"All who worked with him must have been rogues"

EXCLUSIVE by DOUG COLLIE

An experienced Borders agricultural surveyor and valuer who stands accused of indulging in possible fraud, forgery and other criminal activity has delivered a withering attack on his detractor, the chairman of the Avocet green fuel and farming chain.

Neal Thompson, who has been in business with Berwick-based Edwin Thompson for more than 40 years, has been repeatedly pilloried and maligned in letters written by Avocet Natural Capital chairman Martin Frost to the company's 650 shareholders.

Mr Thompson, an Avocet shareholder, is included on a list of people who are regularly the target for Mr Frost's wrath in his written correspondence. As Mr Thompson observed in an interview with Not Just Sheep & Rugby: "It would appear everyone who has worked with Martin Frost must have been rogues".

The attacks on Mr Thompson in recent months via updates by Mr Frost to Avocet investors include the following:

March 30th 2020: "It is a sad fact that Aileen Orr, in conjunction with Police Scotland, Mr Sandy Jeffrey, and Mr Neal Thompson managed to marshal an onslaught against Avocet. In the last 9 months one part or another of Avocet has suffered no less than 112 criminal incidents against it 

April 9th 2020: "Neal Thompson or his business received (wrongly) over £300k in cash & benefits from Orrdone / Avocet – a complex story which I shall relate later."

Also on April 9th 2020: "Neal Thompson appears to have ‘ruined’ the £3 million plus Sunwick farm sale to the Flemings to further his support of Andrew and Duncan Orr (senior). Personally, this should result in a significant damages action – which is probably why Mr. Neal Thomson created ‘fog’ with Mr. W Cleghorn (partner of Emma Porter, administrator of Orrdone Farms Limited)."

June 28th 2020: "Did Edwin Thompson double deal Avocet and fabricate correspondence to the detriment of Avocet and to the benefit of the Sunwick Orr family?"

July 18th 2020: "Mr. Neal Thompson of Edwin Thompson was another I had great respect for – indeed Neal was my preferred choice to run Avocet farming – but from January 2015, Neal constantly refused to take any responsibility. I regret my investigators have unearthed possible duplicity by Neal. Bad mouthing and forged documents shout – such I have passed to others to assess."

Neal Thompson and his company are both creditors of Orrdone Farms Ltd., a member of the Avocet stable which had administrators appointed in January. The combined debt exceeds £33,000.

He told us how he and others did their utmost to bring Avocet's 'concepts' to fruition.

"The vast majority of people who invested did so because of the Avocet clean fuel concept", he said. "They were not interested in the various other ideas which subsequently materialised such as hydroponic forage, methanol synthesis, Piedmontese cattle and so on".

 Mr Frost's stated strategy had been to develop model farms at Sunwick, Harcarse Hill and Houndwood, all in Berwickshire, with a view to demonstrating the various Avocet concepts. 

"My role was to liaise with him and to assist with the facilitation of those model farms using the Edwin Thompson building department, external consultants and certain Avocet employees. To that effect plans were prepared,and in some instances planning applications and building warrant applications were lodged in respect of a wide array of projects on these various farms.

"But Martin Frost ensured that none of them came to fruition. Instead a quite incredible mess was created which completely beggars belief. Most of the people who worked for Avocet, including myself, did their absolute best to implement Mr Frost's plans, but the goalposts were forever changing, the sands always shifting and it became increasingly apparent to me that his objective was different to that to which the rest of us aspired".

No material progress was made with the model farms and Mr Frost repeatedly blamed the Scottish Government, the Scottish Borders Council, Uncle Tom Cobley and all for the lack of progress, said Mr Thompson.

And he added: "For the past few years he has developed an unhealthy obsession with the Orr family, particularly Aileen Orr, which is totally unbecoming of a chairman of any company, particularly one with Avocet's aspirations. Washing his dirty linen in graphic detail in the public domain is a complete embarrassment and no way for a Plc chairman to behave. Since quitting the Borders, and indeed before, he has fallen out with all manner of personnel".

 Many of those people and organisations had been accused of criminal activity - theft, fraud, forgery, pretexting insider dealing, etc. Mr Frost had mentioned the threat of extradition to the United States on the grounds of pretexting. But Mr Thompson said: "Insofar as l am aware, no actual evidence of any wrongdoing has been produced."

"He has made various accusations against both myself personally and my business, Edwin Thompson, including: producing fraudulent and false correspondence to the Forestry Commission to knowingly damage the interests of Avocet; insider dealing with Aileen Orr and Sandy Jeffrey to persuade UK Agricultural Lending Limited to wrongly appoint the "bully girls" (as he calls them) as Orrdone Farms Limited administrators.

"It goes virtually without sayıng that I have had no communications with UK Agricultural Lending Limited whatsoever or indeed Sandy Jeffrey or Aileen Orr on this subject and, indeed, did not know either Emma Porter or Jeannette Brown until after their appointment as administrators".

Mr Thompson revealed that in response to an email from him Mr Frost had promised that a new Board of Directors would be in- place by 31 October, 2019, and indicated that he would step down.

But: "At the AGM when questioned by me again he said that a new Board would be in place by January. Now, in July, nothing has changed other than promises. Those, of course, frequently extend to multl-million (billion) pound projections but it is always jam tomorrow.

"I think most people reading the blizzard of emails that have been coming through recently would believe that our chairman should be focussing his efforts on driving Avocet's core project forward rather than seemingly spending his entire time criticising others, most of whom are shareholders and a good percentage of whom have jumped through hoops to try to help him in the past.

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In Mr Thompson's opinion the real questions were: What has happened to all the shareholders' money? Is the integrity of the Intellectual Property and the patent secure? What actual progress has he made with the fuel? When will there be a new Board or Directors? 

"Most importantly, what is his actual strategy? One thing is certain, if it is indeed to drive Avocet forward and to produce what he has frequently promised, then he could not have made a bigger mess of it had he tried."