MODEL PS: NO ATTEMPT TO MISLEAD MEMBERS?

According to the minutes of the 2010 Annual General Meeting of the Vincent HRD Owners Club on 16.10.2010, "two-thirds" of the seventy-four members present admitted in a "straw pole" [sic] called by VOC Secretary Andrew Everett that they were aware of the true provenance of the Model PS allegedly donated to the VOC in 2009 by Nigel Seymour-Smith. As readers will recall, the Model PS in question had actually belonged to the late John Lumley since the 1950s, having been briefly owned from 1945 to 1947 by Nigel Seymour-Smith. Those who have not read the article about this can do so by clicking on this link. 

 

Given the identities of those present at the 2010 AGM, the results of Mr Everett's straw poll are, sadly, unsurprising.

Mr Everett stated that the VOC would assume any tax liability on behalf of Nigel Seymour-Smith. However, sources close to the Seymour-Smith family have remarked that as Nigel Seymour-Smith did not in fact accept the Model PS, he would not be liable for any taxes due in relation to the alleged gift. Furthermore, enquiries through DVLA established that the late John Lumley initiated the process of acquiring a V5 for his Model PS in 1983. Although he let his application lapse, DVLA has the Model PS on file in John Lumley's name and his name is the last one in the old-style RF60 logbook. 

VOC members and officials including Andrew Everett (centre) check out the club's new acquisition. 

Although the Model PS was donated in Nigel Seymour-Smith's name to the Vincent HRD Owners Club in August 2009 by VOC President Bryan Phillips,  there has been no change in ownership status logged by DVLA. This is presumably because the Vincent HRD Owners Club is not actually a legal entity and cannot therefore apply for a V5 document for the Model PS. Or perhaps it is because none of the senior executives want to assume responsibility by signing their names to such an application on the VOC's behalf. After all, the Model PS was part of what HM Revenue and Customs have described as "the irregular disposal of assets" from the John Lumley Estate, casting doubt on Dick Wheeldon's right to offer the Model PS to Nigel Seymour-Smith, allegedly on behalf of the late John Lumley. 

Enquiries have now established beyond reasonable doubt that Nigel Seymour-Smith did not accept the Model PS and could not therefore have donated it to the VOC. Consequently, the Model PS belongs to the John Lumley Estate, which was reopened by the executors when they learned of the disappearance before probate of the motorcycle collection and other items estimated to have been worth at least £1 million. The executors are said to have reached an arrangement with HMRC that allows those in possession of the ex-John Lumley motorcycles traced to date and valued at more than £400,000, to keep them if they pay the taxes due under the seven year rule. 

The evident reluctance of the executors to recover these assets on behalf of the estate entrusted to their care by their late client, whose sole heir was his elder brother, Tom Lumley, is surprising, especially as Tom Lumley is, apparently, also a client of theirs. Even if the story that John Lumley suddenly decided on his deathbed to give his motorcycle collection away to officials and prominent members of the Vincent HRD Owners Club is true, and there is no evidence to support the story, staff and management at the hospice where he died have confirmed that John Lumley was receiving heavy doses of morphine and other medication so his competence to make such a decision regarding his estate would have been in doubt had his solicitors been consulted. Even if there were a Letter of Wishes countermanding the Will, his solicitors, acting as his trustees and, later, his executors, would have had duty to question and even refuse it, given their late client's condition. Small wonder, then, that no attempt has been made to make the appropriation on behalf of the club membership by senior VOC officials of the Model PS official. 

In thanks for what we are about to receive: the Model PS before its presentation to the VOC 

Mr Everett's statement that the "solicitors of John Lumley's estate were aware" of Mr Seymour-Smith's alleged decision to donate the Model PS to the VOC seems at odds with the timeline; the Model PS was presented to the VOC by club president Bryan Phillips on 28.8.2009 yet as the following letter from Thackray Williams to Charlie Cannon on 2.2.2010 indicates, the solicitors to whom Mr Everett refers were unaware in February 2010 of any motorcycles owned by their late client.

Given the direct involvement of so many officials and officers of the Vincent HRD Owners Club in what HM Revenue & Customs have delicately described as "the irregular disposal of assets" from the John Lumley Estate, it is unsurprising that they and the ordinary members implicated alongside them knew the true provenance of the so-called "Nigel Seymour-Smith Model PS". They had removed it from the garage on John Lumley's property where it had been for many years, stored behind a valuable vintage car that, incidentally, also disappeared without trace during the pre-probate house clearance. 

However, if as many as two-thirds of those present at the VOC's 2010 AGM knew that the Model PS had actually belonged to John Lumley rather than Nigel Seymour-Smith, then why is the Model PS not known as "The John Lumley Model PS". It would be a more fitting memorial to the man who found he had so many close friends in the VOC as he laying dying in a hospice than tacking his name onto the annual Pie and Pint Meet run by the club's North Kant Section, of which so many of the individuals identified as being in possession of ex-John Lumley motorcycles are members. 

Mr Everett told the 2010 AGM that the VOC intended to appeal against the £17,000 valuation of the Model PS by an independent consultant and that other recipients of ex-John Lumley motorcycles also intended to appeal. The ex-John Lumley motorcycles so far traced have been valued at more than £400,000 as opposed to the £75,000 value suggested to HMRC by the VOC management. 

In other words, having already stooped to blaming the late John Lumley for their probate-related woes, as well as claiming that all they got were incomplete, rusty basket cases, the beneficiaries of his alleged deathbed largesse and their shrill defenders are now challenging the rather more realistic valuation established by the independent - and highly qualified - consultant engaged by Thackray Williams, the Executors of the John Lumley Estate. In other words, they are now in conflict with the John Lumley Estate and, consequently, its sole beneficiary, Tom Lumley. 

According to a source at Thackray Williams, acting as Executors of the John Lumley Estate, Tom Lumley is expected by the firm to cover costs and expenses incurred in relation to the reopening of his late brother's Estate because there is no money in the Estate's accounts, the Estate having been wound up before the executors were obliged to reopen it.  Having already lost more than half the total value of the inheritance guaranteed to him by his younger brother's Will, Tom Lumley, who is in his eighties and suffering from cancer, will be lumbered with even more expenses as a result of the refusal of the recipients of ex-John Lumley motorcycles even to pay the taxes due on the market value of their 'gifts', a deal reportedly worked out between Thackray Williams and HMRC. 

In conversations and correspondence with Tom Lumley's wife Betty, she stated that she and her husband had no idea of the value of the motorcycles or, as she doggedly described them, "motorcycle parts" owned by her late brother-in-law. In a letter published in the April 2010 issue of the VOC's journal MPH, Tom and Betty Lumley confirmed this lack of knowledge. Betty Lumley sounded indignant when told of the value of some of the motorcycles removed from the house before probate. She expressed great concern about the potential tax liability. And then she suddenly became very reluctant to discuss the matter. 

A source close to the VOC management stated that Betty Lumley received a call from a club officer known for his bullying tactics, reminding her that she was just as implicated because she had given Dick Wheeldon the keys to John Lumley's house the day after his death. Indeed, Betty Lumley had no right to authorise the removal of any house contents before inventory and valuation for probate purposes. This might explain why Tom Lumley has made no official complaints about the "irregular disposal of assets" amounting to half or more of the value of his inheritance, allegedly given away by his brother when, according to hospice management, he was full of morphine and other drugs, and the manner in which the trustees and executors have handled the matter. This might also explain why he is apparently prepared to pay the legal firm's fees instead of telling them to charge their services to the estate for which they are responsible. 

Of course, as the executors have indicated, they have no intention of recovering the assets so far traced and so, the reopened estate's costs cannot be covered by monies realised through the sale of these assets, "conservatively estimated" to be worth more than £400,000, by a reputable auction house like Bonham's. Coming back to the Model PS, it has been established beyond any doubt that this rare and valuable motorcycle was not accepted by Nigel Seymour-Smith. Therefore, it should have been returned to the John Lumley Estate. Were it sold through at auction, it would probably realise enough money to cover the estate's costs, assuming that these costs are reasonable. 

VOC Scandal Mis-Manager Andrew Everett eyes the camera at a North Kent Section Pie and Pint Meet

But no, it is now in the possession, nominally at least, of the Vincent HRD Owners Club, whose members will be paying the taxes on it, as well as the eventual cost of making it roadworthy, so that the all-too-familiar cabal of VOC officials and preferred members can ride about on it, just as they ride about on the Series A Comet Nigel Seymour-Smith genuinely donated to the VOC. And in the fullness of time, the Nigel Seymour-Smith Model PS is bound to be photographed by MPH Editor Graham Smith at the VOC North Kunt Section's John Lumley Pie and Pint Meet, surrounded by motorcycle thieves, tax dodgers and hangers-on, all very smug and self-satisfied beneficiaries of the moral and legal laxity that reigns in Broken Britain.