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Drama Documentary:

THE QUIET MAN OF HOVE

Those writers who malign the south coast of this country might have said that David England was typical of its inhabitants - he was unassuming to the point of dullness, and beyond. He had a methodical mind, capable of tireless attention to detail. If he had been a railway booking office clerk he would have had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the timetable; if he had been the manager of the local garden centre he would have known the Latin name of every plant in Sussex. But circumstances had led David England to make his living in the world of bank fraud.

On September 4th 1998 David England was convicted of attempting to take banks in the south of England for over a million pounds; it was Britain’s biggest single-handed bank fraud. He had started small and slowly expanded his operation, painstakingly building up his creditworthiness on a number of small accounts, borrowing money, putting it into other accounts to increase his credit rating, and so on. He created a series of false identities, opening over 100 bogus accounts. He is estimated to have committed a total of 30,000 separate crimes.

Even though he derived a huge income from his activities he continued to live an unexciting life, partly because of the need for secrecy, and partly because of his nature. The false identities he had created, most of which were fictitious accountants, gave him no opportunity for recreation.

As the complexity of his life grew, the need to maintain his humdrum personae began to squeeze any remaining joy or freedom out of his life. Like the circus act with the spinning plates on sticks, all his time was taken up with keeping his fictions from crashing to the ground. His relationship with his wife and four children became impossible. Eventually even the idea of vast wealth lost all appeal to him; he wanted out.

He planned a way to extricate himself - he was going to leave the country with a suitcase stuffed with cash. He persuaded his wife and children to go to the Philippines and wait for him there. Two days before he was due to go he walked into a bank to make one of his final collections. Three plain clothes policemen grabbed him. A routine check in the bank had exposed his fraud but even up to the last minute the police had not been able to break his cover. They did not even know the real name of the person they were arresting. England cooperated immediately with the police, his main desire being to know what mistake he had made which led to his detection. At his trial his counsel said that he had greeted his arrest with evident relief.

* * *

At first sight David England seems an old fashioned figure, belonging perhaps to the world of Pooter or Dr. Crippen. In fact, however, his story belongs squarely in the late twentieth century. Not only did England’s crime depend on the impersonal world of computerised banking, but his demoralisation was due to a wholly contemporary phenomenon: electronic anonymity. In the past false identities depended on expensive forged papers and questionable disguises, but nowadays the criminal, the spy, even the lover, are able to manufacture a screen of untraceability simply by filling in forms. The demise of David England is perhaps a warning to us all: bogged down in the detail of the electronic deception - he simply began to dissolve in electronic space.

* * *

This story has a number of very promising ingredients:

Attention to technical detail: This could be given the fascination of a Frederick Forsythe novel as we watch England build up his false identities.

Straining relationships with his family as he struggles to keep his world intact. Some of the kids know what he is up to, some do not.

The comic element inherent in unexciting people who live in Hove. One of England’s few luxuries, for example, was indulging his passion for herbal tea.

Suspense: England nearly makes it - they got him only two days before he was due to leave.

This has the additional advantage of being a is a practical drama-doc idea: a relatively small cast and a straightforward location. The details of the story are also available in records in the public domain. I am in touch with journalists and policemen who worked on the case and I am confident the story will repay further research.

The story itself also has an easy-to-tell structure:

1. Starting. The first scam. Details of how the fraud works

2. Branching out. England gets caught up in it as the scam develops its own momentum. Organisation and brilliant attention to detail.

3. Family matters. Relations with the wife and kids worsen. They eventually leave.

4. The nightmare - David is trapped in the network of his own creation. He cannot get out; he can only flee when the time is right

5. Capture.

 

Jim Burge 1999

 

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