Parry on 'Forgery and fraud'

Published: Monday, 16 December 2013

CANAL & River Trust (CaRT) Chief Executive, Richard Parry, has been in touch over the weekend to dismiss the alleged forgery of a document as entirely irrelevant, writes Allan Richards.

Commenting on a narrowboatworld article, Forgery and fraud, he tells me ‘.... use of the terrier plan as background evidence of its title was abandoned by British Waterways a long time ago so the issue of their use is entirely irrelevant'.

Put another way, he is saying that just because British Waterways only used the alleged forgery twice and Mr Moore did not find out about it until years later we should forget about it!

Bizarre explanation

In a bizarre explanation as to how the terrier plan may have been altered, Richard says ‘I have also established that annotations and updates on ‘terrier plans'—which are internal working documents and not documents of title—are quite normal'.

.... but this does not explain what actually happened.

Take a look at the photo. The top half is the alleged forgery which was used on two occasions to object to Mr Moore's company, BYB registering land. The bottom half shows the land that BYB were attempting to register.

Wright Hassall's letter to the Land Registry states 'Further to our letter dated 27 October 2005, we also enclose our client's Terrier Plan, which indicates land owned by British Waterways Board. The land hatched blue is the land in question and this is further evidence within our clients records that they own this land'.

Hatching disappears

Years later Mr Moore was provided another copy of the terrier. However, this one does not show the hatching.

Whilst Mr Parry's explanation may account for the hatching appearing on a terrier plan (e.g. to show that land had been acquired) it simply does not explain how such hatching disappears.

Neither does it explain the apology from another solicitor with regard to differences between the two documents. In a witness statement dated 11th November 2011, Nicholas Robert Shepherd a partner of Shoosmiths stated '.... it is right to record, however, that in so far as Wright Hassall suggested in their letter to the Chief Land Registrar .... that the Terrier Plan was evidence of BWB's ownership of the area hatched blue that was wrong'.

So what was being apologised for if not a forged document?

Some action

It is perhaps time for Mr Parry to take some action rather than make excuses for his staff's past actions. Check the terrier against the copy used to object to BYB's land registration to confirm the forgery then sack those responsible. If he is happy that forgery has not taken place, invite Nigel Moore to inspect the documents.