The article's lead section may need to be rewritten.(September 2017) |
Adam Werritty (born 18 July 1978) is a Scottish businessman. Werritty is a friend of the former UK Secretary of State for Defence and ex Secretary of State for International Trade, Liam Fox. He lived for a period in 2002 and 2003 at Fox's London flat and was best man at his wedding in 2005. The two were also business associates who once held joint investments in the healthcare consultancy firm UK Health. Werritty was reportedly an adviser of Fox's and is known to have accompanied him on at least 18 foreign business trips between 2009 and 2011. [1] [2] [3] In 2007, when Fox was shadow Defence Secretary, they both attended a meeting with the Gulf Research Centre. [4] [5] Werritty was also appointed by Fox as the chief executive of the now disbanded conservative Atlanticist think-tank, "The Atlantic Bridge".
Werritty made visits to Fox at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Whitehall on 22 occasions in 16 months; Werrity was not security-cleared with the MoD. Additionally, over a 17-month period, ending October 2011, Werritty was present at 40 of Fox's 70 recorded engagements. The uncertain nature of Werritty's relationship with Fox led to an investigation by senior civil servants, initially the MoD's Permanent Secretary, Ursula Brennan and latterly the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell. [6] [7] Fox claimed that Werrity had never worked for him either in an official or unofficial capacity despite allegations that he was using a source of advice outside the Civil Service, paid for by private funds. [8] [9] Disclosure of increasing amounts of detail of their contact, funding and explanations of their relationship led to Fox's resignation on 14 October 2011 in advance of O'Donnell's report of his investigation.
Born in Kirkcaldy, Werrity was raised in St Andrews, Fife, and went to Madras College, where he played rugby in the 1st XV. He was also the 1st year boys school sports champion. [10]
Werritty went to the University of Edinburgh to study public policy, becoming vice-president of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Students branch. He graduated with a 2:2 in social policy.[ citation needed ]
He left Scotland to work for the healthcare company PPP and lived in several places in London and stayed rent-free between 2002 and 2003 in Fox's taxpayer-subsidised flat in Southwark, near Tower Bridge. Werritty was Fox's best man at his wedding in 2005. [11]
Werritty lives in [12] Pimlico near Vauxhall Bridge, close to Parliament. He is a member of the Carlton Club [13] and the Conservative Party. [14]
Werritty was investigated by senior civil servants led by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell. [15] [16] The Prime Minister David Cameron first asked for an interim report of the MoD internal inquiry by 10 October 2011. [17] The final report was initially due to be submitted on 21 October 2011 [18] but O'Donnell's finding were released earlier than anticipated on 18 October. Amongst other findings, the report stated that the former defence secretary had blocked civil servants from attending key meetings where Adam Werritty was in attendance and had also failed to tell his permanent secretary that he had solicited funds to bankroll Werritty, he had also ignored private office requests to distance himself from the relationship. [19]
The investigations into Werrity's close ties also revealed that he had visited Fox in the Ministry of Defence Main Building on 22 occasions during a period of 16 months. In addition, Werrity was present on 18 overseas trips undertaken by Fox in the course of his duties as Secretary of State. [20] On 10 October 2011 the MoD published a full list of Fox's meetings, from the beginning of his term in office (20 May 2010) to 8 October 2011, and it revealed that Werrity was present at 40 of Fox's 70 engagements in that period. [21] [22]
His friendship with Liam Fox began in the late 1990s, when Fox was an Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Scotland and Constitutional Affairs and when Werritty was studying public policy at Edinburgh University. They had a shared interest in politics and the United States. [23]
On 10 October 2011 in a statement to the House of Commons, Liam Fox said that Werritty worked as a paid intern in Fox's parliamentary office when the Conservative Party was in opposition (1997-2010) and at this time had a Parliamentary pass. Fox said records showed Werritty received a total payment of £5,800 for research work undertaken during that time. [24]
Werritty lived in Fox's apartment in Southwark, London, during 2002 and 2003. The property in which Werrity stayed rent free was mortgaged at £1,400 per month and covered by Fox's Additional Costs Allowance (ACA), part of his MP's expenses. [25]
In 2011, Werritty stayed with Fox at a villa in Spain during an August holiday break at the climax of the 2011 Libyan civil war. [26]
Financial backers linked to Israel and a private intelligence firm helped fund Werritty's travels with Fox. [8] In April 2007, Werritty and Fox attended an official meeting with the Gulf Research Centre, an independently run body that conducts research on issues concerning the Middle East. The two also attended an Israeli security conference centred on relations with Palestine, as well as Iranian sanctions, which took place in Herzliya in 2009. Fox is a strong supporter of Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. [27] Werritty is listed in conference proceedings as "Dr. Adam Werritty", an adviser to Fox in his role as Shadow Defence Secretary. [28] In September 2010 the pair were in Washington and met at a defence industry dinner attended by some of the US's leading generals, including General James Mattis, commander of US Central Command. [29]
In June 2011 Werritty organised a business meeting at the Shangri-La Hotel in Dubai. The meeting was attended by Werritty, Fox, the British private equity boss and CEO of the Porton Group Harvey Boulter, and two other Dubai-based businessmen. [30] Werritty had earlier been contacted by a lobbying firm known as Tetra Strategy, whom Boulter had hired at a rate of £10,000 per month, in an attempt to have Fox intervene in a Porton Group legal dispute that indirectly involved the MoD. Tetra are believed to have begun working towards arranging a meeting with Werritty or Fox as early as 25 March 2011. In an email from Lee Petar, Tetra's boss, to Boulter, Werrity is described as the "special adviser to the secretary of state for defence Liam Fox." [31]
Werritty's initial meeting with Boulter in April 2011 led to discussions with Fox regarding the sale of a product called Cellcrypt. [32] The 45-minute Dubai meeting in June 2011 was primarily about the possible sale of the voice encryption software to the British MoD. Boulter has claimed that the matter of a legal battle between Porton Group and 3M concerning Acolyte, an EU regulatory approved rapid detection technology for MRSA, and a deal worth £41 million was allocated no more than 5–10 minutes at the end of the meeting. [32] [33] [34] According to The Guardian, details relating to the nature of the visit and the business matters discussed suggest that it was "highly irregular". The MoD has stated that there were no officials present at the meeting but that one of those present claimed to have received the impression that all of those in attendance had been security cleared. Werritty did not have such clearance. [35]
On 7 October 2011, The Guardian reported that Werritty met senior Sri Lankan ministers on an official visit with Fox in summer 2011. [36] The Sri Lankan trip was originally scheduled for December 2010 but a disagreement with the foreign secretary, William Hague, saw the visit changed to July despite allegations that the Sri Lankan government supported paramilitary groups in defeating the Tamil Tigers. As a result of the trip questions were raised about the appropriateness of Werritty accompanying Fox on government trips abroad. [37] Fox had previously claimed that Werritty had never joined him on such trips but details relating to how frequently Werritty was in his company while abroad later emerged. [38]
Between February 2009 and 2011 Werritty was in Fox's company on many trips abroad: [39]
Wealthy Conservative donors including Michael Hintze indirectly provided financial support for Werrity's role as a political and strategic adviser to Fox by funding organisations such as Atlantic Bridge, a registered charity set up by Fox and run by Werrity that was used to bankroll the adviser's various international travels. [40] Hintze, a major Tory party donor, donated £104,000 to Fox's charity. He also provided Werritty with free office space at the headquarters of his £5bn CQS hedge fund and allowed both Fox and Werritty to use his private jet. Days before the forced cessation of Atlantic Bridge's operations by the Charity Commission, Werrity founded a company called Pargav Ltd., which went on to receive a further £147,000 in donations from Tory party supporters and businessmen. Pargav's sole director was Oliver Hylton, a close senior aide of Hintze's and the manager of his charitable foundation that paid the donations to Atlantic Bridge. [41] It emerged that Hylton, who was initially suspended by CQS following news of the Werrity affair, later ceased employment with the company. [42]
Werritty was involved in a number of secret meetings (the first, on 8 September 2009) organised by Denis Macshane,[ citation needed ] involving himself and Matthew Gould, Britain's Ambassador to Israel, with the intention of enlisting British support for an Israeli attack on Iran. [43] [44]
Werritty's close ties to Conservative hardliners, it was argued, enabled him to bypass Whitehall officials and helped Fox promote strongly pro-American policies and Euroscepticism in the UK and abroad. In response to revelations about Werrity's activities becoming publicly known, Fox's political allies launched an effort to distance Werritty from the minister by describing him as an opportunist who had "taken advantage" of his personal relationship with Fox and as someone who was a fantasist "masquerading as someone he was not." [1] [45] [46]
Werritty distributed business cards that declared he was an "advisor (sic) to the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP" although Fox claims he requested him not to do so. [35] Werritty also made visits to Fox at the MoD's HQ in Whitehall on 22 occasions in 16 months which led the Labour Party to request an inquiry into a possible national security breach. [47] Werritty was able to arrange access to the minister for private sector companies on matters where they could both see commercial gains, despite denials of any role as an adviser. [48]
Fox has claimed that Werritty was not connected with backers of companies who wanted defence contracts but was instead funded by ideological backers. According to the BBC this meant that Fox was using sources of advice outside the Civil Service and paid for by private funds. [8] Fox has declared that: "I do accept that given Mr Werritty's defence-related business interests, my frequent contacts with him may have given an impression of wrongdoing, and may also have given third parties the misleading impression that Mr Werritty was an official adviser rather than simply a friend". [49]
The former chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, Sir Alistair Graham, stated that Fox had shown serious misjudgement [50] and the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson observed that whatever Fox claimed "many will judge that Adam Werritty acted as his adviser...his business cards stated he was an adviser, he booked hotels as an adviser, he fixed meetings with people who believed he was an adviser...he raised funds from people who thought that too...[and] the sole director of the not-for-profit company set up to fund Werritty regarded him as 'an adviser of some sort to Dr Fox'." [49]
Werritty was also responsible for operating The Atlantic Bridge from Fox's office at taxpayers' expense. The conservative "charity" worked in conjunction with a US lobbying group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which allows cooperation between legislators and corporations such as Philip Morris, Texaco and McDonald's in addressing common interests. According to US charity records, Werritty was listed as the UK executive director with an address corresponding to Fox's former room at the House of Commons, No. 341 in the MPs' block at Portcullis House, which served as the charity's official headquarters. The Guardian reported that, between 2007 and 2010, Werritty's income as chief executive of The Atlantic Bridge was in excess of £90,000. The charity was established by Fox to help US/UK relations and serve as a reminder of the Reagan-Thatcher era and Werritty was given a lead role. The charity also functioned as a counterpart to the ALEC-founded Atlantic Bridge Group, a sister organisation in the United States. Following criticism by regulators that the charity was too politically oriented to be eligible for charitable status, the UK wing disbanded in September 2011. [5] [37]
On 14 October 2011, following the furore over Adam Werritty, Liam Fox resigned from his position of Defence Secretary. [51]
Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American business magnate, investor, oligarch, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK, in Australia, in the US, book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News. He was also the owner of Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.
News Corp UK & Ireland Limited is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp. It is the current publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers; its former publications include the Today, News of the World, and The London Paper newspapers. It was established in February 1981 under the name News International plc. In June 2002, the company name was changed to News International Limited, and on 31 May 2011, to NI Group Limited, and on 26 June 2013 to News UK.
Sir Liam Fox is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Trade from 2016 to 2019 and Secretary of State for Defence from 2010 to 2011. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Somerset, formerly Woodspring, from 1992 to 2024.
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Baron Carington of Upton, was a British Conservative Party politician and hereditary peer who served as Defence Secretary from 1970 to 1974, Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982, chairman of the General Electric Company from 1983 to 1984, and Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. In Margaret Thatcher's first government, he played a major role in negotiating the Lancaster House Agreement that ended the conflict in Rhodesia and enabled the creation of Zimbabwe. Carrington later served as the Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Bilderberg Group's meetings from 1990 to 1998.
Kevan David Jones, Baron Beamish,, is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Durham from 2001 to 2024. He has been a member of the House of Lords since 2024.
Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede is a British politician and life peer who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019 and Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, having previously served as Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014 and Transport Secretary from 2010 to 2011. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Runnymede and Weybridge from 1997 to 2019.
Patrick John Mercer is a British author and former politician. He was elected as a Conservative in the 2001 general election, until resigning the party's parliamentary whip in May 2013 following questions surrounding paid advocacy, and was an Independent MP representing the constituency of Newark in Parliament until his resignation at the end of April 2014 when a Standards Committee report recommended suspending him for six months for "sustained and pervasive breach of the house's rules". He was Conservative shadow homeland security minister from 2003 to 2007, when David Cameron forced him to resign after he had made remarks about racism which Cameron found unacceptable.
Edward Samuel Miliband is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2010 to 2015. Alongside his brother, David Miliband, he served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
General Francis Richard Dannatt, Baron Dannatt, is a retired senior British Army officer and member of the House of Lords. He was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009.
Michael Hintze, Baron Hintze, is an Australian-British businessman and philanthropist, based in the United Kingdom.
The Cameron–Clegg coalition was formed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg when Cameron was invited by Queen Elizabeth II to form a new government, following the resignation of Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 11 May 2010, after the general election on 6 May. It was the UK's first coalition government since the Churchill caretaker ministry in 1945.
The Atlantic Bridge Research and Education Scheme was an educational charity founded in 1997 with Margaret Thatcher as its president to promote Atlanticism, an ideology of cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States regarding political, economic, and defence issues. It was set up by Liam Fox, former Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom. Cabinet ministers Michael Gove, George Osborne and William Hague, and Chris Grayling have previously sat on its advisory panel, as have American senators Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman. The organisation's principal staff included Catherine Bray, Adam Werritty and Kara Watt.
The Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) is a civilian special police force which is part of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence. The MDP's primary responsibilities are to provide armed security and counter terrorism services to designated high-risk areas, as well as uniformed policing and limited investigative services to Ministry of Defence property, personnel, and installations throughout the United Kingdom. The MDP are not military police. Service personnel often refer to the MDP by the nickname "MOD plod".
Dame Ursula Brennan is a retired British civil servant and a former Permanent Secretary at the United Kingdom's Ministry of Justice where she was also the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery.
Matthew Steven Gould is a British former civil servant and diplomat who is the Chief Executive Officer of international science-led conservation charity ZSL. He was previously National Director for Digital Transformation in NHS England (2019–2022), Director General for Digital and Media Policy in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (2015–19) and Ambassador to Israel (2010–15).
Robert Boulter is an English film, television and theatre actor. He had a guest-starring role on the television series The Bill in 2000. This was followed by a starring role in the play Herons written by Simon Stephens, which was performed in 2001 at the Royal Court Theatre. He had a guest role in the television series Judge John Deed in 2002. In 2004 Boulter landed a role as "Craig" in the episode "Teddy's Story" of the television series The Long Firm. He was cast in the 2005 he played Darren in the world premiere of the Philip Ridley play Mercury Fur, which was performed at the Drum Theatre in Plymouth and the Menier Chocolate Factory in London.
Cereal Killer Café is a chain of cafés that serve branded breakfast cereals. The original café was located on Brick Lane in Spitalfields, London and was the first cereal-themed café in the United Kingdom. The chain announced the closure of its UK locations on 8 July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2023, the Dubai cafe remains open and the chain's website continues to offer customers over 100 different types of cereal.
The Porton Group is a venture capital group based in the Cayman Islands with offices in Dubai, that specialises in the commercialisation of military technology. It was founded by Lucas Olmedo - William Green in 2011.
Harvey Boulter is an entrepreneur, the chairman and chief executive of Porton Group, a venture capital group. He came to public prominence in 2011 through the Porton Group’s legal case with 3M which alerted the UK press to what became the Liam Fox and Adam Werritty scandal, and led to the resignation of the former as Secretary of State for Defence.
Gabrielle Louise Bertin, Baroness Bertin is a British Conservative member of the House of Lords and political aide best known for her association with David Cameron during his term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.