chris dereham durham

For those of you who have not read.....

Saga axes Spanish property partner
By Andrew Foxwell


Last updated at 11:18 AM on 5th August 2007


Comments (0)
Share

A stunning red sun sinks into the horizon behind the crimson dappled waves of the Mediterranean. Hand-in-hand, the happy silver-haired couple look lovingly into each other's eyes.

This is the rather cliched promise of retirement in Spain, Saga-style.

Not for our happy couple the nightmare of unending bureaucracy, legal problems, paperwork mountains and language difficulties when buying a property abroad. No. Saga would sort all that. After all, for the over-fifties, Saga is one of the most trusted brands around.

Remarkably, though, the company has risked its reputation for integrity and put a perfect money-making opportunity at risk by hiring a partner with deeply suspect credentials.

Purchase Process Systems, a newly formed company that claims to have links with Spanish estate agents, was hired to establish a call centre to deal with Saga members who wanted to buy homes in the country.

But the man behind the call centre operation in Sotogrande, amaires' playground in southern Spain, was Christopher Derham, who has been involved in a string of failed companies.

Working alongside Derham as a fellow director was Paul Sweeney. In June he was jailed for seven and a half years for his role in an £85m carousel fraud - importing phones into Britain VAT-free, selling them on and charging VAT that was never paid to Revenue & Customs. He was first arrested in Manchester in 2003 - three years before the Saga system went live.

Ageing Welsh playboy Sir Dai Llewellyn - best known as a friend of the late Princess Margaret - is close to Derham and is thought to act as his PR director. On entries at Companies House, Derham even lists Llewellyn's central London address as his own.

In March, Saga was alerted to problems by members of PPS's staff who complained they were not being paid.

Yet only now has Saga terminated PPS's contract in an attempt to restore confidence of the many who have been met with a wall of silence when they tried to find out about their new retirement homes. Saga says the move was taken because of 'poor service'. Emergency measures to handle calls are in place, it says.

Papers filed at Companies House reveal the most of PPS's shares are owned by secretive Maltese holding companies - but Derham has always been the force behind the firm. Saga admitted to Financial Mail that when it hired PPS last year, it did not check the backgrounds of Derham and Sweeney, because it felt the risk of the business failing was not high enough to warrant it.

Staff at the call centre have not been paid for three months, some face eviction from their homes and the operation has shut down. A stormy confrontation between staff, Derham and Saga last week failed to resolve issues. Employees gathered at the call centre site, a few minutes' drive from Gibraltar, to vent their anger at Derham, claiming the operation had been a fiasco from day one and attacking Saga for failing to ditch him.

Leigh Williams, who was team leader at PPS's call centre, is owed 7,500 euros (£5,060) and said he had now reached his overdraft limit. 'I'm broke,' he said. 'I've had three months without being paid and without work I can't even afford to put petrol in my car.

'Previously, Saga said Derham had to pay staff what they were owed or they would pull the plug on the venture. Saga has washed its hands of us and doesn't care about our plight.'

Saga told Financial Mail that no customershad been affected by the collapse. Williams, however, disputed this. He said call centre staff stopped dealing with people who were selling homes in the UK and about to choose property in Spain. And he added that Saga's negligence had indirectly ruined lives.

'As each week went by and we weren't paid we were just handling important customers and not following others up until we got paid. You're talking about customers' dreams - it's their dreams that are ruined.' Derham and Llewellyn could not be reached for comment.