the times | Saturday April 30 2022 25
News
A celebrated entrepreneur has rejected
accusations that he runs his homeless
charity like an “autocrat”, insisting that
he has taken a back seat in recent years.
Josh Littlejohn, the founder of Social
Bite, is being investigated by the charity
regulator amid claims that he misused
his power. Littlejohn said in a statement
that he had “grown and evolved” since
he founded the charity a decade ago at
the age of 25.
He has raised tens of millions of
pounds, received a Pride of Britain
award, attracted the support of George
Robert Hanson, the playboy friend of
the Duke of York, has been dragged into
a £40 million fraud case brought by a
Turkish heiress.
Nebahat Isbilen, an exile from polit-
ical persecution in Turkey, is suing Sel-
man Turk, 35, a trusted financier she
claims conned her out of her savings as
she fled to safety in Britain.
Hanson’s name has now emerged in
court filings because he was allegedly
paid £25,000 from an account belong-
ing to Isbilen, 77.
Hanson’s business was also said in
court papers to have handled tens of
millions of pounds of the Turkish
woman’s money without her know-
ledge or agreement as she sought to get
her fortune out of her homeland.
Prince Andrew received more than
£1 million of the Turkish woman’s
money, most of which he has repaid, it
had already emerged in court.
Turk was a known associate of the
duke. The alleged conman won a prize
at a contest for business start-ups, host-
ed by Andrew at St James’ Palace,
shortly before allegedly persuading
Isbilen to give £750,000 as a wedding
present to the duke’s daughter, Princess
Beatrice. Andrew repaid this sum after
being contacted by Isbilen’s lawyers.
Hanson Asset Management, a busi-
ness co-founded by Hanson, 61, was
handling Isbilen’s money from the early
days of her trying to flee Turkey, where
her husband is a political prisoner.
Turk, a former banker, began advising
her while she was still in Turkey.
Isbilen is complaining that $31 mil-
lion belonging to her was sent by Turk
to an account in her name at Hanson
Asset Management, where Hanson
was a director and shareholder, in
London in February 2017. She claims
she had no knowledge of the account.
Then, according to court papers,
$30 million from that account was
transferred to a fund related to Turk in
April 2017.
Turk said: “Hanson Asset Manage-
ment is an asset management com-
pany. Money doesn’t stay in an asset
management company. They invest
into certain funds or asset classes.”
He claims in his court defence that
Isbilen knew about the account at Han-
Playboy friend
joins Andrew
and heiress in
£40m fraud row
son Asset Management and authorised
the transfer of the $30 million out of it.
Hanson’s friends told The Times he had
no involvement in Isbilen’s finances,
and never met her or spoke to her. Han-
son was registered with the Financial
Conduct Authority but ceased to be a
director and shareholder of Hanson
Asset Management in August 2017.
Yet, according to court papers, Han-
son himself received £25,000 on Febru-
ary 11, 2020, from an account in Isbilen’s
name at Swiss Global, a “purported
asset management company” estab-
lished by Turk and a business partner.
The payment had the reference
60DAYPAY. Friends of Hanson told
The Times that no such bank payment
to him could be found.
Turk said he was not now the manag-
er or a shareholder in Swiss Global,
although he had been on the board and
owned shares “for a little period of
time”. Court papers describe Hanson as
an acquaintance of Turk. The Turkish
man told The Times that Hanson had
been his business partner: “We did busi-
ness transactions with him in the past.
He was the owner of Hanson Asset
Management and I was banker.
Obviously.”
Hanson’s friends accepted that he
had met Turk socially but vigorously
denied they had been business partners
and insisted that he had never done any
transactions with the Turkish man in
his role as a banker.
Hanson was named in a witness
statement by Isbilen’s lawyers Peters &
Peters as they sought a High Court
search order against Turk to discover
where her assets had gone.
The statement was by nature tenta-
tive as it raised questions about
unexplained transactions rather than
making specific accusations.
“At the very least, and without specu-
lating as to the basis for this payment, it
is clear that Mr Hanson was associated
with Mr Turk, and it is reasonable to
infer that the payment was also made to
Mr Hanson at Mr Turk’s direction,”
Peters & Peters stated.
The lawyers told the court they were
highlighting transactions from the
Swiss Global account “as further
grounds for suspicion as to the relation-
ship between Mr Turk and Hanson As-
set Management.”Dominic Kennedy, Charlotte Wace
NNews
Stalwart
of an elite
social set
Profile
H
e was long
regarded as
Britain’s most
eligible
bachelor, rarely seen
without a model on hisarm (Dominic Kennedy
writes). Robert Hanson is
the son of Lord Hanson, a
confidant of Margaret
Thatcher. The Old
Etonian heir to the
billionaire’s fortune was
part of a social set that
included his predecessor
as the country’s most
marriageable man,
Prince Andrew.
Ghislaine Maxwell, 60,
the socialite, was a friend
of both, knowing Hanson
from their Oxford days.
Her companion, JeffreyEpstein, had 15 phone
numbers and two
addresses for Hanson in a
contacts book compiled
by his staff but Hanson’s
friends point out that the
pair never met.
Hanson, Maxwell and
Epstein were all guests at
the Dance of the
Decades, a ball hosted by
the Queen at Windsor
Castle in 2000 to
celebrate royal family
birthdays including
Andrew’s 40th. Maxwell
is in prison awaitingsentence for sex
trafficking. Epstein killed
himself in jail aged 66
while awaiting trial on
sex-trafficking charges.
Andrew, 62, was
stripped of royal duties
after a TV interview in
which he defended his
friendship with Epstein.
Hanson has been
chairman or chief
executive of eight
companies. He was an
investment banker at NM
Rothschild & Sons and
chairs Oberon
Investments Group, a
financial boutique.
Andrew was a guest at
Hanson’s 40th birthday
L’Equipe Anglaise, a club
in London’s Mayfair.
Hanson was once
engaged to the model
Sophie Anderton but
married Masha Markova,
a Russian former model,
with whom he has a son.
When Hanson was 34
he dated Anouska De
Georgiou, aged 17, who
went on to become a
model and actress. Aged
20, De Georgiou was
introduced to Donald
Trump by Maxwell in
New York, according to
the Sunday Mirror in
1997, and the future
president allegedly
installed her in an
apartment in Manhattan.
De Georgiou told a New
York court in 2019 that
she had been a victim of
abuse by Epstein.
Hanson and Andrew
were such friends of the
Kazakh socialite Goga
Ashkenazi that she sat
them on each side at her
30th birthday party in- Ashkenazi was a
friend of the Libyan
dictator’s son Saif
Gaddafi, to whom
Andrew played host at
Buckingham Palace and
Windsor Castle. Her
partner Timur Kulibayev,
son-in-law of the former
president of Kazakhstan,
bought Andrew’s home in
Sunninghill in 2007 for
£3 million more than its
£12 million asking price.
DAVE M. BENETT/GETTY IMAGESRobert Hanson
married Masha
Markova, a former
model, and went
to parties with
Prince Andrew, topHomeless charity founder rejects claim he misused his power
Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and the
Duchess of Cambridge. Prince Harry
and Meghan Markle served meals dur-
ing a visit to Social Bite in Edinburgh in- In December 2019 Littlejohn also
launched The World’s Big Sleep Out.
However, a former Social Bite insider
said there had been growing disquiet
over Littlejohn’s “autocratic” style.
Complaints about his charities have
been lodged with the Office of the Scot-
tish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
Littlejohn said: “As Social Bite has
grown and evolved, so have I, and like
any entrepreneur in a young, fast-
growing organisation, will continue to
do so. As the charity has matured, it is
only right that it becomes less reliant on
its founder.
“For the last few years I’ve been
working with our board to put in place
a new structure which allows me to
focus on my passion for developing new
and innovative projects to help home-
less people.”
He resigned as a trustee in 2020 and
the new structure was implemented in
May last year. Social Bite employs more
than 100 people and distributes about
140,000 items of food to homeless and
vulnerable people every year.
Four trustees resigned on the sameday last year and a fifth quit soon after.
Jane Bruce, Social Bite’s former chief
executive officer for Scotland, invoked
whistleblower protection before re-
signing in September 2020.
Bruce has lodged formal complaints
believed to centre on claims that Little-
john established a powerful personal
hold over the charities, with trustees
left feeling unable to hold him to
account.
An OSCR spokesman said: “We
have received concerns about these
charities, which are being examined...
according to our published policies.”
Bruce declined to comment.Mark McLaughlin, Marc Horne
George Clooney with the founders
Alice Thompson and Josh Littlejohn