Conned by Business Partner
Its a little over two years since I stupidly went into business with someone who I thought could be trusted, he was a member of my gym and had been for nearly a year. When he found out I was looking into ideas for funding the expansion of my gym taking it further towards becoming a registered charity he approached me offering to put up the full funding needed, his name was Nigel Felton.
Nigel Felton Attending Court For Assault
little did I know what he was really up to, his hidden agender and that I was soon to be in a fight to save my gym. Nigel knew what he was getting into, I was very vocal in my ambitions to turn my non-profit community gym into a registered charity. Although becoming a business partner he was very aware this was not a profit making business but he would get his investment back and eventually earn a wage.
Not long after the business partnership becoming legal, with Nigel taking a 49% share of the business I began to have concerns about his intentions and his personallity changed from what I thought was a nice guy to someone that more resembled a shifty second hand car sales man.
It was only after one of my gym staff came to me telling me that Nigel had gathered the whole staff behind my back to tell them he was planning on having me removed as a director of my own business and to turn something that I had worked hard to help the community into a commercial profit making gym.
He nearly got away with it, if it had not been for that one member of staff coming to me I would have lost everything. With the information I now had I worked fast contacting companies house to inform there fraud department what I had been told and I had Nigel removed as a director before he had the chance of doing the same and taking my business out from under me.
Heres a little bit of information for you that shocked me! I couldn’t believe how easy it is for someone to steal a business from its founder/owner. Imagine you own your own business and you take on a business partner that you make a director, that person can then go to companys house, request a form, fill it in and send it back requesting the founding owner be taken off the directorship of the business, therefore making them the owner and you out on your ear.
now with no credible reason for doing this, you can challenge this in court, but this would take some time and in the mean time you have no control of how your own business is managed. Also you will need money to take this to court, something I didn’t have, and Nigel knew this.
I was lucky, that member of staff gave me enough notice to stop all this from happening. This wasn’t the end of it though, as after Nigel failed in his attempt to take my gym business, he decided to make slanderous and libel comments that I was committing fraud by taking unsuspecting members of the public bank details and signing them up via direct debit to my gym. Something I quickly proved I had not and I also further proved this by going to the fraud office myself giving all the information and they confirmed I had done nothing wrong.
Not content with this, Nigel continued to fuel more Slander/libel over social media that not only was I committing fraud, but that I had sexually assaulted a member of staff, again words from the mouth of a liar that was never proven as this made up member of staff never even existed.
This led to a final face to face confrontation when I allowed him to come to my gym and sign over his shares that he still had in my business, he refused and before he left attacked and assaulted me infront of 3 witnesses. I had turned my back on him and he then launched forward and started to punch me, before I knew what had happened I was already on the floor unconsciou, but as i came round, I found Nigel on top of me still punching me with one of the witnesses trying to pull him off me.
He was charged and given a date to attend court, but between the charge and his court date, a number of his friends decided to send me threats of violence and death threats if I testified. I decided not to be a witness and I guess that one reason it was dismissed from court.
since then, what I can’t prove is any link between him and an alligation that was then put to me that I fraudulently took money from Help for Heroes, something that he made accusations of to my face shortly after I sacked him as a director. So bit of a coincidence that the same accusation was then given to the police by an un-named person.
This was the final straw that saw me loose something I had worked on for 3yrs to help members of the community get fit that would not normally be able to afford a gym membership. So with an accusation of taking money from such a charity as Help for Heroes and my subsequent arrest and the 18months of questioning and waiting for trial I lost the gym, was plummeted into debt, diagnosed with depression and lost everything. Nigel got what he wanted, me loosing it all.
the only positive part to this is that not only did I prove I was innocent of fraud and theft from Help for Heroes, but a Help for Heroes witness in my trial admitted to accounting failures and said I never took a penny and owed them nothing.
I’m now left still with coping with depression and unable to earn a living from what I did before, unable to go out the house without having panic attacks. So have taken to writing articles not only for my own website but other online websites not only to do with fitness, but also politics, ISIS and topics directly and indirectly accredited to ISIS, such as Islamic Extremist recruitment In the UK.
MORAL OF THE STORY, GET A VERY GOOD BACKGROUND CHECK ON ANYONE YOU ARE THINKING OF GOING INTO BUSINESS WITH, EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW THEM.
Mike Buss.
Category: BLOG
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