Property fraudster Watmuff is sent back to jail again

Serial property fraudster David Watmuff – also known as David Kelso and David Kit Kelso – has been sent back to jail after breaching company director law when he set up a property company whilst still in prison.

Watmuff, who is known to estate agents, letting agents and landlords in the Bath and Bristol areas but who has also been active elsewhere, had been banned from being a company director for 13 years in 2001 and sent to prison in 2003.

He was serving a seven-year prison sentence when he was allowed out on day release to Bristol University, where he became a director of a new company, Bristol Crown Court heard.

The company, formed in May 2005, was Zidama, a residential property management firm, and the sentence Watmuff was serving related to a con at Prince Charles’s Poundbury development in Dorset.

Watmuff studied at Bristol University from 2004 to 2005, and was released from prison in August 2006.

With a female business partner, Zidama was established at the Royal London Buildings in Baldwin Street, Bristol Crown Court heard.

Watmuff, 58, of Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear, pleaded guilty to two offences contrary to the Company Directors Disqualification Act.

Jailing him for ten months, Recorder Mr Michael Parroy QC said Watmuff had acted with profound dishonesty for a significant period and said: “I don't think it is appropriate that anyone with his background should be a director of a company in any way, shape or form.”

Watmuff was disqualified from being a company director for ten years.

Ian Halliday, prosecuting, told the court: “Zidama was a residential property management company in Bristol, dealing with the purchase and letting of new-build property.

“It was operated from plush offices on the top floor of the Royal London Buildings in Baldwin Street, where there was an open-plan office.

“Mr Watmuff had his own office and he employed staff, negotiated salaries and contracts, dealt with principal clients and negotiated an overdraft with bankers.

“He decided which creditors would be paid and which would be put off.”

Mr Halliday said the venture failed and was wound up in July 2007 with some £413,000 being claimed by creditors.

Watmuff was interviewed and initially claimed no involvement in the running of the business, blaming everything on his business partner.

James Adams, defending, said his client and his client’s business partner had done everything in the open. He said: “She consulted with the prison, probation and Bristol University.

“They also sought advice of a solicitor in this area and they paid £12,000 for that advice, to properly set up and not be in breach of the disqualification.”

Mr Adams said that his client, an intelligent man, had pleaded guilty to a strict liability offence.

Zidama still has a presence on the internet and describes itself as: ‘A full-service property agency based in Bristol. Property is our business. We live in it, we work from it, we're passionate about it and we have had over 30 years experience dealing with it. Our approach is progressive, simple and straightforward – property need not be a minefield.’

EAT first warned about Watmuff, who was then giving his name as Witchell and also, it is thought, Watmill. He turned up at a Bath lettings agent purporting to be looking for property on behalf of Harvey Nichols. The store had never heard of him.

Watmuff has not confined his activities to the Bath and Bristol areas, and is thought to have been active in the Northumberland and Lincolnshire areas.

In autumn 2010, he was jailed for frauds relating to an estate in the Oxford area, and in May this year he was jailed under the name of David Kelso after fleecing his own newly-widowed mother.

The Director Check website gives details of ten companies of which Watmuff was a director. The list includes Gainsbridge (Poundbury) but not Zidama.