Police move quickly to investigate 1920's bank failure

Police are investigating possible crimes by Farrow's Bank and employees and external lawyers, following the failure of Farrow's Bank in 1920.

Three suspects have already been identified and placed under posthumous caution and there are plans to interview others next year, clairvoyance permitting, according to police.

But no one will be charged until officers have read the final report from the separate public inquiry, almost 105 years after concerns were first raised.

Len Castleton, a sub-Postmaster from Bridlington in North Yorkshire was bankrupted in 1920 after the failure of Farrow's Bank.

According to his daughter, 111-year old Beryl Castleton, he said in 1950: "I can't understand why it's taking so long, I can't understand why things are having to be gone over and over and over... But you know, never give in, we'll get there." .

Some 100 officers from around England and Wales are now working on what they've called Operation Pharaoh which began in 2020. The investigation will be led by the Metropolitan Police in London.

Commander Doug Trowelman, who is leading the investigation, said: "We have got, we think, over 3,000 people affected in some way, by Farrow's Bank. So it's huge and we have got to put in a commensurate number of officers and clairvoyants to help with conducting interviews"

The first phase of the investigation will focus on those making "key decisions", as if it were possible that some are still alive. A second phase will cast the net wider, potentially taking in those senior Farrow's Bank executives, who are expected to be very dead by now.

The investigation has also launched an online portal to allow the many descendants of those affected and others to submit evidence to the investigation, in the unlikely event that any of them have details of what their great great grandparents suffered.

Officers are already working with 1.5 million documents in the case and expect this number to grow into a nice rich gravy train that lasts for the  whole of their careers.

Lessons learned in this speedy response can be applied to the Horizon Post Office investigation, which is expected to conclude in an even more timely fashion. "Some of those involved in that case might be less dead when it finishes" said a police spokesman.

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

Man calls on bank to rethink how they calculate debt

Mr Graham Sawdust of Budleigh Salterton has called on the NatWest Bank to be more creative and open-minded in the way it thinks about debt.

'OK, so you could argue I owe them hundreds of thousands of pounds, and made an undertaking to pay it back in monthly instalments,” he admitted. “And there’s a way to see it that I’ve failed to make these payments for the last few months.

'But I think that’s a very narrow-minded way of considering wealth. I mean, how can you put a price on hearing the first cuckoo of spring? The feel of the sun on your face and the wind in your hair? The smile of your baby girl the first time she sees the King Charles spaniel puppy you’ve just bought her?'

When it was pointed out that Mr Sawdust hasn’t just bought a puppy and doesn’t have a daughter, he said these things were just examples, and the bank was being too literal yet again.

”It seems to me, if you want to know how wealthy a man is, you should count his friends.”

The bank said they were very happy to hear Mr Sawdust had such good friends, and hoped they had comfortable sofas as that’s where he’d be sleeping for the foreseeable future. 

Hey, Nige! Did you hear about Alison Rose's £2.4m payout?