, with others including Phil Groom.

Today we have a victory: the last bookshop in the country to remain in control of J Mark and Philip Brewer, the Shyster-Charlatans who have taken hundreds of thousands of pounds from the chain, while abusing and exploiting staff, has been closed. It was in Durham Cathedral, and will soon be re-opened under proper control.

The SPCK Annual General Meeting is happening this Thursday – 1st October – and the annual report and accounts for 2008-9 are online. There is a passing reference to the former SPCK bookshops:

“SPCK continues to have a number of significant legal issues with Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust in regard to matters connected with the former SPCK Bookshops. The Charity Commission has appointed an Interim Manager for the Trust, and progress is being made.” (page 6)

Others have stronger views than I over how much responsibility SPCK should shoulder for handing over their bookshops (and staff, customers, and suppliers) to a family of charlatans, who have unfairly dismissed over 30 former staff, been censured in the US courts for a fraudulent bankrupcty claim, and finally been booted out by the Charity Commissioners. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This morning the SPCK SSG News, Notes and Information campaign blog passed a total of 150,000 page views since it was established in June-July 2008.

This is a story which is an excellent example of both investigation by a network of people, and campaigning blogging. It shows how a coalition of individuals can make a significant difference. You can read a brief outline on the blog’s introductory page.

The blog is about the mismanagement and destruction of a chain of 25 Anglican bookshops, which have been around since the first half of the 20th Century, by two brothers based in the USA, J Mark – who is a lawyer – and Philip Brewer. They took over control of the Bookshops from the SPCK charity with the promise of maintaining and improving the business back in 2006. They used a charity called the “Society of Saint Stephen the Great” (SSG) as their vehicle.

I (along with many others) helped promote the new campaign site in summer 2008 when Dave Walker the blogger doing the existing reporting (75 posts in about 18 months was one of several threatened legally by Mark Brewer; here is an example of the style of letter used – this one was published by Sam Norton. An instant archive of these deleted posts was of course established within days on the blog Open Debates not Libel Threats.

Since then there has been a saga of “shenanigans”, including sackings by email, bullying of staff, “Cease and Desist” attempts to suppress straight reporting, creation of half-a-dozen business entities to confuse everyone, a fake attempt in the US at putting the core charity into bankruptcy (declaring only liabilities not assets) where the court has no jurisdiction anyway, and much much more, which I will be describing in some detail in a series of podcasts over the next weeks.

There have also been some lighter moments, such as a lawyer running a chain of religious bookshops being instructed by the Court to take remedial education in bankruptcy law and legal ethics, and the discovery that his brother possesses a private “hobby” aircraft painted in “Trotter Trading” yellow which was maintained at charitable expense. However, the core objective is to make sure that the mismanagement of the chain is scrutinised, and the miscreants brought to book.

Regular readers of the Wardman Wire will know that I’ve been involved with others in a campaign to place a spotlight on the mismanagement and asset-stripping of the chain of 25 bookshops which used to go under the name of SPCK. See the SPCK SSG News and Information blog for more information about the overall campaign.

A community of campaigning bloggers, and a wider international network based mainly on Facebook and other social media sites, has had a significant role in this over a period of more than 2 years – gathering information, exposing a fraudulent bankruptcy attempt, keeping the Charity Commission on the case, and keeping the spotlight on the case. But this still has a long way to run – notably because there are still many small businesses who were simply never paid. The ex-SPCK staff will be having a well-deserved victory party, though.

The two Facebook groups are We Support Dave Walker (who was “Cease and Desisted” after 18 months of objective reporting), and A group for all those people who mourn the tragic demise of SPCK Bookshops, which still have a combined membership of well over 500 activists and supporters.

For today, I’m highlighting the huge credit due to the USDAW legal team and the ex-staff who kept on going for so long. This is the full USDAW Press Release. The “notes to editors” at the end have a good summary of the history of the aspects of this case dealt with by USDAW.