Oh, joy...
‘Shanley/Couzens was signed in as a Director at the beginning of 2007... All staff at the time handed in their notices and left’
Glorious. I laughed out loud when I read that.
No-one who has ever met Pawl would be in any doubt: this guy could not run a company, within any meaningful definition of the word ‘run’.
Someone on this message board recently researched Mr Shanley's home address, and as a last token of wakefulness one night I typed it into one of the mapping web-sites. The result was interesting.
On the face of it, he lives in a cottage immediately opposite the entrance to the aerodrome where he works. But I really don't believe that. My instinct is that he provided whoever-it-is with a falsified address. Stuck for inspiration, he used an address he saw every day as he left to go home: 1 Patsyat Cottage, Kemble; and then he looked up the postcode: GL7 6AY. Even Pawl could do that.
So if anyone feels like calling round, be prepared for a little old lady who doesn't know what's going on.
If anyone has one of those voters' register CDs and some time to kill, they could try looking up anyone called P J Shanley (and perhaps Couzens) within 50 miles of Kemble. A pint of best says you won't find anyone at 1 Patsyat Cottage, Kemble, GL7 6AY.
Delicate question perhaps, Waitingtofly, but what company did Pawl and your friend work for? A publisher called Merricks, by any chance?