the times | Thursday October 15 2020 1GM 13
News
A mother and three of her children who
were killed when their car was in a colli-
sion with a lorry have been described as
“a delightful family”.
Zoe Powell, 29, died alongside Phoe-
be, eight, Simeon, six, and Amelia, four,
on Monday night. Her husband, Josh,
30, and their 18-month-old daughter
were injured and are in John Radcliffe
Hospital, Oxford.
The Rev Dr Jacky Barr, from St An-
drew’s Church, Chinnor, said the trage-
dy was a “loss to us all in the area”. She
said: “They used to come to our church.
Zoe and her children would come along
to one of our after-school sessions.
They were just a delightful family.”
Mrs Powell ran a craft business, mak-
ing stationery, art and prints incorpo-
rating quotes from the Bible and her
favourite books.
The family lost many of their posses-
sions, including a lot of Mrs Powell’s
artwork and art supplies, in a house fire
in June. Maureen Dyroff, a supervisor
at a pre-school attended by one of the
children, said the family had “lost
everything in the fire”. They had been
in temporary accommodation since.
“They were a beautiful family and it
was such a wonderful honour to work
with the three older children,” she said.
A friend and neighbour of the Pow-
ells said that the “whole family would
do anything for anybody”. The woman,
who asked not to be named, said: “She
[Mrs Powell] was amazing, a great
neighbour and a lovely person. She did
a lot for the community, not just
through the church.”
Mrs Powell had lived in Chinnorwomen who died from cocaine poison-
ing in 2011. Deaths among men rose by
7 per cent, from 520 to 560 cases. The
highest number of deaths was among
people in their thirties.
Statisticians said that the figures
underestimated the true number of
overdoses because in more than one in
five cases the coroner’s death certificate
did not record the type of drug
involved. Half of deaths by drug poison-
ing also feature more than one type of
drug, or alcohol as well.
Laura Bunt, of the charity We Are
With You, said: “We need much better
education early on in schools and
throughout the population on how to
use drugs in the safest way possible and
what support is out there.”
Jessica Southgate, chief executive of
Agenda, which supports women in the
criminal justice system, said: “Women
often turn to drugs to cope with the
impact of trauma and abuse. Women
can find it more difficult to get help for
their addiction.”rent or utilities, expenses of volunteers,
or for the acquisition of art, he added and
ordered the company to pay £371,
plus almost £20,000 of costs.
Bolton council had also pursued the
charity for rates at 11 properties includ-
ing Ashworth House on Deakins Busi-
ness Park. It said that the organisation
owed £123,130.99 of business rates.
Mrs Justice Jefford ruled against the
charity in the High Court this month in
its challenges relating to the Birming-ham and Bolton cases.
Preservation and Promotion of the
Arts had also been ordered in 2018 to
pay £4,948.55 to Gateshead Council
after taking over a large industrial unit
at Bailey House on the Stargate Indus-
trial Estate in Ryton.
The Times has learnt of other live
cases involving the charity. Newcastle-
under-Lyme council in Staffordshire
said the charity was registered for busi-
ness rates at Brindley Court on the Lym-edale Business Park from November
2016 until February this year. A spokes-
man said “no payments have been made
by the company at all” and that recovery
action had been suspended pending the
outcome of a court case.
Southwark council in south London
said it had not granted the company
rates relief for a large office block in
Waterloo and was waiting for a date for
court hearing for a liability order.
In January the charity announced aCocaine deaths among
women up by a quarter
Greg Hurst Social Affairs Editor
Tributes to blogger’s family killed in crash
since the mid-2010s but was previously
from Sheffield. She described herself in
her blog as a “wife, mama, maker”. She
also published The Mama Book, a jour-
nal in which mothers could chronicle
their lives.
Mrs Powell wrote: “When I created
this journal for myself I was feeling
overwhelmed by the everyday de-
mands of having three young children.
One day in the middle of the craziness
of having three 3-and-unders under-
foot, I filled a notebook with all the
thoughts about mothering that were
filling up my head.”
Thames Valley police said they re-
ceived multiple calls from the public
after the crash on the A40 near Oxford.
The family’s Subaru people carrier had
collided with a heavy goods vehicle.
The HGV driver, a 56-year-old man,
suffered minor injuries.
Sergeant Dominic Mahon, of the
serious collision investigation unit, said
Mr Powell and his daughter were still in
a serious condition but were expected
to recover.
He asked anyone with information
or dashcam footage to contact police.Emma Yeomans
The falling price of cocaine and its
increasing availability and purity have
pushed the number of people dying
from overdoses to a record level this
year, and the number of women dying
has risen by a quarter.
Official statistics show there were
4,393 deaths attributed to poisoning by
illegal drugs in England and Wales last
year, up by almost 1 per cent on the
previous year to the highest level since
records began in 1993.
Fatal overdoses of opiates such as
heroin and morphine were the most
common, accounting for almost half of
such deaths, but recorded a slight year-
on-year fall, the Office for National
Statistics said. However, this was offset
by a big rise in deaths linked to cocaine
use, continuing a trend of rises in recent
years.
The number of women dying from
cocaine overdoses rose from 117 to 148.
This was six times the number ofJosh and Zoe Powell with three of
their four children. All were in the carAn arts charity has been condemned as
a “sham” after it helped property own-
ers to avoid tax by organising exhibi-
tions in vacant buildings.
Preservation and Promotion of the
Arts enables owners of office blocks
and business parks to avoid hundreds of
thousands of pounds of business rates
on empty buildings by hosting pop-up
events. One featured copies of art
including work by the graffiti artist
Banksy. Another involved a giveaway
of cheap paperback books.
The Times has learnt that local
authorities across the country are
taking legal action or reviewing claims
by the charity because they suspect it of
being one of several schemes that in
total are estimated to cost councils
£250 million a year.
Full business rates are due on com-
mercial properties that remain unoccu-
pied after three months but if they are
used by charities they are entitled to at
least an 80 per cent discount.
Preservation and Promotion of the
Arts was founded in 2015 by Harry
Hunter, then 18, He was replaced the
following year as the sole director by
Joshua Jacques, now 29, an electrician
from Preston.
Concerns about its operations have
been revealed in a series of court cases.
The charity has been refused busi-
ness relief on 25 units in three promi-
nent Birmingham office blocks: Wind-
sor House, Cobalt Square and Delta
View. Council inspectors found that the
one-day or two-day exhibitions were
barely promoted and difficult to access.
Judge Jan Jellema ruled at Birming-
ham county court: “There is no persua-
sive evidence of any charitable activity
actually taking place across the three
buildings.” He said there was no evi-
dence to contradict a claim by a council
inspector that the charity “is a shell or a
sham set up specifically to avoid the
payment of non-domestic rates”.
The charity’s accounts show that it has
only £500 of assets, appears to be “totally
inactive” with no sign of payments for
Book
giveaways are
among the
promotions
organised by
Joshua
Jacques’ groupArts charity helps landlords avoid tax
one-day event in a unit at Edward VII
Quay in Preston Docklands for a “free
entry print and book giveaway”.
A spokeswoman for Preston council
said: “We have this organisation regis-
tered for rates within Preston and they
have attempted to claim relief, which
has thus far been refused.”
The charity hosted a one-day event
in part of Markham House in Chester-
field, Derbyshire, last November. A
Chesterfield council spokesman said:
“We are aware of the legal action taken
by other local authorities, and are re-
viewing the company’s position in rela-
tion to business rates in Chesterfield.”
The charity announced on its Face-
book page in July that it was planning
further events in Preston, St Asaph,
Wrexham, Boston and Peterborough.
Brigid Jones, the deputy leader of Bir-
mingham, said: “Nationally this kind of
avoidance costs local authorities mil-
lions of pounds a year, and that means
we don’t have that money to provide
the services they rely on.”
A survey by the Local Government
Association last year found that busi-
ness rates avoidance schemes were
costing an estimated £250 million,
about 1 per cent of the total collected. It
said the use of “third party/rates miti-
gation companies to facilitate arrange-
ments in return for a percentage of the
rates saved... was widespread or very
widespread” in half of authorities.
Preservation and Promotion of the
Arts said that it had “operated charit-
able events for a significant period of
time” that “have often been popular, es-
pecially with older people, who enjoy
the interaction that they give them”.
It said there had been a “string of
cases” where courts had found that it
was entitled to relief at other locations,
but did not provide examples.
The charity said: “We are aware of
the recent High Court judgment and
are surprised by the result, given that
we have been successful in other cases
on the same issues. No order has yet
been made in respect of that judgment
and a hearing to establish what order
should be made has not yet been ar-
ranged by the court We are lodging an
appeal with the Court of Appeal.”
A spokeswoman for the Charity
Commission said Preservation and
Promotion of the Arts was not a regis-
tered charity. “We will be assessing
information to determine whether it
falls within our regulatory remit.”‘Sham’ schemes to cut
business rates on empty
buildings are costing
councils £250m a year,
David Brown writes