Conman councillor’s legal adviser is a struck-off solicitor

Martin Shipton

A councillor who has been accused of conning multiple customers by failing to carry out home improvements they have paid for has a legal adviser who is a struck-off solicitor who served time in prison for fraud.

Last month Nation.Cymru reported how customers of Garw Valley community councillor Neal Scorer believe he should be in jail because of his dishonest behaviour over a period of more than a decade.

We can now reveal that Scorer’s “legal adviser” is Nicholas Pounder, who was jailed for 18 months and ordered to pay compensation of £100,962.43 after admitting 16 charges of theft, two of false accounting, with 71 similar charges taken into account.

One of Scorer’s victims, Jeff Harvey, of Swansea, told us: “I own a house with my friend Mike Harrison, who went onto a Facebook ad where Mr Scorer advertised himself as Pink Builders. We wanted an extension built to our house in Sketty, Swansea, Mr Scorer came down to see us and recommended we go to an architect first. We got the drawings from the architect he recommended, who is very good. He had already done two others for Scorer before. At that stage, we didn’t know that neither of these had been built.

“Mr Scorer then ran us through everything he was going to do on the site, and it all seemed very convincing. Then he sent us a very lengthy letter particularising all of the construction plans and everything that would be happening. Everything looked great. However, we got caught because on the last page of the contract he wanted 40% up front, which was about £22k. We paid that directly into his account. At that stage, we didn’t realise we were paying into a personal account. We thought everything was genuine and we just paid it. We didn’t know that that money was gone.

“Scorer produced texts saying he could go building shopping now. His whole line was that he needed the money up front to buy materials for the extension. He was going to deliver all the materials to the site here in Swansea and then commence the build within four weeks. But then nothing happened for five months.

“He came up with 10 million excuses. They were all basically personal tragedies where you’re supposed to feel sorry for some terrible thing that’s befallen him and then give him more time, or just give up and realise the money’s gone.

“After getting the money he told us he was going off to buy materials from different suppliers. So I decided to quiz him on where all these materials were that he’d bought five months before. We set him up on a phone call, which we recorded. We said we’d got nothing for our money but a bunch of excuses. We asked him to tell us who the suppliers were that he’d paid the money to for the materials. And if he couldn’t supply that information, we wanted a refund. We recorded all this and he said he couldn’t refund the money because it had all been paid to different suppliers who were holding the goods. We asked him for the receipts and he claimed his accountant was away. I knew this was a lie because suppliers of building materials do not hold materials once they’re paid for. They’d be dispatched.

“Later Scorer said his business partner had stolen money from him, but that was a lie too.”

Civil claims

Nation.Cymru has seen documentation from several cases that show how Scorer worked closely with Pounder, his “legal adviser” to rebuff civil claims from home owners who had been conned. The modus operandi was to threaten customers with spurious counter claims.

Scorer was careful to refer to Pounder as his legal adviser rather than his solicitor because he could no longer claim that status, having been struck off after his convictions.

Swansea Crown Court heard in 2005 how Pounder, of Nottage, near Porthcawl, had stolen £150,000 from two chronically ill patients and from bank accounts of dead clients.

The court heard how Pounder carried out the thefts between 1996 and 2003 while working at David and Snape solicitors in Bridgend.

He had been appointed to look after the financial affairs of two chronically ill men by the Court of Protection. But he used their accounts as his own, paying off credit card debts. One of his victims lost £40,000 over six years as Pounder milked his account.

Thefts

Patrick Griffiths, prosecuting, told the judge how Pounder had also stolen from the accounts of clients who had died. Pounder had used his position as an executor to “rob Peter to pay Paul”.

He was able to carry out the thefts undetected for so long because he was one of the biggest fee earners for the company he worked for and because he had access to a company client account and a chequebook for which he was the sole signatory. He also generated a false paper trail to make it appear as if the cash was being used for legitimate purposes. Pounder was finally caught after his secretary became suspicious.

Sentencing Pounder, Judge Michael Farmer said: “The sad reality is that over six years, you perpetrated a trail of theft on those who trusted you and relied on you.

“It was deliberate and protracted … the impact of your behaviour on the public and public confidence, let alone on your victims, is very considerable.”

We asked Scorer, whose community council is in the county borough of Bridgend, to explain why he had used Pounder as his legal adviser when he was a struck-off solicitor who was jailed for fraud. He didn’t respond to our message.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.