In the wake of ‘The Sunday Times’ expose of Nigel Farage’s curious connections with convicted criminal George Cottrell, Matthew Steeples highlights an equally curious crony of theirs, Twitter trolling twerp (‘Ian’) Mowbray Jackson
Like or loathe this definite disruptor, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage MP can now be deservedly branded a hypocrite of the first order.
Prone to slamming political opponents such as ‘Raving Rayner’ Angela Rayner for awkward antics concerning her second home and making a mockery of Sir Keir Starmer over being made a spectacle of concerning Lord Alli and Specsavers, Farage has not only been lambasted for taking a “personal gift” of £5 million from a Thai based tycoon, Christopher Harborne, in recent days, but was well and truly roasted yesterday in a ravaging set of revelations in The Sunday Times.
Whilst the focus of crusading journalist Gabriel Pogrund and his team was on 62-year-old Farage failing to declare being given use of a £4 million Westminster townhouse and countless other benefits by convicted criminal 32-year-old ‘Posh George’ Cottrell (who previously “legally changed his name from ‘Cottrell’ to ‘Cotrel’”), a throwaway paragraph brought in analysis of the involvement a longstanding sworn self-declared enemy of The Steeple Times, a rather tedious Twitter troll who used to go by the name of Mowbray Jackson.
Today, we delve into the details of 59-year-old Jackson (whom fascinatingly now opts for the Christian name of ‘Ian’ on Companies House for records concerning his latest venture, Fispay Ltd), Farage and Cottrell and the links between them their ‘high society’ chums. Be prepared to join the dots between a cretinous collection that jumps from left to right with Adam Boulton, Hugh Grant and Emily Maitlis to one side and Arron Banks, Baroness Meyer and Raheem Kassam to the other.
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The lavish life of (‘Ian’) Mowbray Jackson… The missing link with multiple names between Nigel Farage and George Cottrell
Friends with definite benefits “No Delay – Simples” – Nigel Farage and George Cottrell with (‘Ian’) Mowbray Jackson lurking behind them in a pair of sunglasses attempting to pull a Tom Cruise-esque look during a ‘Respect the Referendum’ protest. This is a mutually beneficial ‘friendship’ that clearly runs deep.Bombastic businessman Arron Banks, a major supporter of Nigel Farage and Leave.EU, gave evidence before a parliamentary select committee in June 2018. A particularly plump Mowbray Jackson – at one time a data protection officer for Reform UK – was snapped lounging like a lizard behind him.‘Ian’ or ‘Mowbray’ (depending on what day of the week it is) Jackson with George Cottrell and Georgia Toffolo at the long since shuttered Motcombs restaurant in Belgravia, SW1 circa May 2022. Cottrell dated the ‘Made In Chelsea’ and 2017 ‘I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!’ winner from 2019 to 2023 and subsequently married the equally controversial BrewDog co-founder James Watt in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 1st March 2025. Blundell’s Schoolm educated ‘Toff’ happens also to be a longstanding bosom chum of Boris Johnson’s father Stanley Johnson.On Sunday 5th July 2026, crusading journalist Gabriel Pogrund and his stellar investigative team at ‘The Sunday Times’ published an immensely thorough into the relationship between Nigel Farage and George Cottrell. In it, details of Mowbray Jackson’s alleged involvement was revealed. The paper stated: “One of the companies is owned by Mowbray Jackson, a Reform employee who serves as the party’s data protection officer… Cottrell denied he was heavily involved in the crypto-gambling platform [Tether.bet]. Jackson and Robery declined to comment. A source close to Jackson said he would need to obtain legal advice.”In yesterday’s investigation, “difficult to pin down” George Cottrell was himself highlighted for calling Nigel Farage ‘Daddy’; this was understandably widely mocked on social media. Cottrell was arrested whilst in the company of Nigel Farage at Chicago O’Hare International airport on 22nd July 2016 and federally indicted on 21 counts for conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, blackmail and extortion. After a plea deal in December 2016 and a guilty plea on one count of wire fraud, he was sentenced sentenced and released by Judge Diane Humetewa after having served 8 months in prison.‘The Finance Guy’ – @OneFinanceGuy on X – has been digging into the ‘interesting’ relationship between ‘daddy’ Nigel Farage and ‘son’ George Cottrell and their associates for many a month. In one post yesterday, 5th July 2026, on the platform he shared a video clip of the latter on a yacht in Montenegro with amongst others Mowbray Jackson and former gambling director and Attorney General of Arizona Mark Brnovich. On 12th January 2026, Brnovich, at one point was nominated (subsequently withdrawn) by Donald Trump to be the ambassador of the United States to Serbia, died at his home in Phoenix aged just 59 after suffering a heart attack.Raheem Kassam with George Cottrell with Mowbray Jackson tailing on their coattails in Parliament Square, SW1A. Kassam has various been worked in finance at Lehman Brothers, at ‘Breitbart’ and ‘The National Pulse’ and been involved in the Henry Jackson Society, UKIP and Reform. In July 2019, the Australian Labor Party called for Kassam to be banned from entering their country and on Wikipedia he is referenced as being “described as far right” given his involvement in a 2018 ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally in London.Mowbray Jackson was part of the organising committee for an event Chanel clad charity tin banger Catherine Meyer (now The Right Honourable The Baroness Meyer CBE of Nine Elms in the London Borough of Wandsworth) – a finger wagging woman suspended from the House of Lords for 3 weeks in December 2024 for calling a fellow peer “Lord Poppadom” and touching the hair of black MP Bellavilla Riberio-Addy without her permission – organised courtesy of her mate and then Home Secretary The Right Honourable Theresa May hosted at Downing Street on 23rd May 2012. Others hobnobbing with Cathy Meyer whilst hitting the hooch included the since croaked chippy-not-chirpy ex-ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer, property tycoon turned Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy and his then wife ex-‘Neighbours’ actress Holly Valance, former BBC presenter Sue Lawley OBE, advertising tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell, meddling mouthpiece Clarence Mitchell and the parents of ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann, Gerry and Kate McCann.Social climbing arselicker Mowbray Jackson most definitely celebrates hanging around with what some might turn ‘the great and the good’; pictured from left to right with Petronella Wyatt, daughter of politician and journalist Lord (Woodrow) Wyatt and ex-lover of Boris Johnson, former Sky News anchor Adam Boulton and actor turned Hacked Off press hater Hugh Grant. Jackson’s ‘friendship’ with the Love Actually star is worthy of mention given the latter’s noted involvement campaigning against Brexit and the former’s decided rabid enthusiasm for it. Whether Jackson and Grant still get sloshed together at Brinkley’s in Hollywood Road, SW10 – as they did for many a year – is unknown.Banal braggart Mowbray Jackson has banged-on about his friendship with the rather left-wing television presenter Emily Maitlis – best known for her 2020 ‘Newsnight’ interview that was the catalyst for the downfall of the then Prince Andrew over his relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell – to anyone willing to listen for many, many years. His union with Canadian born and Queen’s College, Cambridge educated Maitlis is curious given her known enthusiasm for amongst others the Labour peer and alleged traitor Lord Mandelson.Anything-but-camera-shy show-off Mowbray Jackson has been snapped with ‘actress’ Elizabeth Hurley on occasions also. Hurley, of course, forms part of Hugh Grant’s entourage of press haters, Hacked Off, along with amongst others the dim-witted drippy dunce Prince Harry, ‘Saint Doreen’ Baroness Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his titleless husband David Furnish, ‘actress’ Sadie Frost and ex-MP Simon Hughes. A judgment is due in the case brought by this tedious collection of twerps in their case against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Mail on Sunday’, on Tuesday 7th July 2026.In times past, prior to getting deeply embedded with Reform UK, Jackson was a political agent for UKIP and was snapped in a purple rosette whilst working on journalist William Cash’s failed campaign to get elected for North Warwickshire in Coleshill, Warwickshire in the 2015 General Election.‘Ian’ Mowbray Jackson appears to have deleted his account on Twitter, formerly X, in the wake of ‘The Sunday Times’ expose having first joined the platform in February 2009. His tweets mostly numbered toady responses to society wannabes who’d hosted him at parties and trolling those he loathed – including mostly Matthew Steeples and the likes of anti-Brexit campaigning financier Gina Miller.His @mowbrayjackson account was suspended on occasions given his propensity for abusive tweeting. Perhaps, now, this tedious Twitter troll would simply do best to decide what his actual Christian name is and learn the art of silence.
Matthew Steeples invites you to an evening with redoubtable author and broadcaster Geoffrey Wansell on 22nd April 2026
Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times
invites you to
an evening with redoubtable author and broadcaster Geoffrey Wansell
Biographer of Cary Grant, Sir Terence Rattigan, Sir James Goldsmith and Fred West
The Steeple Times – Interview and Dinner
at PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie, 52 Fulham Road, London, SW3 6HH
on Wednesday 22nd April 2026
THE EVENING
Arrivals for Prosecco in a private setting on the first floor of PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie from 6.30pm.
Matthew Steeples in conversation with Geoffrey Wansell at 7pm prompt with audience questions to follow for 30 minutes. The format will be similar to our previous discussions with amongst others Britain’s best known crime correspondent Martin Brunt of Sky News, actor, writer and producer Steven Berkoff, filmmaker Amanda Eliasch, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York author Andrew Lownie and Manhunt and Crime Suspect host Peter Bleksley.
3-course dinner with wine, with options for those with particular dietary requirements, to follow. Guests will have the opportunity to chat with Geoffrey Wansell and Matthew Steeples during the dinner.
After dinner, guests will be welcome to continue discussions downstairs at the legendary PJ’s bar for further cocktails and conversation.
GEOFFREY WANSELL
Geoffrey Wansell is an award winning journalist, author, podcaster and television documentary maker who has also done a bit of film and theatre here and there along the way. He started his career in Fleet Street in 1967 as a trainee and became a reporter and feature writer on The Times in 1970. He moved briefly to help start Britain’s first commercial radio station, LBC and then went to the Observer, The Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail, where he wrote long features for many years and still works as their Crime and Thriller reviewer.
His first major book was a biography of the movie star Cary Grant in 1983, then he went on to do the tycoon Sir James Goldsmith and the playwright Sir Terence Rattigan before getting tempted into true crime with the offer of becoming the authorised biographer of Frederick West, the Gloucester serial killer. Geoffrey went on to write the biography of another multiple killer, Levi Bellfield, who killed schoolgirl Milly Dowler, and then a book about the 60 or so people sentenced to whole life terms of imprisonment, called Pure Evil.
Those books led him into TV documentaries, and he has made more than 300 hours for a variety of broadcasters, including 200 episodes of Britain’s Most Evil Killer and the World’s Most Evil Killers for Sky, as well as 28 episodes of Murder by the Sea for CBS and now Amazon Prime, not to mention a series on Britain’s prisons for C5 and a standalone documentary on Denis Nilsen for Netflix.
Geoffrey also managed to produce a feature film for 20th Century Fox from Michael Morpurgo’s When the Whales Came, back in 1988, and then do two theatre tours and four weeks in the West End between 2021 and 2024 with his old friend David Suchet in a show called Poirot and More.
BOOKING
Tickets are priced at £85 per person and include a glass of Prosecco on arrival and half a bottle of either red or white wine per person with dinner.
To pay by bank transfer, please click the following link or make a transfer of £85 per ticket to the account listed below:
Tickets can only be purchased in advance and guest names must be supplied for allocated place settings. The deadline for booking is 4pm on Tuesday 21st April 2026. Tickets are issued on a non-refundable basis.
MENU
The ticket price includes a glass of Prosecco on arrival, ½ a bottle of either red or white wine per person and a three course meal.
‘Private Eye’ called out for publishing classified adverts from wacko wannabe “Village Elders” with a penchant for “amusing kids” and an actual crackpot crazy who tried and failed to kidnap Princess Anne in London in 1974
The latest edition of Private Eye contains an especially creepy classified advertisement. A link to it was sent to us by an especially beady eyed reader. It states:
Couple (60s) seek position as Village Elders in a community. Skills include knitting, martial arts, book-keeping, business advice, vegetable growing and amusing the kids. Any location worldwide but must speak English. No remuneration needed. Text 07486 434079 for more details.
Aside from the Jimmy Savile-esque vibes that the throwaway inclusion of “amusing kids” gives off, the fact that two sixty somethings of sex undefined want to move utterly anywhere for utterly no payment seems a little beyond weird. Whilst calls and texts from The Steeple Times to the number for the knitting and martial arts lovers listed were not answered, what’s the betting on these wannabe “Village Elders” being successful in their quest for their wacko wants? We wouldn’t go below 999/1.
The advert posted by the wannabe “Village Elders” that will likely not result in them achieving the placement they desire.
Elsewhere in the same magazine’s classified section is an advert placed by another oddity named Ian Ball. It doesn’t exactly share a great deal of detail, but simply offers:
‘To Kidnap a Princess’ by Ian Ball noveltokidnapaprincess.co.uk
For the majority whom unsurprisingly don’t immediately recognise this somewhat ordinary sounding name, this is the very same Ian Ball who attempted to kidnap Princess Anne on 20th March 1974 on Pall Mall in London, but who only succeeded in injuring a number of bystanders with a series of shots. Ball failed in his attempt – which was later bizarrely ‘justified’ as a “publicity stunt” and an attempt to raise £2 million from a ransom that he claimed he intended to give to the NHS – and subsequently pleaded guilty to attempted murder and kidnapping. John Hazan QC, defending, claimed his client was “mad” and had been “led by a voice of either his late father or God.”
Top: The attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne in March 1974, as reconstructed in the 2006 ITV drama ‘To Kidnap A Princess’. Bottom: Failed kidnapper Ian Ball snapped arriving for his trial and the Rolls-Royce in which Princess Anne travelled on the night of the attempt to abduct her.The advert promoting Ian Ball’s book.
Ball – who also goes by the pseudonym ‘Anthony Stewart’ – was subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia and detained in mental hospitals for 45 years until his release in 2019. In August 2025, he laughably claimed the late Queen Elizabeth II had been the “ringleader” of a plot that led to him being wrongfully jailed and told the Daily Mail: “I’m an innocent, sane man… The whole idea of performing the hoax was to get the publicity so I could write my autobiography and I expected to get £10,000 in royalties.”
Going further, on the website linked to from the online version of the weekly magazine, most certainly beyond bonkers Ball rages whilst promoting his tall tale tome To Kidnap a Princess:
“The author spent 45 years locked up in Rampton and Broadmoor criminal lunatic asylums, after being convicted of the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne.”
“Throughout his stay in the asylums he was in constant conflict with the psychopathic screws and criminal doctors.”
“The abuse resulting from the conflict was born with a remarkable stoicism and with an astonishing positive attitude. Such resilience was due, mainly, to the author’s efforts in applying his hilariously unique and wry sense of humour to the situation.”
“Although the authorities did everything to try and break his spirit, the author remains unbowed and eventually prevails.”
In light of the highlighting of these two clearly crackpot advertisements, perhaps Private Eye might henceforth implement a better procedure to vet those taking space in their classifieds. Paraphrasing what Princess Anne is said to have exclaimed on being ordered out of her chauffeur driven Rolls-Royce by her wannabe kidnapper Ian Ball that dark night in March 1974, the chances of such are probably to be found in the land of “not bloody likely!”
WORLD EXCLUSIVE – Ghislaine Maxwell’s notorious London home –the very pad that caused Prince Andrew to pay out £12 million over sexual cavorting allegations relating to a “bathtub bonk” in 2001 – is astoundingly back up for sale for a bonkers sum nearly 100% higher than she ‘sold’ it for just 3 years ago; much of the mucky madam’s furniture bizarrely remains
Just as the meddling mate of the mendacious mucky madam and her pension pot plundering papa that is Peter Mandelson has been ‘anointed’ in Game of Thrones style as Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the United States of America, it can be revealed that the infamous former London home of Ghislaine Maxwell is back on the market.
Whilst properties, however sordid their histories, come up for sale now and again – for example, when we featured five of the worst ‘murder location houses’ offered for sale in November 2022, we were inundated with further suggestions – the totally unsurprising detail in the current Chestertons listing for 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia is that there is no mention of this mews house’s infamous past owner-occupier.
Interestingly, however, the agency’s ‘current’ photographs of what The Steeple Times mocked in January 2022 as “Randy Andy’s Bathtub Bonk Pad” – given what allegedly went on between the Duke of York and a then 17-year-old then going by the name Virginia Roberts in the first-floor, full-sized bathtub of the residence on the 10th March 2001 – show a property that still includes free-standing furnishings that were present when representatives of the then incarcerated Miss Maxwell sold on 19th April 2021 for £1.75 million against a far more punchy initial asking price of £2.6 million. Indeed, it does seem most curious that the ‘purchasers’ decided to keep a set of naff 1970s tables and chairs that presumably belonged to the convicted sex trafficker – especially given they decided to throw out an equally gaudy pair of velvet curtains from the house that have now ended up on display in a Bristol art gallery as part of exhibition of all sorts of odd things that is rather appropriately titled Grey Unpleasant Land.
In January 2022, ‘The Steeple Times’ was the first publication to share a photograph of the then unrenovated bathroom at 44 Kinnerton Street where Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts (now Virginia Giuffre) allegedly bonked in the tub. The image we shared (top) provided proof that the tub was of a standard size and not “too small for any kind of activity whatsoever,” as Ghislaine Maxwell had stated during a 2015 defamation civil case brought after Maxwell called Giuffre a liar. The case was settled in 2017 in favour of Virginia Giuffre and at that time Ghislaine Maxwell was forced to pay damages. The same bathroom photographed in 2024 (bottom). The flooring and fittings all remain; the tiles have been changed, as have the bath taps.When asked about what occurred on the night of 10th March 2001 in the first-floor bathroom at her Kinnerton Street mews house, Ghislaine Maxwell responded: “[Virginia Roberts] then characterized [sic] things took place in my bathroom in the bathtub itself. The tub is too small for any kind of activity whatsoever.” The picture of that very same tub used in marketing material by Wellbelove Quested and more recently Chestertons proved exactly to the contrary.A floor plan shared by the likes ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Sun suggested the first-floor bathroom at 44 Kinnerton Street to be 7-foot, 4 inches by 7-foot, 2-inches. Floor plans shared by Wellboved Quested suggested that the room is actually 8-foot, 4-inches by 8-foot, 2-inches. Either way, there was most definitely plenty of room for two (and whatever activities might have gone on between that particular two-some)…Then and Now – The ground floor reception room of the house (top) as it was in “doctor’s waiting room” style in January 2022 (top) and as it now is in December 2024 (bottom) opened up to the kitchen. Note that though a wall and fitted furnishings have been removed and the flooring replaced, the somewhat naff dining table and chairs remain.
Laughably lauded by Chestertons as “charming” and “wonderfully bright,” the 1,477 square foot three-storey building has admittedly been knocked around a bit during the current ownership. Gone is a clapped-out kitchen that grubby groper Ghislaine likely never cooked her vegan nosh in and gone also is the wall between that room and the adjoining former “dentist’s waiting room-style” reception room where Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s London victims were likely lined-up for the vilest forms of sexual abuse. Also replaced are the fittings in the primary bathroom in what would have been the ‘Mucky Madam Master Suite’ on the top floor, but what is beyond bizarre is that the house’s most horrid bit of history survives for posterity virtually intact. The very same first floor full-sized bathroom where sexual relations allegedly occurred that caused Prince Andrew to allegedly pay £12 million to the aforementioned Virginia Roberts Giuffre (without any admission of guilt) remains virtually unaltered.
In that very bathroom, next to the very landing where the ‘killer’ photograph of Miss Maxwell, Miss Roberts and the late Queen Elizabeth’s favourite son were so inconveniently snapped on 10th March 2001, the very same full-sized shower and the very same full-sized bathtub that The Steeple Times proved Ghislaine Maxwell lied about during her April 2016 deposition at the law offices of Boies Schiller & Flexner in New York in an article we published in January 2022 remains in-situ. Yes, the walls have been retiled and the taps have been changed, but every other element of the room’s grotty days of old remain as a kind of Miss Havisham-esque horror memorial.
When asked during the videotaped and subsequently transcribed 2016 deposition, which was given before one Leslie Fagin, a court reporter and notary public in the State of New York, about the photograph and sexual activities in the first-floor bathroom, Maxwell went full ‘porky-pie’ about her ‘standard’ five-foot-six-inches length bathtub and snapped:
“What I’m representing is that [Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s] entire ludicrous and absurd story of what took place in my house is an obvious lie… She claimed things took place in my bathroom in London. Her characterizations [sic] is just not possible… She then characterized things took place in my bathroom itself. The tub is too small for any type of activity whatsoever.”
Clearly buyers are not flocking to purchase a pad of which Maxwell lied about and one of which Loyd Grossman might ask: “Who the hell would want to pay £3.45 million to live in a pugnacious pad like this?” In spite of spending less than a month on the market, Ghislaine Maxwell’s former lair – complete with its historical bonking bathtub – has just had its price slashed by a not-so-insubstantial £200,000 to ‘just’ £3.25 million.
Then and Now – The somewhat decrepit kitchen, as it was in January 2022 (top), and as it now is, after being opened into the adjoining reception room (bottom) in December 2024.Then and Now – The ‘Mucky Madam Maxwell Suite’ at the top of the house as it was in January 2022 (top) and now is (bottom) in December 2024.The house under renovation in July 2021 and November 2023.The curtains binned during the renovations were featured in a review by ‘The Guardian’ in November 2024 of a new exhibition that debuted at the Spike Island gallery in Bristol. Amongst the items shown in ‘Grey Unpleasant Land’ are a set of sun-bleached red velvet curtains. Of them, the paper’s Evan Moffitt observed: “Described as having been acquired from the 2020 clearance of 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia. A Google search will tell you that the house belonged to Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted associate of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It’s understandable why the artists chose not to name her, though without the extra effort, the drapes are a mysterious stage prop. Throughout, the show poses questions about how objects accrue value and meaning, which often comes down to how much or how little they’re framed. Maxwell is very much the elephant in the room alongside items from the same class as the person she set up with underage girls.” One could instead argue that it is curtains for sanity in Britain when Ghislaine Maxwell’s stained curtains are considered worthy as “art exhibits.”A floor plan of 44 Kinnerton Street prior to the renovations that came after the April 2021 sale.A floor plan of the house illustrating the changes to the ground floor layout.In July 2021, ‘The Steeple Times’ shared an image of an open door at 44 Kinnerton Street when the house was undergoing external repainting. The bannister pictured clearly is exactly the same one featured in the March 2001 image of Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell on the first-floor landing of the property.In 2019, Shaun Attwood of ‘Shaun Attwood’s True Crime Channel’ interviewed a lady who answered the door at 44 Kinnerton Street. In the footage he subsequently uploaded to YouTube, the bannister is again seen still in-situ.
Late December 2024 – £200,000 is slashed off the listing price of the property, taking the asking price to £3.25 million ($4.09 million, €3.92 million or درهم15 million), a sum 86% higher than the April 2021 selling price.
Early December 2024 – 44 Kinnerton Street is again listed for sale, this time by Chestertons. It is priced at £3.45 million ($4.34 million, €4.16 million or درهم15.94 million), a sum 97% higher than the April 2021 selling price, but is now available on a freehold instead of leasehold basis.
18th November 2023 – The Sun’s Jane Matthews reported that 44 Kinnerton Street was “getting a major revamp” and was “covered in scaffolding.” Matthews suggested “the new owners” were thought to be a developer and quoted a management accountant named Wendy Howard, “who has worked on Kinnerton Street for ten years,” as saying: “I know [representatives of Maxwell] sold the property fairly quickly and for a discount. I’m surprised, it’s not really the type of house anyone would want to buy. It really has the wrong associations. Personally, I thought the whole situation was seedy and very disappointing… You do see some tourist groups going past, but it’s not very well known that Maxwell used to live around here. Sometimes you see people filming or making documentaries, so sometimes people ask about the house, but not too often.”
19th October 2022 – The MailOnline’s Stewart Carter reported that “locals refuse to talk about the black spot on their street” in an article that also suggested the house “has not been lived in since Maxwell sold it… to pay her legal fees in 2021” and added: “It is collecting cobwebs and dust as locals grow increasingly frustrated about its eerie past.” Maxwell’s ‘friend’ – who was meant, but ultimately did not give in evidence in her trial, Kevin Moran, was referenced also. He stated: “It’s all investment – nobody lives here.”
14th January 2022 – Property website TheMoveMarket.com values the house at £2.11 million ($2.88 million, €2.53 million or درهم9.75 million), a sum 19% lower than the current asking price for the unrenovated property.
January 2022 – Estate agents Wellbelove Quested offer the mews house for £2.6 million ($3.6 million, €3.1 million or درهم1 million), an extraordinary increase of 49% on the sale price just 270 days earlier. The house is offered on a lease of 127 years that commenced on 24th June 2014 and previously on their website Wellbelove Quested had marketed the house for a higher price of £2.75 million ($3.738 million, €3.283 million or درهم13.731 million).
July 2021 – The Steeple Times reports on repainting work to the outside of the house being underway. An open door reveals the infamous staircase bannister to still be in-situ.
19th April 2021 – Records confirm the house to have been sold for £1.75 million ($2.39 million, €2.09 million or درهم79 million). Details about the beneficiary of the sum from this sale are not publicly available.
March 2021 – Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer offered cash from the “pending sale of her £1.45 million ($2 million, €1.74 million or درهم28 million)” home as part of a package when they sought bail for the mucky madam for a third time, the Daily Mail reported. This sum was 44% lower than the September 2020 asking price and 400% higher than the January 1997 purchase price.
March 2021 – A Knightsbridge estate agent told The Steeple Times: “Knowing the street as I do, 44 is one of the smaller houses which I assume it to be a little over 1,000 square foot in size. Depending on the condition, I estimate the freehold value to be circa £1.8 million to £2 million ($2.5 million to $2.7 million, €2.2 million to €2.4 million or 9درهم million to درهم10 million).”
December 2020 – Members of the Maxwell family attempted to raise finance on the property but are not successful, The Steeple Times learns from a financier with connections to the Maxwell family and their representatives. They were rejected on the basis of the “toxicity” of their familial name.
September 2020 – Estate agents Aylesford list 44 Kinnerton Street for sale for £2.6 million ($3.6 million, €3.1 million or درهم1 million) on (it was claimed) a freehold basis, a sum 797% than the January 1997 purchase price. They subsequently later reduce the asking price to £2.1 million ($2.9 million, €2.5 million or درهم10.5 million) “according to a leading property expert.”
August 2019 – According to Insider, a woman with “long hair [who] appeared to be in her 60s” was seen entering the property. She “denied that the socialite owns or lived in the house, claiming instead that the elusive socialite lived elsewhere down the street.”
10th March 2001 – Prince Andrew allegedly had sexual relations with 17-year-old Virginia Roberts in a bathroom in the property. He continues to deny this occurred whilst claiming that a photograph of himself with Miss Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell on the first floor of building is a fake also.
22nd January 1997 – Ghislaine Maxwell paid £290,000 ($396,000, €347,000 or درهم5 million) for the three-storey leasehold mews house. It is situated at the heart of the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estate.
1989 to 1995 – Ghislaine Maxwell is known to have resided at 69 Stanhope Mews East, South Kensington, London, SW7 5QT. Her father bought it for her two years before his mysterious death and she reportedly “groomed and befriended Minor Victim 3 in London, England, between approximately 1994 and 1995… Maxwell introduced Minor Victim 3 to Epstein and during those interactions, Maxwell encouraged Minor Victim 3 to massage Epstein, knowing that Epstein would engage in sex acts with Minor Victim 3. During those massages, Epstein sexually abused Minor Victim 3” at that very property. It was sold for £267,000 ($365,000, €320,000 or درهم3 million) on 15th March 1995 and then again for £1.75 million ($2.39 million, €2.10 million or درهم8.77 million) on 30th August 2019.
Further images of the house (as presented in December 2024) illustrate internal redecoration has occurred, but that not much has been done with the external roof terrace…
THAT 2001 Photo STILL NOT PROVEN A FAKE – The 10th March 2001 photograph of Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia
The photograph, taken supposedly by Jeffrey Epstein on the first-floor landing at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, London, SW1X 8ES, United Kingdom, has been shared by the world’s media in hundreds of thousands of articles and analysed countless times by countless experts.
In November 2019, the Daily Mail’s Inderdeep Bains called it: “The photograph that WON’T go away” and it, as of date, has NEVER been discredited. Amongst evidence suggesting it to be perfectly real is that:
The setting of the photograph has been confirmed as genuine by the Maxwell family. Of it, in March 2021, Ian Maxwell told Radio 4’s Today programme: “I do recognise that setting.”
The window in the picture has the same features as the front first floor windows of 44 Kinnerton Street.
The width of the first floor landing is accurate to the measurements shown in the floor plan of the sales brochure prepared on the 14th October 2021 by estate agents Wellbelove Quested.
Though he claimed to be “at a loss to explain this particular photograph” during the 2019 BBC interview, the Duke of York has admitted to having visited 44 Kinnerton Street. He stated: “I don’t think I think ever went upstairs… The dining room and everything was on the ground floor.” Contradicting the royal, sources have claimed that the room behind him, Roberts and Maxwell in the photograph was used as a sitting room.
The heights of all three individuals in the picture look to be accurate proportionately.
Prince Andrew’s “chubby fingers” are clear to see. The Queen’s second son’s fingers are clearly “chubby fingers” and these very same “chubby fingers” have been seen hundreds of thousands of times in hundreds of thousands of other photographs.
Prince Andrew has claimed he only ever goes out in London in a suit and tie. Images of him in open necked shirts in the capital – including one of him leaving the nightclub Chinawhite – prove to the contrary.
Prince Andrew has claimed he does not “do” hugs and and embraces in photographs. Images of him taken in St Tropez embracing the US socialite Chris Von Aspen in July 2007 suggest the alleged non-sweater is wrong also on that score.
The outfit worn by Virginia Roberts – a woman who has already received financial settlements from Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell – has been seen on her in photographs of her at Naomi Campbell’s 2001 birthday party in France. In spite of some suggestions that a lady only wears an outfit once, we counter that a lady in Miss Roberts’ unfortunate situation would be forced to wear what she was told appealed to those in control of her wished her to wear.
Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times and Shaun Attwood of Shaun Attwood’s True Crime Channel have both seen inside 44 Kinnerton Street and the stair rail shown in the photo remains in place and is thus genuine to the setting. Attwood subsequently released film footage of this on his YouTube channel and The Steeple Times shared its most recent image of the open front door with the stair rail beyond in July 2021.
Many experts have repeatedly stated photo manipulation was in its infancy at the time that this image first surfaced.
The FBI have never questioned the authenticity of the image.
The TRUE FAKE PHOTO – The August 2019 photograph of Ghislaine Maxwell at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant
It must be remembered that the now convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell was likely involved in leaking that infamous “too perfect” photoshopped image of herself at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Los Angeles in August 2019. Aside from this wicked woman – whom bangs on about being vegan constantly now – “planting herself for a double-double” burger, that image was subsequently debunked by The Cut. For them, Bridget Read stated:
“The intrepid Daily Mail checked out the location of the burger joint in Hollywood where Maxwell was allegedly spotted by a regular last week and found some odd discrepancies. Notably, a bus stop in the background of the shot shows an advertisement for the movie Good Boys – which the company that operates the ad space said has never been there. The bus stop currently displays an ad for a local hospital, which it says has been there since July 28. Maxwell was supposedly photographed at the In-N-Out on August 12.”
“Questions about Maxwell’s lunch outing have fed into the already robust set of conspiracy theories around Epstein, his high-profile acquaintances, and his death. Why was a second smartphone on the In-N-Out table? Why did Maxwell never stick a straw in either her soda or her shake? Why did the diner who supposedly photographed her have such a nice camera, with a lens that took a very clear photo? It doesn’t help that the In-N-Out employees at that location have been forbidden, supposedly by their employer, to talk about Maxwell’s visit.”
“If [family friend and attorney Leah] Saffian did indeed leak the photo of Maxwell, it was likely to try and throw the FBI off her scent… If the In-N-Out photo is indeed doctored, Maxwell could be anywhere and could show up anywhere she pleases. What’s next? Some predictions: eating a hot dog on the steps of the Met, posing with a cactus at Joshua Tree, riding a unicycle at Burning Man, or painting her nails on the C train.”
Tardis-like hidden house in Knightsbridge once home to ‘airhead’ Donna Air – who once amusingly asked The Corrs: “Where did you all meet?” – for sale for £14.5 million (or 383% more than it was ‘worth’ in 2003)
Update, Thursday 4th April 2024 – Internal images removed at insistence of Annabel Edney, associate PR, Savills.
The ‘cheap wing’ of one of Knightsbridge’s landmark churches, St Saviour’s, has gone on sale for a not-insubstantial sum of £14.5 million after the more ‘expensive wing’ was marketed for the very punchy sum of £55 million in 2019 and the still somewhat punchy sum of £44 million in 2020.
The deceptively Tardis-like Hastings House in Walton Street is a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ home from the pavement. It is entered through a small door to the side of a church that was reduced in size to accommodate the vast 12,102 square foot St Saviour’s House and the new-build in 1999 property of 5,261 square foot now offered by agents Savills.
Actress and presenter Donna Air – who once hilariously asked the siblings that formed The Corrs: “Where did you all meet?” during an interview – numbers amongst the well-known ‘names’ to have lived in the house. This likeable lady shared the property with her wealthy conservationist then partner Damian Aspinall and even operated her even more hilariously named company (since dissolved) Airhead And Money Limited from the address.
Occupied also variously by a fast-living, Bugatti driving oil trader named Pierre Andurand and the controversial Italian sports manager Pierandrea Semeraro, the three-storey residence is centred around a “serene” private courtyard and includes 2 reception rooms, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a rather impressive roof terrace.
Savills describe the freehold house as “opulent” and laud “one of the crowning jewels of the residence,” its underground pool, as a “hidden gem” in the basement; perhaps Sharon Corr and her siblings could hold a reunion there.
Actress and presenter Donna Air and conservationist Damian Aspinall with James Middleton – Air’s partner between 2013 and 2018 – and Victoria Fisher – whom Aspinall married in 2016. Aspinall and Air were an item between 2000 and 2007. Donna Air’s most famous moment on the telly box was summed up in an interview with Sharon Corr of the Celtic pop band The Corrs. Of the encounter, Corr stated: “We did a live television interview with Donna Air. Her opening question was: ‘So, where did you all meet?’ I looked at my brother and sisters and our hearts sank. If that was the opening question, it could only go downhill from there. It was clear that she knew absolutely nothing about us.”Oil trading tycoon Pierre Andurand and sports tycoon Pierandrea Semeraro have also both been listed at the address in Companies House records. How long each of the men lived at the property is unknown.
The Names & Numbers – Hastings House, Walton Place, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1SA, United Kingdom
March 2024 – Offered for sale as an “ultra-cool freehold house” by William Duckworth-Chad and Alex Christian of Savills for £14.5 million ($18.3 million, €17 million or درهم67.2 million) – an asking price 123% higher than the asking price 20 years ago in March 2004 and 383% higher than the quoted worth in May 2003 – and described by Robb Report’s Abigail Montanez as a “stately London home hiding in plain sight… in the affluent Knightsbridge neighbourhood.”
April 2012 – Richard Compton Miller for The Standard bizarrely contradicts previous evidence and suggests Damian Aspinall and Donna Air “recently moved into [the] converted church.” It can only be assumed he was regurgitating somewhat outdated parish news.
April 2010 – Listed as the address of French “entrepreneur” Pierre Andurand on his appointment as a director of Andurand Events Limited company. The company ultimately was dissolved on 28th June 2011 after a compulsory strike-off.
Aixe-en-Provence born Mr Andurand is listed on Wikipedia as a “businessman and hedge fund manager” who was educated at the University of Oxford. This twice married “leader” of Andurand Capital has variously been listed as a “star trader,” an “oil trading wildcard” and someone who operates with “no set risk limits.” World Top Investors list this kickboxing enthusiast as “the comeback kid, the hotshot trader living the jock-bro dream, driving a Bugatti supercar, a Knightsbridge townhouse, and a trophy wife Russian model.”
23rd January 2007 – A planning application submitted by the Italian sports manager Pierandrea Semeraro concerning the property is approved.
Mr Semeraro is listed on Wikipedia as having been the president of the Sports Union Lecce from 2006 to 2010. He was subsequently banned and disqualified after an investigation into a football betting scandal.
November 2006 – Planning application submitted to make various alterations to Hastings House by a firm named Stanhope Gate including the addition of skylights.
April 2004 – Described by the Daily Mail’s Adam Helliker as being the “weekday… converted church” home where “daughter of a bus mechanic from Newcastle” who “has, by all accounts, rather taken to the life of luxury” Donna Air “busies herself with acting lessons, acupuncture, shiatsu and stints with her personal trainer.”
March 2004 – Featured once again by The Observer’s Ben Flanagan after going on sale for the far higher than he’d previously mentioned sum of £6.5 million ($8.2 million, €7.6 million or درهم30.1 million) through the rather ritzy realtors Aylesford.
Of it, Flanagan enthused:
“Behind a discreet doorway on an exclusive Knightsbridge street lies this 5,250 sq ft home, which the estate agent describes as ‘one of London’s hidden gems.’”
“You’d never guess the house was built in the 1990s as you wander through its elegant Italianate central courtyard to the neo-classical cloisters and drawing room. One clue, however, is the basement swimming pool and bar, which has a more modern – if a little Footballers’ Wives – look… ‘There’s an amazing ‘party pad’ feel to it,’ says a spokesman.”
May 2003 – Described by The Observer’s Ben Flanagan as worth £3 million ($3.8 million, €3.5 million or درهم13.9 million) in a feature that mentions it being the home of actress Donna Air and zoo owning tycoon Damian Aspinall.
28th July 2000 – Listed as the correspondence address of “presenter” Donna Air’s amusingly named “radio and television activities” company, Airhead And Money Limited. The company ultimately was dissolved on 1st March 2011 after a compulsory strike-off.
4th September 1998 – Full planning permission granted for the construction of Hastings House by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. Of the planning history of the unlisted property then to be constructed, the council noted separately: “The subject site was formerly included within the ground of the St Saviour’s Church, which is a listed building, however following planning permission which was granted in August 1997 for the erection of the subject building, the subject site has been formally renumbered in 2001 as Hastings House and is considered as a separate planning unit to St Saviours Church.”
What was Martin Frizell thinking in allowing carbonara munching Sarah, Duchess of York to guest edit and co-host ‘This Morning’ and what was he thinking in pairing her up with the creepy Christian crooner and “fat shamer” Sir Cliff Richard?
Frizzell – whom was deservedly condemned by John Nicholson MP as “outrageously dismissive and flippant on camera about [the] immensely serious issue” of the Phillip Schofield scandal back in June during a hearing of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee – is definitely a chap with skin thicker than an aubergine. However, in inviting “needy and greedy” Sarah, Duchess of York to guest edit and co-host ITV1’s flagship morning show, he most certainly scored yet another own goal and most definitely caused another nail to be banged into this tacky show’s coffin.
Featuring a segment in which ‘Feckless Fergie’ apparently decided a winner of Iron Chef UK in 2010 named Marcus Bean should cook her carbonara – a rather simple to make dish she claimed she’d never actually seen being made before – here was an example of a car crash calamity that lasted an excruciating two-and-a-half hours. In it, the live-in ex-wife of non-sweaty ‘Randy’ Prince Andrew laughed like a hyena and pranced like a show pony; she had no idea what she was doing and quite frankly brought shame on her royal relatives.
Whilst one should ask if this tawdry twerp – whom, during a phone-in segment about relationships, crassly advised ‘Suzanne from Newcastle’ to start wearing “saucy underwear sets” to spice up her and her hubby’s somewhat lacking sex lives – had sought out the advice of His Majesty King Charles’s advisors before agreeing to a television ‘outing’ of this type, another question has to be: “How much was this mother of two princesses paid for what could be the first of a series of “co-host” appearances?”
“It’s your show, I’ll be the fluff” giggled the former Sarah Ferguson as the show started. By the end, she was lauded as having “totally undersold [herself]” by a somewhat soppy Dermot O’Leary, but her final guest of choosing just truly illustrated what a prized pillock this wastrel wazzock genuinely, really genuinely is.
Whilst some – myself included in the past – have pointed out that this apologist for a Pizza Express loving prince known best for hanging around with despots and dictators and for paying around £12 million to a woman he allegedly did not have sexual relations often exhibits childish ways in her way of thinking, her description of Devil Woman singer ‘Cliffy’ was yet another in a long line of outings of her appallingly bad judgment.
After bigging-up the one-time mate of the croaked child abuser Rolf Harris as “humble and kind,” the “Peter Pan of Pop” turned nasty. He spoke of how he hadn’t wanted to be photographed with Elvis Presley because “he’d put on weight… If I’m having him hanging on my refrigerator, of course he’s got to look good” and did so in front of a self-professed ‘larger’ lady, Alison Hammond. Then “put in his place,” as the MailOnline’s Laura Parkin referenced the response to the museli muncher, Hammond quipped back: “You should never have put it off just because they’re a little bit heavier… Is that why you don’t want me at your house?” Bizarrely, Fergie didn’t bat an eyelid.
On Monday 20th November on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Is it appropriate for non-sweaty Prince Andrew’s live-in ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York to lower herself to ‘co-hosting’ funeral queue-jumper’s favourite show ‘This Morning’?” He added the hahtags: #ThisMorning #ITV #Fergie #DuchessOfYork #PrinceAndrew #royal #royalty #outrage #disgrace and of the four available responses, 43.7% favoured the answer: “No – Shameful; Tacky” whilst 33.7% opted for “No – Shows ITV’s decline.” Just 14.2% felt: “Yes – She’s a fun choice” whilst only 8.4% supported: “Yes – She needs the wonga.”On the same day, ‘The Mirror’ asked: “Do you think Cliff Richard’s comments on ‘This Morning’ were inappropriate?” 83% of respondents unsurprisingly answered: “Yes, they were.”
Feckless Fergie’s ‘This Morning’ F**k-up… The Main Moments…
To her This Morning co-hosts Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary on Monday 20th November 2023: “We’re on. I’m terrified. It’s your show, I’ll be the fluff.”
Appropriately given her penchant for wonga-wonga (especially from the likes of the late, not-so-great Jeffrey Epstein), whilst spinning a wheel in a game named Spin to Win: “Show me the money.”
Asked by Dermot O’Leary: “Can you just give us a little insight into what Christmas dinner is like with the royal family?” the normally turbo-tongued Fergie answered: “Beans on toast.”
Asked about her relationships with people: “I prefer animals. It’s all about kindness.”
“I think I’ve been around the block. It’s cool to be here, but cool people don’t say it’s cool.”
Of what she gets upto in relationships: “I used to leave love notes…. I love a little note in the pocket. I love the moment where he suddenly or she suddenly puts their hand in the pocket and sees a love note. I used to do that – put them in the squash shoes.”
During a phone-in about relationships whilst playing at being an agony aunt: “Ask me just about anything, ring in about love, relationships, hard times.” (ITV clearly did not allow anyone to phone in about ‘Randy’ Prince Andrew nor the many times ‘Feckless Fergie’ has dragged the royal family’s ‘good name’ through the mire).
Illustrating that she hasn’t a clue how to boil a bowl of pasta, to her carbonara cook, Marcus Bean: “You’re very good looking… Do people really listen to him whilst in the bath?”
“I really love that you have shown me how to [cook carbonara] and that is the first time I have seen it done.”
To a caller, Suzanne from Newcastle, wanting relationship advice: “Yah. Get a lovely saucy underwear set from your chest of drawers, blow dry the hair and take him out on a treat… It’s the element of surprise and it will bring the magic back into your relationship… It needs to be more treats that he’s lost for words.”
“You’ve got this Suzanne and I’m so proud of you calling today and being so brave to ring us. Well done you. Now, get that sexy underwear out.”
To other callers, clearly not realising the ongoing cost of living crisis for most viewers: “There need to be more treats. Treats. Treats. Treats… Lovely, lovely restaurants and lovely hotels.”
To a caller whose husband likes climbing: “You could say: Darling, I’ve booked your favourite place to climb, I will just be, you know, just waiting when you come back, you go climbing and when you come back we can have a lovely weekend with the saucy underwear on… Rekindle.”
Of Artificial Intelligence (AI): “I don’t think anyone watching should be frightened of AI. Maybe, progressing, going forward, it can be a useful tool.”
Of looking after rehomed dogs: “Do you shave the chest first if they are ‘vairy’ hairy?”
Of creepy Christian crooner Sir Cliff Richard: “I’m lost for words and that’s just very unlike me… You are a musical treasure… You’re incredible, I can’t get over it, it’s just incredible… All those hip moves.”
“You really are as humble and as kind as you always have been. How do you do that?” (He pompously answered: “For me, it comes easily.”
To the tawdry presenters of ITV1’s Loose Women whilst Gloria Hunniford danced like a fool just before the end of her first This Morning guest edit and co-host session: “I feel like I’m back home again.”
The Media Response…
Stuart Heritage, The Guardian (1 star out of 5): “Sarah Ferguson’s love tips make a doomed show even more disastrous… Can the Duchess of York present TV? Not one bit. Does the Autocue short-circuit her brain? Oh yes. Will she save this sinking ship? Never?”
“Is Sarah Ferguson an experienced television presenter? No she is not. Does she look as if she has ever watched a single episode of daytime television in her life? Also no. Can she read full sentences? On the basis of her performance today, it’s debatable. Did the whole thing stink of a publicity stunt designed purely to drown out the show’s obvious death rattle? God, yes.”
“Clearly, the heroes here are Hammond and O’Leary, two exceptionally safe pairs of hands, who managed to guide Ferguson through the show in the same way you help a drunk friend safely through their front door. The presenters were perfect foils to the duchess throughout and this stupid attention-seeking act would have fallen apart in seconds without them.”
“Let’s be clear, getting Ferguson to host This Morning was a very silly idea. None of it made for good, or even very competent, television. But it did give you the same sort of thrill that you got at school whenever a dog broke through the fence and started running around the playing field. For a show that’s in as much trouble as This Morning is, it just about counts as a victory.”
Tina Campbell for The Standard: “Viewers have been left unimpressed by Sarah, Duchess of York’s ‘painful’ co-hosting debut.”
Jan Moir, Daily Mail: “Sarah, Duchess of York, guest-edited and co-presented a special edition of This Morning (ITV) on Monday. I want to be honest. I want to be kind. Yet when it comes to the Duchess in a live television situation, these two virtues become mutually and volcanically exclusive.”
“From 10am until the show ended, 150 white-knuckle minutes later, the Ferg launching herself on to daytime television, like Icarus in reverse thrust, was every bit as marvelously terrible as I had hoped.”
“Hard to pick a highlight amongst the word-mangling, corgi-wrangling spaghetti cook-in and the interview with Sir Cliff Richard (Fergie: ‘You really are as humble and as kind as you always have been, how do you do that?’ Sir Cliff: ‘For me, it comes easily.’ But her brief turn as a phone-in agony aunt was exquisite.”
“‘Basically she has been around the block and she is here to help,’ said host Dermot O’Leary, making Fergie sound like an obliging pony with a dodgy past and the foamy fetlocks to match – and to be fair, that is not a million miles from the truth.”
“In her green outfit and pixie boots, she looked like Mad Mother Elf, a panto character in search of a plot, which also kind of sums up her life to date… Still, this may have been the most exciting episode of This Morning in the show’s history.”
The Twitter Response…
“Sorry, I tuned out… I haven’t unclenched my fists since 10am.”
“The whole Sarah Ferguson thing is so random and actually quite awkward to watch.”
“Any comment about ‘Mr Humble’ fat shaming Elvis, making Alison having to comment with no support from you [Sarah, Duchess of York] or Dermot? You’ve had terrible things said about your weight, but still groveled to that vile man [Sir Cliff Richard]. State of him.”
“How weird that This Morning got rid of John Leslie, Fred Talbot and Phillip Schofield – but they bring in the paedophile loan taker Sarah Ferguson.”
“‘How do we keep our spark alive?’ … Sarah Ferguson… Letting your husband go on a lads’ holiday. If has a mate with a private island in the Caribbean, that’s ideal. Always used to cheer Andrew right up!”
“Husband said this morning that Sarah, Duchess of York giving relationship advice is like the fox in the hen house teaching chickens.”
“Oh dear, Sarah Ferguson – who “sold Andrew for £500,000 in cash for royal access scandal” – gets her own television programme show. #ThisMorning.”
“So Cliff Richard fat shaming Elvis and saying he didn’t want a photo of him hanging on his fridge forever. After, Sarah Ferguson called him ‘humble.’ What the actual heck?”
“Who on earth thought Sarah Ferguson would make good telly?”
“Sarah Ferguson mentioned on Epstein flight logs, but This Morning wants to hire her. Has anyone asked any questions about this?”
The Previous Weird Words of “Greedy” and “Needy” Freeloader Sarah, Duchess of York…
Sarah, Duchess of York, the live-in ex-wife at Royal Lodge, Windsor of supposedly skint ‘Randy Andy’ – a non-sweating nuisance who got his long-suffering relatives to pay a supposed sum of circa £12 million to Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a woman he has previously claimed to have met – is known for her weird warblings. They number:
Of sex, herself and goats: “One of the worst headlines said 82% [of the population] would rather sleep with a goat than Fergie. It’s never left me.”
Of her writing novels and her style: “Sherlock Holmes meets Peaky Blinders.”
Of the royal family: “They tried to put the little redhead in a cage.”
Of her own family: “I do believe in family unity. I think forgiveness is key.”
Of the Duke of York: “A good man… In 1986, I married a very good man. Zip.”
Of whether she might remarry Prince Andrew: “Oh bless your heart, no. I think we’re great as we are.”
Of supporting her disgraced ex-husband financially: “I will always be there [for Prince Andrew].”
“When Andrew went through a hard time, I used to be able to throw it to ‘The Boss.’”
“Since he stepped back [from royal duties] he doesn’t actually take taxpayers’ money and I’m in a position where I can support him and the rest of the family through my work. And I’m really pleased and proud to do that.”
“All I will say is that for many years now – it started with Budgie the Little Helicopter – I’ve really pushed to look after my girls and to contribute to the York family life.”
Of where she and the Duke of York will end up living in the future: “Honestly, I operate from living in the present. You never get complacent and it makes for a better day because you never get disappointed, then. You look at life and you go, we can adapt, we can be flexible.”
Of whether she might remarry someone else: “I think I’ve got too much baggage. I look at today and if suddenly I find love again, well, that’s another bonus, isn’t it?”
Of her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie: “Exceptional… I love my girlies, I’m so proud of them. They are exceptional children… If mum’s OK, they’re OK.”
“My daughters come first in my life, they always have. Because I lost my mum so early, I’m subconsciously very present with them. When I brought them up, I always left my problems at the door. Your problem is not their problem – it’s not their fault. We laugh together a lot. We are just very close.”
Of her grandchildren: “I’m ‘Super Gran’… When my grandchildren see me, they immediately laugh because they know I’m going to be up to something, up to no good somewhere.”
“Every time I think about about co-parenting and co-grandparenting and about divorce, marriage and all these different things, I still come back to the principle that the sun will come up tomorrow, and be grateful, just get on with it.”
Of the late Queen Elizabeth II: “For me, she was more a mother than my own mother. Aren’t I the luckiest person alive to have had that great honour? When I was with her, I used to say: ‘I can’t believe it. People wait and put on their best dress to have an audience with you, and I’m wandering around the garden in wellies!’”
“For the whole nation, for the world. Steadfast, consistent, iconic. [She had an] extraordinary ability to put someone at ease. I still now think it was such an honour [to have known her].”
“During the last three years, her poor son [was] going through such a tumultuous time… And I think HM was very relieved I could help her with him, so we became even closer, then.”
“I’m so lucky. All my life, I was lucky enough to know ‘The Boss,’ HM. Like the nation and the world, she was always there. It was like having a hand at your back. It just made you always strive for being better and trying to be better, learning from her, whenever you were with her just taking everything she said as a memory. She was such an incredible legend for us all.”
Of the late Queen’s corgis: “They’re very good boys, they’re very gentle. I think they knew that they weren’t to jump up and be naughty. They used to sit and watch the racing with her. And when you give them a biscuit, they don’t snatch. They’re very special, they’re national treasures.”
“They really make me laugh and the follow me around. Sometimes I break a little ‘biccie’ – a digestive biscuit – in the same way the Queen broke it into little pieces, and give it to them and tell them to remember their boss.”
Of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex: “I have been judged all my life, and I have no judgment on the Sussexes.”
“It must be hard for Meghan and can I relate to her. I believe she is modern and fabulous. She was famous before. She is great. Why can’t Meghan be great? Why can’t she be celebrated? I have been in Meghan’s shoes, and I still am. There’s always a twist of negativity and it just gets so sad and tiring… I abhor bullying and I feel desperately sorry for the pain they must be going through.”
“I believe very strongly that I have absolutely no judgment on any other person’s life, and I look at how much she [Meghan] loves him [Harry] and loves the children and gives him a love that he’s never had before. That’s how I look at it… The most important thing is, Diana would be so very proud of Archie and Lili. She would have adored every moment of it.”
Of King Charles III: “It’s incredible what he’s done for the environment. He was a trailblazer and many years ago, everybody said: ‘What’s he talking about?’ But he’s right. I’m a great believer and supporter of him, as I am of the Queen Consort.”
Of herself and her life: “I have been in the gutter.”
“I’m a brilliant mother. The best mother.”
“I don’t believe that any single person has the right to judge another person. I’m not in a position myself to make any judgments.”
“I’m very steadfast and stoic… I won’t let anyone down. I’m very loyal.”
Being rather wishy-washy: “The most important thing is that the sun will come up tomorrow and the day will move on.”
Of food, family and dining: “As long as it is hot, wet and goes down the right way, it’s fine with me.”
“With every smell, I smell food. With every sight, I see food. I can almost hear food. I want to spade the whole lot through my mouth at Mach 2. Basta!”
“We all sit round the table and eat together. Andrew and I believe in total parent unity. We’re best friends.”
On the coronation of King Charles III: “Well I’ve decided the best thing about British around a coronation – although I’ve never been to one – I think we should, I should set up a tea room at the bottom of the drive with bunting and cakes.”
“Never presume, never assume. I don’t know. But I’ll be there at the end of the drive with a cup of tea if I’m not there.”
Of wanting to be a television star: “I would quite like to go on Dancing With The Stars. I would like somebody to teach me to tango. I do know the show and my children would be so proud of me.”
On Americans: “I divorced, went to America, wrote a book, went on Oprah and did 12 years as the longest running spokesperson of Weight Watchers. I looked to America to support me and to help me and I really can’t thank the American people enough for what they gave me and what they did for me.”
Of when she decided she wanted to bag a royal: “I met [Prince Andrew] when I was 12, and I said: ‘I’m going to marry him.’”
Of marriage, divorce and work: “I left my marriage knowing I’d have to work. I have.”
“I didn’t want a divorce, but had to because of circumstance.”
“I wish we’d never got divorced. He and I both wish we’d never divorced, but we did. I wish I could go back and be the bride again, but I can’t.”
Of her many, many mistakes: “I felt that I ostracised myself by my behaviour, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes, that I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day thinking and regretting why did I make such a mistake. Why have I made so many mistakes?”
“You look at the devil in the face, which you do. Then you forgive, and you say: ‘OK, I’ve made almost a mistake that will never be forgotten,’ and forgive.”
“I think the obstacles are the way, as opposed to in the way. I feel very strongly that I completely and utterly own my very naïve self and made endless different wrong decisions, whatever they may be, but in the end, it’s got me to today as an author. I’m a person in my own right, I’m Sarah.”
“I was so out of control with desperation… I was looking for quick fixes in the places I wouldn’t normally look… I’ve been a huge overtrusting, idiotic, stupid woman that went to look for the perfect situation, and that’s all I can say really.”
“I’ve done the work to get to myself. I’ve done masses of mental therapy. I probably reached to the wrong places and the wrong people and made, as you call it, mistakes. I don’t call them mistakes. I call them enormous learning curves.”
EXCLUSIVE – As ‘Finding Freedom’ author Omid Scobie is snapped at The Dorchester in a pyjama-like outfit, we remind readers of some of the traits and oddities of this bizarre PR peddler for the Duchess of Sussex
Just three days prior to the coronation of King Charles III, the widely respected journalist Alexis Parr – a lady of stature whom was one of the first to call out the various pieces of fake news peddled by the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle – literally ran into a bedroom wear-clad Omid Scobie as he left London’s ritziest hotel, The Dorchester.
Speaking exclusively to The Steeple Times of her encounter with the YahooNewsUK ‘executive editor (royals)’ columnist – a plastic-not-fantastic-like creature known for continually banging on about his prominence on what he bizarrely labels “the royal beat” – Parr remarked:
“I was surprised to see Scobie as I got out of a cab and asked him where he got his pyjama-like outfit from. He answered: ‘Moss Bros’ and in response I jokingly quipped: ‘Surely you didn’t hire THAT.’”
“He looked at me sheepishly and then – though he allegedly doesn’t imbibe – told me he’d been to a party in the hotel. Sadly, I didn’t get to ask him about his supposedly claiming he was 33 when he was in fact 38 in 2020 or how he has so suddenly and so conveniently remembered discussions with Piers Morgan about phone hacking at The Mirror when he was just 18 years old in 2002 as he clambered into my cab and fled for the hills.”
“I will say that ‘recollections may vary’ was a very accurate analysis by the late Queen of Scobie’s ‘friend’ Meghan and I must add that they clearly do in his case too. I do hope he went home and put on something more suitable for his next engagement.”
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – Alexis Parr snapped Omid Scobie as she arrived and he left The Dorchester on 3rd May 2023 (left) and a promotion for the PR peddler’s forthcoming book ‘Endgame’ (right).
This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Will Meghan Markle’s mouthpiece Omid Scobie prove to be a help or a hinderance when he gives evidence in Prince Harry v Mirror Group News (MGN) court case this week?” By 11:30am on Monday 15th May 2023, the majority of respondents very clearly favoured the answer: “No; he’s spinning yarns.”Omid Scobie is due to testify in court this week in the Prince Harry v Mirror Group News case. According to ‘The Daily Beast’s’ Tom Sykes: “He will testify that when interning at the showbiz desk of MGN Sunday paper ‘The People’ he was given a list of mobile telephone numbers and a verbal description of how to listen to voicemails, as if it were a routine newsgathering technique… [He] will say that he saw Piers Morgan being told that ‘the information had come from voicemails,’ when he questioned a story about the singer Kylie Minogue.”Scobie was called out for allegedly telling ‘porky pies’ by ‘The Sun’s’ Alex Winter in September 2020 in an article titled: “THIRTY-SOMETHING: Omid Scobie tries to explain claims he ‘lied’ to The Times after it was reported he is 33 – when he is actually 38.” The ‘Finding Freedom’ co-author’s bizarre behaviour was unsurprisingly labelled “baffling.”In August 2020, the ‘Daily Mail’ shared that plastic-not-fantastic Omid previously worked at gossip magazine ‘Heat’ and partied with the ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh. They mentioned how somebody had “airbrushed” Meghan Markle’s “entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia… to include more flattering details days before her romance with Prince Harry became public” and illustrated the ‘Finding Freedom’ author’s “drastic transformation” in two very different photographs.Illustrating himself to be anything but a real journalist, “influencer” Scobie told the ‘Women in Leadership Publication’: “A casual follower be forgiven for thinking that royal news is just fizzy commentary on the pomp and soap opera of The Firm” in their spring 2021 edition. He self-importantly added: “Reaching millions on Twitter has also enabled my own views and advocacy to travel further” and concluded: “I want to do everything I can to ensure that individuals from every background can get a seat at the table.” Here is someone far from a journalist; here, in fact, is someone who should just be called out as the Duchess of Sussex’s PR peddler.Whilst Omid Scobie’s podcast, #TheHeirPod, was “downgraded from ‘a real chore’ to ‘unlistenable’” according to ‘Royal Analysis,’ the true revelation is that it isn’t even popular in the places where it surely should be most relevant, Britain and America.An analysis of Omid Scobie’s Twitter feed clearly shows that a large proportion of his followers are a bit like himself: FAKE.
When he’s not bragging about wearing Balenciaga, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior or sharing photos of his dog, Yoshi, on his Instagram account, the ‘Finding Freedom’ author constantly bangs on about how he believes the royal family to have racist elements. His speculation is rarely supported by anything other than unnamed sources that give his suggestions little to no credibility.
Canadian waiter turned Soho House director Markus Anderson was allegedly the person to have introduced Prince Harry and the then Meghan Markle. This “champagne partial” individual has been repeatedly linked also to Omid Scobie online on sites such as Quora whilst the site ‘Royal Analysis’ has reported: “Well, apparently, Omid and Markus used to be very close. I don’t think it’s out of the question for Markus to have facilitated Meghan and Omid getting together to strategize about what positive press coverage Omid could give to Meghan.”
What’s the truth about the many ‘curious stories’ that abound about the Duchess of Sussex?
Of her claiming having got married the day before she actually did, Mr Markle stated: “Lying about the archbishop? How can you say: ‘We’ve been married three days before we got married’? Her lies are so obvious, I don’t know why she says them.”
Her very own half-sister, Samantha Markle, who is currently bringing a defamation case against her, has called her out as a liar on multiple occasions also. It has been proven that the duchess’s claim that she hasn’t seen her sibling in over 20 years was untrue given a photo of the pair together 14 years ago proves quite to the contrary.
Her very own half-brother, Thomas Jr., said of her: “I told Prince Harry, I think she’s going to ruin your life. She’s very shallow… She’s a phony, a bully, a jaded, shallow, conceited woman.”
The wife of Prince Harry has been called out on multiple occasions for spinning stories against other members of the royal family, most especially the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Queen Camilla.
Staff who’ve worked for her have complained that she is a bully and investigations into this remain ongoing.
The Duchess of Sussex is a known manipulator of the press and paparazzis and it has been claimed that she’ll “twist the truth” to get any headline she wants.
Questions remain as to how many times she’s actually been married in total. Some say twice, some say thrice.
What’s the truth about Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland? Is this clearly equally manipulative woman an honest and decent citizen or is she a jailbird who has spent time in the clink?
Did the ‘Montecito Meddler’ meet Prince Andrew or Prince Harry first? Rumours abound that she could have spent time and holidayed with the former as long ago as 2001 and that her claim to have no prior knowledge of the royal family until 2016 is just utter baloney.
Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”
Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.
“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.
14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.
Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.
Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”
Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.
Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.” Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history. Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.
The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom
April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).
2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.
2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.
October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.
January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”
Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”
Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”
Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:
“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”
“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of TheTelegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”
“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”
“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”
2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.
28th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”
1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).
Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.
1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).
1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.
1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).
Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”
1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”
1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”
More photographs of the £36 million mansion…
An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Soppy scrag-end Omid Scobie gets slammed for attacking real journalists over coverage of his chums’ ‘Harry & Meghan’ Netflix debut; his fake news rant about Prince Andrew is simply ridiculous
Whatever the tedious traitors that are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do, one person can always be relied on to come out in support of their awful antics. That person? Their ever-reliable PR peddler, you’ve guessed it, the clubbing mate of not-so-glamorous ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh and former Heat columnist, the rabid ranter Omid Scobie.
Taking to Twitter yesterday, soppy scrag-end Scobie attempted to attack real media outlets for their coverage of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan. Clearly as is usually the case with this as always less than amused Oxfordshire born berk, the plastic-not-fantastic ‘co-author of Finding Freedomraged:
“Remember that time when all the papers universally dedicated days of outraged front pages, hysterical coverage and venomous opinion pieces about Prince Andrew? Yeah, me neither.”
“You’re reading the wrong newspapers” curtly corresponded Daily Mail journalist and author of the Wasted – the betrayal of white working class and black Caribbean boys report author Harriet Sergeant whilst another going by the handle ‘TheQueenshandbag’ shared a composite of nine front pages about Prince Andrew. They pointedly accompanied this with an “oh, do you not remember when [the Duke of York] did his TV appearance?”
Continuing, others condemned Scobie’s “selective memory issues” and suggested him to be “not very observant.” Some argued that both Prince Andrew and Prince Harry have been “as bad as one another” and that the actions of both men were “their choices.” One added: “The consequence was, at a time when she should have been mourning her late husband with the support of her family, the ruination of the last months of the Queen’s life.”
Elsewhere on on the socials yesterday, another of the rare few still supporting ‘Ginge & Cringe’ decided to throw one of his ever-famous tantrums and announced he’d be “no longer using Twitter.” Citing “misinformation is now being used to divide our world” as being behind his reasoning, the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle’s supplier of private-jets-on-tap, Sir Elton John, claimed the social media medium’s “recent change in policy” will “allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.” His moaning since 2016 about lacking a title hubby, David Furnish, no doubt personally directed this especially moronic missive. Pip pip Rocket Man!
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Scobie’s tweet did not go down well and the majority of the reaction to it was mockery of his continual arselicking of a couple who’ve never actually even been known to have bothered to pose for a photo with him. It speaks volumes that in spite of his loyalty and devotion to PR peddling for them, it can’t be long now before the Duchess of Sussex tires of his inability to get her good headlines; will he get thrown under the bus in 2023? The likelihood seems high.In their Netflix debut, ‘Ginge & Cringe’ very clearly disrespected their relatives and the mockery of the Queen especially by the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle over how she curtsied to her was an outrage. That her dimwitted drip of a husband allowed his wife to speak about his grandmother in this manner reflected very badly upon him as much as it did on her. Of such, television legend Christine Hamilton asked: “What sort of man just sits with a simpering smile while his wife deliberately mocks his own grandmother?”Scobie has shown why he uses Twitter in the past… Everything, just everything, has to be all about him; it’s no wonder he took up with Mrs Me-Me-Me Meghan Markle. Birds of a rotten feather.Yet again today, we remind the public who Omid Scobie really is. It is time for this irrelevant sh*t-stirrer to be cancelled. In 2023, we all look forward, instead, to the return of the legendary YouTube star Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’).
Twitter reacts to Scobie’s latest PR peddling nonsense…
As ‘Harry & Meghan’ premieres on Netflix, a video of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s supporter Marlene Headley (AKA ‘Negozi Fulani’) proves her to be nothing but an attention seeking grifter
On the day that Netflix’s ‘moanathon’ Harry & Meghan ‘drops’ millennial style, a video of that “grifter that’s gotta grift” Ngozi Fulani – whose name at birth was actually Marlene Headley – is also doing the rounds. In it, noxious nuisance Ms Headley, as many are now referencing this toxic troublemaker, is shown parading around blatantly telling people how she has to dress up to get noticed.
Clearly illustrating herself as someone prepared to act up in order to get any kind of attention at all, here again is proof that the entire debacle with Lady Susan Hussey was orchestrated and planned in a very twisted fashion. It was anything but a chance encounter on the part of Headley – a woman who previously effectively suggested our now Queen Consort, Camilla, to be someone who inflicted “domestic abuse” against the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle – and the victim in all this, it is becoming more and more apparent, was actually an 83-year-old who had served her nation diligently for over 60 years.
Yesterday, GB News reported that Ms Headley had issued a further statement about an incident she’d previously claimed she didn’t want to make a fuss about. On Monday, she supposedly ludicrously opined:
“What took place at the event is now well-documented, and sadly is something that occurs on an all too regular basis… I have experienced first-hand what happens when a black woman faces adversity and has to overcome additional barriers when trying to report it… I remain dedicated to raising awareness around cultural competency, and will go to Buckingham Palace, or anywhere else, if it will help raise positive change and save lives.”
Meanwhile elsewhere in the Daily Mail’s ‘Ephraim Hardcastle’ column this morning, reference was made to one half of the Duchess of Sussex’s supplier of private jets, Sir Elton John. It was noted:
“With Sir Elton John confirmed to headline Glastonbury, Prince Philip’s biographer Gyles Brandreth recalls sitting with the duke before a performance by the Rocket Man.”
“‘Looking at the programme,’ says Gyles, ‘Philip groaned, ‘Oh God, Elton John… again.’”
Sadly, still titleless David Furnish, Sir Elton’s other half and ‘close friend’ of Danny Williams, didn’t get a look-in and yet again the late Duke of Edinburgh was proven to be a far wiser sort than his drippy grandson in his observations on good and bad character.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.
Pictured Top (left to right) – Ngozi Fulani explaining how she dresses up to get attention in a video clip shared on TikTok; Prince Harry with his supplier of private jets Sir Elton John and hubby David Furnish; Lady Susan Hussey showing herself to actually be anything but a racist and the Duchess of Sussex called out for what she actually is: “The meanest girl in the world!”
Ngozi Fulani has repeatedly banged on about how she didn’t like Lady Susan Hussey having touched her during their encounter; the hypocrite, shown here behind Queen Consort Camilla at the very reception where that encounter occurred, is pictured touching somebody else and up close and personal with another. Here is somebody who has turned a storm in a teacup into almighty PR opportunity for nobody but her nasty self.The ‘Daily Mail’ had a pop at Sir Elton John on the day of his friend Prince Harry’s Netflix premiere. In mentioning that Prince Philip was anything but a fan of titleless David Furnish’s hubby, they pointedly showed the late Duke of Edinburgh to be a far better judge of character than his soppy grandson.When he’s not paddling around whilst holidaying in the land of olive oil, David Furnish (pictured here with the male ‘friend’ he bought a flat for, Danny Williams) likes to make programmes to air on Netflix with his female chum the Duchess of Sussex. The programmes, unsurprisingly, just like this dastardly duo themselves, don’t prove to be very popular.Today, with their Netflix premiere, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have signaled what should be next for them. This greedy, grasping, grubbing duo should be told: “It’s curtains for you!” by King Charles and then they should be sent off to where they belong: Siberia.
Twitter reacts to Ngozi Fulani’s ongoing publicity stunt at the expense of an 83-year-old pensioner…
![When asked about what occurred on the night of 10th March 2001 in the first-floor bathroom at her Kinnerton Street mews house, Ghislaine Maxwell responded: “[Virginia Roberts] then characterized [sic] things took place in my bathroom in the bathtub itself. The tub is too small for any kind of activity whatsoever.” The picture of that very same tub used in marketing material by Wellbelove Quested and more recently Chestertons proved exactly to the contrary.](https://www.thesteepletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ghislaine-Maxwell-bathtub-statement.png)
