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A crooked South Wales ‘Estate Agent’ who had his legs broken when an illegal drugs deal soured, spent years in jail and was exposed exclusively by The Eye, withdrew from the property business a day after we revealed his controversial practices.
Fraudster Howard Williams changed his name to ‘James Daniels’ and has been in prison for more than four years on a variety of charges (his own father has described him to us as a “complete crook”) posted on his Facebook page “I no longer trade in property”.
The declaration was made 24 hours after our item “Crooked house” was published about Williams/Daniels’ past, and it will come as a huge relief to his ‘clients’ who he has fleeced of thousands of pounds.
Earlier on his website ‘James Daniels Property Systems’ he said: “Some deals I (did) made me and investors lots of money”.
Williams/Daniels was open about changing his name, being in jail and the fact that he has had mental health problems, although he did not go into details, or that many people have lost huge amounts of money to him. He wrote on his property website: “1. I changed my name from Howard Williams to James Daniels 2. Some deals I made cost me and investors money 3. Some deals I (did) made me and investors lots of money 4. I have severe mental health illness called bi polar 5. I (have) been to prison”.
But The Eye have offered readers more details about Williams/Daniels. Our journalists showed how over 10 years his jail sentences have totalled four years four months, involving 25 counts of deception, and he has been made bankrupt three times.
In one of his previous ‘careers’ he has tricked people into thinking he is a property ‘expert’ but on one property website, the anger of an individual is clear: “He (Williams/Daniels) makes you pay circa £10k deposit and then disappears into the sunset”. At a property event in the South of England The Eye were told that an investor had lost £30,000 to him.
His extraordinary exploits have even been the subject of our satirical writer Edwin Phillips and Williams/Daniels has boasted of owning a boat as well as a jetski which he has said on Facebook was for sale.
He has posted a YouTube interview on his property website where he brags about his property ‘expertise’. He claims he had 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. Williams/Daniels also alleges he has driven expensive cars, and said in the interview that it took just “24 hours” to turn the £56 into £1,000, yet some critics have questioned how much of this is true.
One who is owed thousands of pounds by Williams/Daniels told The Eye: “This is all made up. He lives in a complete fantasy world!”.
Williams/Daniels is in charge, too, of marketing for a Spanish wine bar called ‘Blanco’ after he moved from South Wales to Murcia. But our journalists have divulged how over Christmas and New Year he told ‘customers’ on social media they could no longer accept credit cards. Yet these periods are the busiest times of year for restaurants and it is almost unheard of for them only to take money then.
He also ran dance nights at a disco called ‘Roldan’ but it closed soon after our disclosures.
Following them, Williams/Daniels asked a specialist company how to “get rid”‘ of the “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 take?”.
Apart from having his legs broken when an illegal drugs deal went wrong, we have also disclosed how formerly Williams/Daniels has teamed up with another ex-criminal from South Wales, who had been 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 as well as his friends, wife and children, have been subjected to a torrent of abuse on social media from Williams/Daniels and his supporters, following our discoveries.
In one tirade he wrote: “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)“.
A Lisa Williams has also bombarded The Eye and Mr Parry with insulting messages on Facebook. Among them was this response to a picture of Mr Parry: “The face of a real life bully… don’t you look so proud too awww”.
Yet Williams/Daniels’ former business partner, Sam McManus (also known as ‘Georgeson’), has admitted to us he too was fooled by him and that he was a ‘sick man’. Mr McManus explained to us how he was conned along with everyone else, and told The Eye: “He (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”.
Apart from describing his son as a crook, Williams’/Daniels’ father has told us how he was called by the police to Clifton suspension bridge where Williams/Daniels was threatening to commit suicide, and how he spent part of a Christmas day outside the walls of Cardiff jail to be near his son inside. Bill Williams, who ran a sofa business in South Wales, believes his son stole about £250,000 from him in cash and stock. 
Williams/Daniels also said he performed at expensive property ‘seminars’ in upmarket hotels or golf clubs around South Wales where customers were duped once again. For £299 potential clients were tempted with a “Special Offer February Deal – Sourcing and rent to rent training weekend”. The ‘offer’ was removed from Williams/Daniels’ Facebook site, where he was known as ‘The Shoes’, soon afterwards, and when The Eye contacted the golf club, officials had no record of it taking place.
One of the accusations on social media from Williams/Daniels to the family of Mr Parry, is that we are pursuing a person with, as he puts it, “severe mental health illness” and cases of this are well known to our Editor.
Yet it is others who deserve sympathy.
The real victims are those whose lives have been ruined by his drug-dealing and the innocent people who have been conned out of thousands of pounds.
At least now Williams/Daniels says he will no longer deal in property – but truth has always been a stranger to him.
Our Editor Mr Parry’s memories of his extraordinary 35-year award-winning career in journalism as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major new book ‘A Good Story’. Order the book now. The picture doubles as a cut-and-paste poster!
