Further responses to Sally and Jasmine's blog.

Dear all,

after reading Sally and Jasmine's blog this evening it is important we respond to some of the posts.

Firstly, the post entitled: 'SERIOUS TROUBLE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE GATEHOUSE GROUP' is misleading, there is no 'Gatehouse Group', the gentleman in question did not invest in the 'Gatehouse Group'. He is a CollinsBone investor, the contract he has states his investment is in CollinsBone, so why the Gatehouse Group is mentioned at all we do not know. The fact remains that no Castle and Gatehouse investor has ever lost money, due to the way the investment was structured.

Secondly, in response to the CBS investors post, it is suggested that we put all of our houses in a trust in order to repay investors. We attempted this via an IVA, which was not possible. This would have been a much better option for us all than bankruptcy, but it was not available to us. If anybody wishes to advise us differently, we would love to hear from them, but, Ewart Tempest,who has made the latest blog, investigated this on our behalf last week and got the same result as we did, it is not possible.

Thirdly, in the post entitled 'ADDING IT ALL UP', it is suggested that we 'turn ourselves in'. The question we ask is, to who? Currently the steps we have taken are as follows:

• We are in contact with the FSA. 
• On the 3/2/2012 we contacted Action Fraud voluntarily to tell them we were being accused of fraud and wished to meet to go through our case. After a lengthy telephone conversation with them, based on both blogs and the accusations being made and the evidence we have given, we were told 'there is a big difference between a failed business and a fraud, if anybody contacts us we will advise them that it is to be dealt with by the administrator'. They further advised that, if we wished to take it further, we should contact the National Fraud Investigation Bureau. We called them on the 3/2/2012 and after another lengthy conversation we were basically told that there is little they could do until we had been to see the police, they advised that we go to the police station, tell them the case, they would give us a reference number and we could take it from there.
• On the 6/2/2012 we visited Charing Cross Police Station to explain that we were being accused of fraud and could we sit down with an officer to go through the accusations, give them the facts and bring it to a head, we were told that this would not be possible, as the purpose of coming to the police station was to record a crime, we left our details and advised that if anybody wished to speak to us we were available at any time. We then contacted the National Fraud Investigation Bureau and told them we had done what was advised, they asked us to send an email explaining the steps taken, which we did. 

It would appear that people think we are 'on the run' here, or hiding. This couldn't be further from the case. We wish for this to be brought to a head as much as you do. And in order to 'turn ourselves in' there first has to be a reluctance to do so, again, this is far from the case.

So far we have:

• Contacted the FSA, Action Fraud, The NFIB and the Police voluntarily.
• Responded to all blog accusation's in detail.
• Provided the Financial Times with a comprehensive response on all points raised, backed up with hard evidence.
• Communicated with all investors via email and many by phone.
• Invited all Collinsbone investors to a face to face meeting to go through everything.
• Contacted the court to advise them we would be co-operating fully with the administrator appointed.

What more can we do to bring this to a head? The bankruptcy hearing was adjourned (due to papers being wrongly served, despite what was intimated on the other blog). The bottom line is we want an end to this as much as you all do, this is death by a thousand cuts for us all.

We are dreadfully sorry for how this has turned out, we did not see it going this way at all, and if we could change it, we most definitely would. Many good people are losing hard earned cash, are we happy about that? absolutely not. Do we regret the business decisions we have made? Absolutely. Are we con-men or fraudsters? Absolutely not. Are we bad businessmen? Sadly, yes we are, nobody, including ourselves, can argue otherwise, we have failed.

However, we don't need to 'hand ourselves in' because we are not running away nor hiding.

The quicker this comes to head for us all the better,

As ever, feel free to contact us via the usual methods.