- Wordplay part four - 3rd December 2024
- Terms of endearment (Wordplay part three) - 2nd December 2024
- More ‘Water, water everywhere…’ (Copyright ST Coleridge) part two - 23rd November 2024
Our satirical writer Edwin Phillips reads an imaginary rejection letter for a business grant application by the parents of a Welsh conman who The Eye have exposed, and is now serving a long prison sentence for serious drug offences.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Regrettably we must refuse your application for money to fund the Hawthorn School of Traditional Wado-ryu Karate as your maxim of ‘Strive to become a better person’ does not appear to chime with recent events.
It is difficult to see how ‘Strive to become a better person’ fits the activities of your son, Howard Williams (AKA) James Daniels, who is now serving at His Majesty’s pleasure for drug offences.
On Wednesday, Ashley Carter, aged 35 from #Rhondda, and Howard Williams, aged 46 from #Cardiff, were sentenced at Merthyr Crown Court.
It is also of concern to our organisation, that this recent imprisonment is not the first time that your son (who also branched out into property previously) has fallen foul of the law, and the behaviour in his personal life as well as in business has also placed a large question mark over your application.
Several years ago he announced on social media his engagement to a woman called Danni (or Danielle) Greer while he was still married to someone else.
We have discovered that journalists have disclosed as well, that Mr Williams/Daniels had opened a tanning studio in Cardiff, although like many of his past ‘businesses’ this one also soon met trouble.
Mr Williams/Daniels has admitted to having been imprisoned before, but has described it in a FB post as a “short while”; honesty is central to us and his convictions in fact totalled years at this stage.
He stated: “…when I was younger I did spend a short while in prison for fraud in the UK”, and added: “Stand up to the liars (and) haters…”.
However we are very mindful of truth, and our organisation does not want to leave itself open to accusations of impropriety.
It is public knowledge that apart from, over 10 years, spending more than four of them in prison convicted of 25 deception counts (even before his latest jailing at Merthyr Tydfil), Mr Williams/Daniels has been made bankrupt three times – in 2002, 2010 and 2015.
During his previous career as an ‘Estate Agent’, it is clear to our executives that the anger of one individual was evident on a property website: “He (Mr Williams/Daniels) makes you pay circa £10k deposit and then disappears into the sunset”.
At a property event in the South of England, the investigative website The Eye were told that an investor had lost £30,000 to him.
There are major doubts about claims from Mr Williams/Daniels such as his talk of owning a boat as well as a jetski, which he has said on FB was for sale, and accuracy is extremely important to us.
He has said too, that he owned a “massive” estate agency business, but went from earning £20,000 a week to having just £56 in his pocket and living on the streets.
Mr Williams/Daniels also alleged he drove expensive cars (and photographs have been published), saying publicly that it took just “24 hours” to turn the £56 into £1,000. This pronouncement has, however, been questioned, and raises further issues about your grant request to us.
For example, one man who is owed thousands of pounds by Mr Williams/Daniels said: “This is all made up. He lives in a complete fantasy world!”.
It has also come to our notice, that Mr Williams/Daniels was in charge of marketing for a Spanish wine bar called ‘Blanco’ in Murcia, and he announced his engagement to Ms Greer on the bar’s website. But The Eye have divulged how over one Christmas and New Year, he warned customers on social media that they could no longer accept credit cards at Blanco, even though these periods are the busiest times of year for restaurants and it is almost unheard of for them only to take cash then.
He also ran dance nights at a disco in Spain called ‘Roldan’ but it closed soon after The Eye’s disclosures. Following them, your son asked a specialist company how to “get rid” of The Eye’s“ negative” stories about him on the internet.
He wrote: “When I google James daniels spain or James Daniels property or James Daniels murcia a load of website links appear for the-eye.wales which are negative reviews and not true (The Eye – nothing is untrue). How do I get rid of these an(d) how much does it cost? Also how long does it tak?”
Mr Williams/Daniels needed hospital treatment after his legs were broken when an illegal drugs deal went wrong, and this has affected your grant application as well.
It has also been revealed on The Eye, how formerly he had teamed up with another ex-criminal from South Wales, who was also put behind bars for drug offences, to start a ‘charity’. He launched the ‘Crisis Housing Charity’ and asked for donations from the public in a venture designed ostensibly to help ex-convicts find homes. The ‘charity’ gave an address in Cardiff but does not now exist.
The Editor of The Eye, Phil Parry has been subjected to abuse on social media from Mr Williams/Daniels and his supporters, and these are unlikely to have assisted your application. His friends, wife and children, have been too.
In one published comment he wrote to him on FB: “You write total lies about people (The Eye – we only report facts), bully to the point of harassment and suicide, and will not answer a direct email? This is not journalism this is a mixture of Phil Parry (The ex journalist) and (others) you are pure scum!!!!! Let it be publicly known that The Eye does NOT care about people it just lies to make fictitious stories up. BULLYING, LIES, MENTAL HEALTH ABUSE TO NAME BUT A FEW!!!!!”.
In another he said: “I am have contacted you (sic) numerous times before asking why you consistently, stalk, bully and harass me? … You so far have asked the following for comments:
Thief
Abuser (The Eye have never said Williams/Daniels is an abuser).
Liar
Sex Offender (The Eye have never said Williams/Daniels is a sex offender).
Drug user (The Eye have never said Williams/Daniels is a drug user, just that he has dealt in illegal drugs).
Meanwhile it appears that his ex-business partner, Mr Sam McManus (also known as Mr Georgeson), may not support this application, because he has admitted that he was also conned by him and that Mr Williams/Daniels was a ‘sick man’. Mr McManus explained how he was deceived along with everyone else, and told The Eye: “He (Mr Williams/Daniels) has fooled many people and I can only be grateful that there are good investigative journalists like you guys who expose greedy people like him. It is embarrassing to admit that I am yet another victim of his greed”.
The Eye were contacted by a driver for one of his cafés who offered extremely worrying information which would sit uneasily with any publicity about a successful grant application. He said: “He (Mr Williams/Daniels) (is) not paying me for the work I did for him and he (is) also not paying the other drivers. Thank god I read your report on him, it save(d) me money and bother. The guy is a joke. I’m now £200 out of pocket, but it could be worst (sic)”.
A text message about Mr Williams/Daniels said that he had: “…taken everything out AGAIN not paid the staff Owes one of the girls £500 locked up and empty”.
Earlier another staff member at one of his ‘cafés’ warned others on FB: “Nobody work for Crave desserts in Merthyr town, haven’t paid some of their staff for weeks, delivery drivers and kitchen staff, always says it will be in on Friday or Tuesday and I’m still waiting 5 weeks on along with others who worked there. Always got to beg for your money, Absolutely disgusting, you work the hours and expect to be paid! They have blocked me from their page and ain’t answering my messages, fuming!”.
For these reasons, this organisation does not want to be associated with the family of a man who is in jail for drug offences.
As all right-thinking people would agree – this is REJECTED…
Yours
Application office
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – Edwin reads a script for comic broadcaster Alan Partridge, about the new jingles proudly proclaimed in a trade magazine for the only national English language radio station in Wales, where audience figures are on the floor.