Saturday 4 June 2022

Avocet life president hit with £1.25 million claim

by OUR BUSINESS UNIT

The latest set of correspondence to be circulated by former Avocet Group chairman Martin Frost has disclosed that lawyers acting for the administrators of an insolvent business have lodged a claim for more than £1 million against Dr 'Bob' Jennings, another Avocet board member.

Meanwhile, recipients of a lengthy letter from Mr Frost are told how the frozen carcasses of 82 head of cattle were lost to bluebottles and vermin after freezers were switched off at Avocet's agricultural HQ in rural Berwickshire in 2020.

Mr Frost's own bankruptcy was confirmed last October following a claim by United Kingdom Agricultural Lending Ltd that he owed them in excess of £3 million after Avocet subsidiary Orrdone Farms Ltd defaulted on a loan. As a bankrupt Mr Frost is disqualified from being a director of any company.

However, hundreds of investors in the Avocet Group were told recently that intellectual property said to be owned by the troubled organisation was being sold to Israeli buyers for many millions of pounds. At the same time Genfro Ltd., another Avocet creation, would be relocating overseas.

In a message accompanying documents sent out this week, Mr Frost declared: "As with many others the Avocet / Genfro intellectual property buyers will not deal using a failed state apparatus where a rule of law no longer reigns. Hence the total relocation to the United States. Please find enclosed two articles. First a PDF of three pages addressed to Dr. Bob Jennings. Second my analysis for Bob to be wary given that Scottish justice now ranks below that of Zimbabwe."

The PDF referred to is the contents of a letter to Dr Jennings from Edinburgh solicitors representing the Orrdone Farms administrators.

According to the letter: "We refer to previous correspondence with our client to which you have repeatedly failed to respond".

Progress reports by administrator Emma Porter have consistently referred to the complete lack of co-operation by all of Orrdone's directors.

The amount specified in the letter of claim is £1,254,263.

But in an accompanying letter to Dr Jennings - also circulated -  Mr Frost writes: "It beggars’ belief that given the interchanges, intromissions by third parties, that Dr. Bob Jennings and / or his associates are accused of failure to communicate with Ms. Porter. 

"It is accepted that as a director you have statutory duties. That said, you obtempered such. Indeed, it is not your (Bob’s) fault if the Administrators acted and continue to act in a negligent, careless, unlawful, and fraudulent manner."

Since their appointment in 2020, Mr Frost has levelled a wide range of allegations against the Orrdone administrators. But now a new 'accusation' can be added to the list.

Mr Frost states: "Contrary to the undertaking provided by CMS plus statute law, the Administrators broke into Harcarse Hill (Avocet's Berwickshire base) in March 2020 (then refused access to the Frosts and / or agents) and seized the personal laboratory assets and the Piemontese frozen dressed meat.

"The dressed healthy beef was from 82 cattle and was valued at some £5,000 per animal (circa £410,000) The Piemontese frozen meat was housed in deep freeze fridges, the Administrators turn off the electricity and all the frozen meat perished. 

"Adjacent to the frozen meat freezers Martin Frost had stored his personal Peugeot sports car, as meat perished in the freezers, some freezers sprung open which attracted vermin and blue bottles which in turn destroyed the fabric of Martin Frost’s car (which the Administrators then scrapped). The vermin and the blue bottles then transgressed into Harcarse Hill farmhouse where Frost personal possessions (clothes etc.) were destroyed."

A former Avocet employee who worked at Harcarse Hill described the claimed loss of 82 frozen carcasses as "fanciful".

The ex-staff member said: "Two home bred Piemontese young bulls which were sub-standard for breeding purposes were slaughtered and returned to two Harcarse Hill freezers located in a garage. Value £2,500 approximately."

 


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