Former mob boss Terry Adams has found £730,000 to avoid going to prison – nine months since he said he couldn’t find the money
Former mob boss Terry Adams has found £730,000 to avoid going to prison – nine months since he said he couldn’t find the money.
Adams, the former chief of London’s most notorious modern crime family, argued that handing over the cash after a 2007 money laundering conviction would breach his human rights.
In March he told the High Court he had insufficient funds to meet a debt of £651,611, which reached £730,000 because of interest and other charges.
But three judges rejected his claim after he was told of his ‘luxurious lifestyle’ including regular meals at the Dorchester, The Ivy and Brown’s in Mayfair.
Today the former Adams Family boss, also known as the A-Team, paid the huge sum, according to the Evening Standard, after years of resistance as he faced the threat of a two-and-a-half year jail term he branded ‘inhumane’.
A confiscation order of £730,000 was imposed in 2007 after he was jailed for seven years for conspiracy to conceal the proceeds of crime through money-laundering.
By August 2014, when High Court judge Mrs Justice Nicola Davies refused his application for a certificate of inadequacy to begin the process of getting a reduction, £651,611 was outstanding.
In March Lord Justice Longmore, Lord Justice Hamblen and Lord Justice Irwin in the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court decision.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) opposed his application, saying there was a strong case that Adams possessed ‘substantial undisclosed assets’.
The judge said she was not satisfied that Adams had provided ‘full and candid disclosure’.
Adams had previously repaid about £360,000 from the sale of his £1.5million home (pictured) in Mill Hill, North London, and from antiques and jewellery found by police in the lavish property
By January 2012, any identified lawful funds from the sale of their former home were exhausted yet the couple carried on an expensive lifestyle.
Adams described as ‘laughable’ CPS claims they had an annual expenditure of £97,000.
Spending for eating out, dental treatment and other expenses came from his wife Ruth’s own funds (wife pictured in 2007), the former gangster said
He denied he was using his wife, family and associates to create a sham income and loans to pay for visits to the opera and top restaurants, spa memberships and treatment at private clinics.
His counsel, Ivan Krolick, told the Court of Appeal the judge got it wrong against the weight of the evidence while Kennedy Talbot QC, for the CPS, said her decision was ‘fully justified’.
They concluded the judge’s finding on the evidence that Adams had an undisclosed reserve of funds involved no arguable error of law and was by no means unreasonable.
They rejected the criticisms made of the judge’s treatment of the evidence.
‘The finding that Mr Adams had not discharged the burden of proof upon him was neither unreasonable nor against the weight of the evidence,’ said Lord Justice Hamblen.
The Crown Prosecution Service detailed the Adams’s visits to the Dorchester, the Ivy, the Royal Opera House and the Groucho Club, dining at family favourite Brown’s in Mayfair some 20 times.
Other expenses included £12,000 dental treatment, a £2,800 weight loss programme and Mrs Adams and her daughter’s trips to China and a Hilton hotel.
A pair of Bluejohn Cassolette vases worth £60,000 found by police as they confiscated Mr Adams’ property more than ten years ago
Mr Krolick argued: ‘This was not luxurious living by Mr Adams. If it was luxurious, it was by Mrs Adams with her own money… She gave evidence she worked.
‘She had a limited company. She was an actress and has, I think, appeared in a West End play, or at least in the West End.’
The court heard that after being released from prison in July 2012 Adams had found ‘design work’ for a Hatton Garden jeweller and as a clothes designer for his wife Ruth’s online fashion company, N1 Angel.
But Mr Talbot branded the roles ‘bogus employment’, and said Mr Adams was paid £1,600 a week just to make ‘crude drawings’ of jewellery designs.
An employee at N1 Angel had described Mr Adams as a ‘design genius’, but Mr Talbot said the work amounted to ‘moving buttons around on coats’.
The court heard the business made ‘no real money at all’ despite a £35,000 investment from Dale Golder, ‘who on any view was a shadowy figure’.
Almost £100,000 was handed to Mrs Adams in ‘loans’ from friends and family members.
Mr Talbot said she splashed out on a £500 dress from Harvey Nichols after her mother transferred her last £3,000 into her bank account.