the times | Saturday December 4 2021 2GM 13
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that he was at Euston train station and
could hear a Tannoy announcement in
detail. Days later he posted a photo
from a birthday lunch.
The same day that the hearing was
adjourned due to his illness he posted a
tweet of a Zoom conversation he had
with Matt Groening, the cartoonist.
Last month he wrote to the court to
say that he could not attend due to a
positive coronavirus test. Days later he
posted a photograph of Mortimer
House, the member’s club, and at an
event with his client Anthony Scara-
mucci, the former White House aide.
Dickinson, 51, from Chester, said: “It’sbeen extremely stressful and I knew he
would try to drag it out but I’m deter-
mined that he would not get away with
it.”
Senior BBC staff have appeared re-
peatedly on a podcast hosted by Blan-
chard, despite revelations last year in
this newspaper that he owed workers
tens of thousands of pounds.
Jon Sopel, the former North America
correspondent, was interviewed on his
podcast, as well as Jonathan Munro, the
head of BBC Newsgathering.
Since reports appeared in The Times
about Blanchard, his former workers
have petitioned people not to appear onA retired accountant who “murdered” a
protected tree because it threatened a
property deal faces an unlimited fine
after being found guilty of causing the
tree’s death.
Robert Page, 71, was told by a judge
yesterday that he “lied through his
teeth” about the demise of the 65ft
mature Monterey pine.
Page wanted rid of the tree from the
front garden of his £900,000 home
near Poole Harbour, Dorset, as it stood
in the way of a property deal.
The retired chartered accountant
A public relations entrepreneur whose
company owes hundreds of thousands
of pounds in tax has been posting
images on social media of luxury cars,
dining at exclusive members’ clubs and
expensive holidays.
Paul Blanchard, who has advised
celebrities and politicians, is winding
up his company, Right Angles PR, with
tax debts of £306,695.
Blanchard, who was exposed by The
Times last year for making homophobic
and antisemitic remarks, has paid back
£26,500. It is the third time that one of
his companies has been liquidated.
Over the past year his social media
account has shown images of a new
Mercedes 4x4, a hot tub, iPhones, visits
to exclusive members’ clubs and plans
for a holiday to Canada.
It can also be revealed that Blanchard
has lost a claim by a former worker to
pay thousands of pounds in wages
owed. He made a series of requests for
adjournments because of illness that
appeared to be contrary to posts he
made on social media.
He has been told to pay £13,152 to
Allie Dickinson, his former editor-in-
chief whom he once said was “trying to
leverage in your disabled son in an
effort to gain pity points”.
After one request for an
adjournment because of
an alleged positive coro-
navirus test and claims
of breathlessness, he
posted photographs
from an exclusive
members’ club.
The disclosures
come as BBC
broadcasters
appear on a pod-
cast Blanchard
hosts despite
being petitioned
by former workers
to whom he also
owed money. Last
year The Times
exposed how Blan-
chard, 46, was ac-
cused by a charity
of wasting its
money.
He terminated
PR boss who
owes taxman
£300,000 is
living high life
Dickinson’s contract in March last year
and refused to pay her overdue invoices
as well as an agreed severance after she
denied his request to sign a non-disclo-
sure agreement.
He wrote to her: “You are the one let-
ting down your family... Stop lying and
stop being pathetic. We both know the
truth: you are bitter and twisted at
being found out for what you are, and
you are trying to leverage in your dis-
abled son in an effort to gain pity points.
Shame on you. Have some dignity.
“If you say or do anything to harm my
company in the meantime, I will imme-
diately use the money I was going to
pay you to instruct lawyers and start a
legal action against you... Be smart
here for once, rather than letting your
perennial ‘victim mentality’ always
govern your emotions.”
A judge at Chester county court
awarded Dickinson,
whose son has cerebral
palsy, the money after she
told the court that she was
“struggling to put food on
the table”. The judge pro-
ceeded with the hearing in
Blanchard’s absence last
month after denying his re-
quest for an adjournment.
In March Blanchard
emailed the court to say that
he had been un-
well for a few
weeks and re-
quested an
extension for re-
turning the pre-trial check-
list. Five days previ-
ously he posted on
Instagram that he
was “feeling the
healthiest I’ve
felt in years”.
In July he
asked for an
adjournment,
claiming that
an inflamma-
tion in his ear
canal left him
with hearing of
90 per cent and
that the doctor
had advised bed
rest. A tweet he
posted that day saidAccountant in land deal guilty of ‘murdering’ huge historic tree
had agreed to sell his detached home to
a developer who wanted to build luxury
flats. Felling the tree would have netted
him an extra £100,000 from the sale.
The tree also cast a shadow over his
south-facing house and that was
another reason he wanted it gone, the
court was told.
His grand plan fell through when
planning permission was refused
because the pine was protected by a tree
preservation order, which had been
issued in 1989 — Page had moved into
the property in 2006 — the court had
heard. Soon after, the pine, which had
decades of life ahead of it, began towither and die. A tree expert from the
council inspected the tree and discov-
ered a herbicide had been injected into
drill holes and cement poured around
its base to choke it of oxygen. Some-
body had also “ring barked” the tree
meaning a section of bark was cut out to
prevent it from absorbing nutrients.
The court was told that the trees do
not reach their full size until they are
roughly 80 to 100 years old.
Page, who claimed that somebody
else must have come on to his property
and sabotaged the tree, was found
guilty after a four-day trial at Salisbury
crown court. Judge Robert Pawsonadjourned the case for sentencing but
not before launching a withering verbal
attack on the defendant.
He told Page: “You sat there and lied
through your teeth. It displays a certain
arrogance.” The maximum sentence
for the crime is an unlimited fine. Page
also faces paying expensive court costs.
Pawson said: “You are certainly
entitled to a fair trial but it costs money
and that is going to end up at your door.”
He said the case was a “murder trial of
a tree”. The “huge and historic” tree was
protected and had stood in the affluent
neighbourhood of Lilliput since the
early 1950s. Page first applied to thelocal council for consent to have it
removed in 2015.
But after the application was refused
in 2018, the tree, an evergreen, began to
wither and die. A landscape gardener
employed by Page emailed the town
hall informing them he would be
removing the tree which was “dying
and weeks from death”.
The court heard that when Page and
his wife, Nicola, a financial adviser,
returned home to find a council-appo-
inted tree expert there, he was over-
heard telling her “don’t tell them any-
thing”. The father of two is due to be
sentenced this month.Will Humphries
his podcast. Other BBC em-
ployees to appear since our arti-
cles include Tim Harford, the
presenter of More or Less on
Radio 4, and Angela Henshall, a
senior producer on a BBC equali-
ty project.
The journalists John Sweeney
and James Ball have had their
interviews removed after they
made requests following news
articles about Blanchard. Jay Ray-
ner, the writer and restaurant
critic, has asked for his episode to
be removed but it is still available. It is
thought that Sopel was interviewed
before the disclosures.
The BBC declined to comment but a
source at the corporation said: “We
would not recommend our staff take
part in this podcast.”
Harford, who is not a BBC staff
member, said that he would not have
agreed to the interview if he had known
about Blanchard’s past and had asked
for it to be removed.
Blanchard said he “strongly disputes”
owing Dickinson any money. He
claimed that he had lodged an appeal
and had lots of evidence to support it.
He said that he intended to pay back the
taxpayer in full. He also insisted that
the expensive cars were rented and the
hot tub was a wedding anniversary gift.h
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alcheck- Paul Blanchard, with his client Anthony Scaramucci, top right, has posted images berem
of Mercedes 4x4s and BMWs as well as holidays with his wife Heather, left,
despite winding up his company Right Angles PR with tax debts of £306,Ben Ellery