Britain's Rob Ford

[Sheilbh]

Rejoice!

Crystal meth shame of bank chief: Counting off £20 notes to buy hard drugs, this is the man who ran the Co-op Bank... three days after telling MPs how it lost £700m
Methodist minister Paul Flowers, 63, was caught on camera buying drugs
It was just days after he was grilled by MPs over his bank's performance
He is seen in his car discussing the cocaine and crystal meth he wants
He then counts out £300 in £20 notes and sends a friend to make the deal
The video handed over by an acquaintance 'disgusted by his hypocrisy'
Last night MPs demanded Rev Flowers appear before them again
Flowers boasts of using ketamine along with cannabis and club drug GHB
By NICK CRAVEN and ROSS SLATER
PUBLISHED: 22:00, 16 November 2013 | UPDATED: 23:59, 16 November 2013

The chairman who oversaw the near-collapse of the Co-operative Bank has been caught buying and using illegal drugs including crystal meth, crack cocaine and ketamine.

The Rev Paul Flowers, a Methodist minister, was filmed buying the substances just days after he was grilled by MPs on the Treasury Select Committee over the bank's disastrous performance.

In the shocking video, Rev Flowers, 63, is seen in his car discussing the cocaine and crystal meth he wants from a dealer in Leeds. He then counts out £300 in £20 notes and sends a friend to make the deal.


Caught on camera: The Rev Paul Flowers was filmed counting money for a drugs deal

The video and a series of damning text messages were handed to The Mail on Sunday by acquaintance Stuart Davies, who was 'disgusted by his hypocrisy'.

The text messages prove Rev Flowers was using hard drugs in the days surrounding his crucial testimony to the Treasury Committee on November 6. Last night MPs on the committee demanded Rev Flowers appear before them again.

Tory MP Brooks Newmark said he was 'gobsmacked' by the revelations which are sure to revive concerns about Britain's banking industry and who is fit to run it.

Former Labour councillor Rev Flowers yesterday apologised for his 'stupid and wrong' actions and blamed the 'pressures of my role with the Co-op Bank'.

Flowers was the £132,000-a-year chairman of the 'ethical' Co-op Bank from 2010 until May this year when he stepped down as the bank's financial woes became apparent. The bank lost £700 million in the first six months of this year.

On the day after his appearance at the Commons, Flowers sent a text reading: 'I was "grilled" by the Treasury Select Committee yesterday and afterwards came to Manchester to get wasted with friends.'

Flowers, who is gay, also boasts of using illicit substances including ketamine, a powerful Class C tranquilliser nicknamed 'ket', along with cannabis and club drug GHB.

In one text, Flowers wrote how his plans for a party were 'turning into a two day, drug fuelled gay orgy!!!' In another, he boasted of how he was 'snorting some good stuff'. That was sent on the day he was first scheduled to appear  before the Commons committee, but the session ran out of time to hear him. And last week, he said in a text: 'I'm on ket tonight.'

Flowers has been a Methodist minister for 40 years, currently in Bradford, and formerly chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About Drugs.' In one report, Rev Flowers wrote of 'the ever-increasing problems associated with drug use faced by individuals, families and communities'.


Ethical? Reverend Paul Flowers has been a minister for 40 years

The Co-op Group, via its political arm, is a major Labour Party donor and sponsors about 30 MPs, including Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.  Rev Flowers is a trustee of HIV charity the Terrence Higgins Trust, whose website says that in 2010 Labour leader Ed Miliband appointed him to the party's Finance and Industry Board.

Stuart Davies, 26, first encountered the minister via the gay dating mobile phone app Grindr in early October. The two men exchanged texts and met a few weeks later. Mr Davies, who admits having used drugs in the past, said he was shocked by the scale of Flowers' drug taking as well as his double standards as he cavorted with two other young men.

'After hearing him bragging about his life, about his connections in Parliament, his 40 years in the church and his all-round good works, it just felt wrong,' said Mr Davies. 'He seemed to be  using his status to get young men off their heads for sex.'

Mr Davies decided to expose Flowers and recorded part of a trip they took with a third man, who we will call X, to Leeds to buy drugs.

In time-marked footage, Flowers says after handing over the £300: 'What else have we got to get?'

X replies: 'No, that's it'.

Flowers: 'Ket? No?'

X says he doesn't think he can get it and Flowers replies: 'Don't worry. We will cope with what we've got.'

Legal experts say the evidence in the text messages and video footage could lay Flowers open to charges of possession and supplying drugs.

Mr Davies, who works in a bank, said drugs first came up in an chat on Grindr after their first meeting. He said Rev Flowers asked if he had used cocaine. 'I'd had the odd line and that's what I told him,' he said.

Some weeks later – on October 29, the date of Flowers' aborted appearance at the Commons – he sent  Mr Davies a message saying he was, 'snorting some good stuff' and the next day invited Mr Davies to a party at his house. Shortly before he picked Mr Davies up, Flowers sent a text saying: 'Have 2 bags of Charlie [cocaine] here and have ordered another 5... enough? P x'
One minute later he adds: 'Also have ket and G [GHB] because they [two other party guests 'A' and 'B'] apparently like them...!'

Mr Davies recalled that at the party: 'He produced a metal tray which had cocaine on one side and ketamine on the other. About an hour after we got there, another man came round with five more grams of coke.

'Paul was lining up big fat lines of the stuff. A was also having the GHB as was Paul but both he and B were mostly interested in the ketamine but also some of everything else besides. When we weren't doing that we were smoking joints.

'Paul was really holding court and telling us what he had been up to.'

He had been at the Commons the previous day for his aborted meeting and Mr Davies said: 'He took great delight in telling us how he had put one over on them – "Tory c****" he called them – because they'd wanted him back the next day but he had told them where to go.

'We asked him about how he kept his drug taking secret and he laughed and said that a Labour MP had passed him in the corridors and said, "Have you got a touch of the old Colombian flu?" He laughed.

'He also told us he knew Tony Blair, especially back in 1997. He just seemed to know everybody.'

On November 7, Flowers sent a text referring to his 'grilling' the previous day. Two days later, he promised a 'fine old party' with 'Charlie, ket and rocks if [sic] crystal' but added that he had never tried crystal.

Mr Davies said: 'By this stage I was determined to get some proof of what he was like so I made up my mind to film him on my iPhone'. And last Saturday he recorded the footage handed to The Mail on Sunday. 

He, X and Rev Flowers went to a council house in Leeds where they paid £100 for weed. Then the minister 'counted out £260 for half an ounce of cocaine and £40 for rocks of crystal meth'. Mr Davies said: 'When we got it back to his house, X said it was crack and they lit it and inhaled it from a pipe with silver foil.

He said that when they got back to Flowers' house 'there was the biggest rock of cocaine I have ever seen in my life... it was bursting out of a large transparent bag. Paul got a tumbler and began crushing it.'

He added that the minister 'was drinking pink champagne and dropping GHB into it.'

Rev. Flowers said in a statement: 'This year has been incredibly difficult, with a death in the family [his mother Muriel a year ago] and the pressures of my role with the Co-operative Bank.

'At the lowest point in this terrible period, I did things that were stupid and wrong. I am sorry for this, and I am seeking professional help, and apologise to all I have hurt or failed by my actions.'

The Co-operative Bank said last night: 'We can make no comment on these allegations which are of a personal nature and being made against a former board member.'

The Methodist Church said: 'We expect high standards of our ministers. We have procedures for when ministers fail to meet those standards, and we will now start those with a thorough investigation. We will also work with the police if they feel a crime has been committed.'

The Reverend Flowers' testimony to the Treasury Select Committee earlier this month was ridiculed by many, particularly after he was asked the size of the Co-op's assets.

Flowers said '£3billion'. The correct answer was £47billion.

Perhaps it was not surprising, as our text messages reveal the Rev Flowers' mind appeared to be elsewhere both before and after his appearance.


Ridicule: The Rev Flowers during the Treasury Select Committee hearing

The day before the hearing, on November 5, he was planning a party and texted Stuart Davies: 'Do you like ket?'

And on the day after, he texted again to say: 'I was grilled by the Treasury Select Committee yesterday and afterwards came to Manchester to get wasted with friends.'

Flowers' stunning lack of knowledge about the Co-op Bank raised fears that it had lacked basic oversight from its chairman.

But Flowers insisted: 'I think you have seen my CV. You will know what I believe my skills to be, and what others have judged my skills to be.'

Nevertheless, his performance prompted  the committee's chairman, Andrew Tyrie, to deliver  a withering conclusion: 'Today we
were provided with further evidence, if it were needed, that the chairman of a bank must have a good deal of financial experience and expertise.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2508464/Crystal-meth-shame-bank-chief-Counting-20-notes-buy-hard-drugs-man-ran-Co-op-Bank--days-telling-MPs-lost-700m.html#ixzz2krNHB0CA
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REVEREND PAUL FLOWERS AND THE CO-OP BANK'S £1.5BN 'BLACK HOLE'
Co-op Bank came close to collapse after running up more than £700million in losses in the first half of this year and being forced to fill a £1.5billion black hole in its funding.

As bank chairman and deputy chairman of the Co-operative Group, Paul Flowers oversaw the bank's activities throughout the lead up to the crisis.

The bank's near-failure stemmed from its ill-starred takeover of the Britannia Building Society in 2009, its huge payouts to compensate customers mis-sold products and its aborted takeover of 632 Lloyds Banking Group branches.

The Bank of England forced the bank to raise more cash in June after it became clear it was heading for heavy losses.

In a deal hatched earlier this month, The Co-op Group is to surrender the majority of its shares in the bank to City firms in return for them writing off part of its debts.

Executives have faced severe criticism for disastrous policies that led to the crisis. But as chairman, Flowers's job was to oversee their decisions and hold them to account.

[fhdz]

Why exactly does it matter that he's gay?

[garbon]

Why exactly does it matter that he's gay?

[Admiral Yi]

Why exactly does it matter that he's gay?

It's difficult to discuss his propensity to get young men stoned as bejeezus and having sex with them without mentioning it.

[CountDeMoney]

Why exactly does it matter that he's a Methodist minister?

[Sheilbh]

Why exactly does it matter that he's gay?

It provides important context for the drug-fueled, two day, gay orgy?

[Camerus]

I'd choose Rob Ford over this asshole any day.

[CountDeMoney]

and formerly chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About Drugs.'

He certainly stayed on point with that one.

[fhdz]

and formerly chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About Drugs.'

He certainly stayed on point with that one.

LOL.

"Drugs: They're AWESOME"

[garbon]

and formerly chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About Drugs.'

He certainly stayed on point with that one.

LOL.

"Drugs: They're AWESOME"

I think that was the position of DARE.

[mongers]

Why exactly does it matter that he's a Methodist minister?

There had been an expectation there'd be a method in his madness ?

[Sheilbh]

No one comes out of this well:

How did Flowers bloom at Co-op Bank?

I spent a bit of time yesterday trying to find out a bit more about the Reverend Paul Flowers - because it is not every day that a former bank chairman is caught on camera apparently trying to buy cocaine and crystal meth from the front of a car in Leeds.

But Mr Flowers, who stepped down as chairman of the Co-operative Bank and vice chairman (no pun intended) of the Co-operative Group in June this year, was no ordinary banker.

He is a "superintendent" Methodist minister and a trustee for Methodist Church Purposes, inter alia, and a Labour party politician in local government.

Mr Flowers has been a serial local councillor, first trying to stand for the council in Coventry, and becoming a councillor first in Rochdale and then latterly in Bradford.

What he also did was join the political wing of the Co-operative Group, where over a period of years he got himself elected first to an area committee, then a regional board and finally the national board.

Those who know him say he is clever, persuasive and forceful. On the Methodist church's website, he describes himself as "known for an objective rigour and for asking the questions others might avoid".

As a skilled politician, his rise and rise through the ranks of the co-operative movement was not, colleagues say, terribly challenging for him.

Now you may notice that nowhere in this description of his career is there any sign that he has worked in banking in any senior capacity (or indeed, in any capacity at all).

At various times he chaired the drug abuse charity Lifeline (or so the Manchester Evening News reported in 2010), was a member of the Advertising Standards Authority and was vice chair of the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux.

All of which are a long way from the world of credit risk and deposit protection.

So how on earth did he end up on 29 March 2010 becoming chairman of the Co-operative Bank - a bank with £50bn of assets, £36bn of customer deposits and 4.7 million customers?

Well it stemmed from a power struggle within the co-operative movement, after United Co-operatives merged with the Co-operative Group in 2007 - or so I am told.

Remember that his appointment coincided with the most challenging time in the bank's history. The previous year it trebled in size by merging with the Britannia Building Society, to create what Co-op and the Britannia styled a super mutual.

This merger turned out, as we now know, to be something of a disaster, in that losses on loans made by Britannia and the costs of writing off an expensive IT project have taken the bank to the brink of collapse - and Co-op is in the throes, as we speak, of securing agreement from creditors for its rescue deal.

His appointment also came more than two years after the worst British banking crisis since at least 1913 and probably ever, and after those who ran the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, had pledged they would take extra care to make sure that those appointed to chair banks had appropriate skills and knowledge.

So how and why did the FSA approve the appointment of Mr Flowers?

As it happens, I am told that Flowers's political rivals within the cooperative movement were surprised and disappointed that his appointment was approved by the FSA - which has now been broken up, and replaced by the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority and the separate Financial Conduct Authority.

What on earth did the FSA ask Flowers when they interviewed him to sanction his appointment?

When earlier this month he gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, he seemed to have no grasp of the magnitude of the bank's asset, or its loans and investments - which as the committee chairman, Andrew Tyrie, pointed out, is pretty basic stuff.

And the FSA's seemingly lackadaisical approach to his appointment was - many would say - compounded, by the fact that it allowed Co-op Bank for months on Mr Flowers' watch to negotiate another huge deal, to treble in size by buying more than 600 branches from Lloyds (a deal from which Co-op ultimately withdrew, when it belatedly recognised it was beyond its management capabilities).

There's another thing too.

A few weeks ago, the Treasury Select Committee was told by Neville Richardson, the former boss of Britannia who was chief executive of Co-op Bank when Mr Flowers was chairman, that he quit as the bank's CEO in the summer of 2011 because he believed it was being forced by its owner, Co-op Group, to bite off more than it could chew, with assorted reorganisation and expansion plans.

Normally when a bank boss quits, the regulator would immediately interrogate him, to find out if it's a sign of something going wrong at the bank. But we still don't know if the FSA did interrogate Richardson then and what it learned.

What we do know is that it was not till the end of 2012 that alarm bells began to properly ring at the regulator about what was going on at Co-op Bank - but even then it did not really get a grip till the spring of this year.

Better late than never, many would say. And although investors in the bank's bonds are incurring losses of many hundreds of million pounds, the rescue of Co-op Bank won't involve a contribution from taxpayers (although even a few weeks ago, that was by no means certain).

That said, and to state the bloomin' obvious, regulators at the defunct FSA and its successor body, the PRA, have a few questions to answer, about why they gave the thumbs up to Mr Flowers.

There's also an important governance issue for the Co-op Group, about whether it is really appropriate for those who rise up through the political side of the co-operative movement to be able to exercise significant influence over its commercial activities.

At the bank, of course, the stable door was closed after the horse was long gone. Mr Flowers was replaced as Co-op Bank chairman by a proper banker, Richard Pym.

PS. I am told Mr Flowers used his platform as Co-op chairman to increase his influence with senior members of the Labour Party. He was on a finance and industry advisory group set up by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband.

Update 16:20

I have learned a bit more about the checks that the Financial Services Authority carried out on Paul Flowers before authorising him to be a non-executive director of Co-op Bank and then the bank's chairman.

Because a non-executive post at a large bank such as the Co-op Bank was deemed by the FSA to have "significant influence", I am told Mr Flowers was subjected to a "rigorous interview" in 2009, when first becoming a non-exec.

And he had another FSA interview when he became chairman in 2010 - although this was less rigorous, I am led to believe, because at the time the FSA did not regard the posts of chairman and non-executive director as massively different (it has since changed its tune on this, and would run a much more systematic and detailed vetting process when approving the appointment of a chairman today than it did then).

Apparently Mr Flowers admitted to the FSA that he did not have applicable experience in the financial services industry. But the FSA felt that Co-op Bank could compensate for this shortcoming, by appointing two deputy chairmen, who were also the senior independent directors (or SIDs) - which duly happened.

That said the FSA did believe Mr Flowers's political skills would be useful in corralling a large and unwieldy Co-op Bank board.

But does the FSA regret approving Mr Flowers and would he get approval if he applied today?

The FSA won't say.

Update 16:35

The Co-op Group has told me: "Given the serious and wide-ranging allegations, Co-op Group has started a fact-finding process to find any inappropriate behaviour and will take action accordingly."

And the board has also launched a "root and branch review of the democratic structure of the organisation, because we need to modernise to make sure the interests of all members are properly represented in the oversight of business activities".

In other words, the new management of Co-op Group is concerned to reform a governance system that allowed a small number of activists in the political wing of Co-op Group to control the group's commercial activities.

The Daily Mail has now got his rent boys to talk. Apparently he was 'debauched'

[fhdz]

and formerly chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About Drugs.'

He certainly stayed on point with that one.

LOL.

"Drugs: They're AWESOME"

I think that was the position of DARE.

Drugs Are Ridiculously Edible?

[Capetan Mihali]

Drugs Are Ridiculously Edible?

Drugs Are Riotously Engaging. 

[HVC]

and formerly chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About Drugs.'

He certainly stayed on point with that one.

LOL.

"Drugs: They're AWESOME"

I think that was the position of DARE.

This is what it looks like, this is what it does, and this is who you can buy it from. now don't do it.