Checks, lies and videotape - the John Davy saga

By LOUISA CLEAVE

HERALD INQUIRY - When John Davy was confronted with the false claims on his CV last week, he knew immediately what to do - invent a new story.

There was a good reason no one at the British Columbia Securities Commission knew about his claims to have worked there as a member and adviser, he told board chairman Derek Fox last Friday.

He had been doing "highly confidential work", which was a secret even to most of the commission's staff.

The Herald understands that Davy told the board he was part of a witness protection programme because his work had involved catching fraudsters for the commission.

It was enough to keep Fox vigorously defending him for another day - "Everything you have raised so far has [been] shown to be incorrect," Fox told the Herald on Friday - even though Finance Minister Michael Cullen had by this stage ordered a Treasury investigation.

But by Saturday Davy's house of cards was collapsing. His MBA degree from the Ashland School of Business at Denver State University turned out to be a fake.

Further Herald inquiries had established that the university did not exist, except as a name used on counterfeit credentials sold over the internet.

Fox flew from his Mahia home to confront Davy in Auckland and sacked him on Monday after he failed to provide a reasonable explanation.

By then the scope of Davy's deceit had become even clearer.

The Herald has obtained Canadian records showing that a John Brian Davy, born in Ottawa on October 4, 1950 and who later lived in Whistler - personal details matching those supplied by Davy - was bankrupted in 1980 and 1993, owing $13,500 and $65,880 respectively.

Other basic checks have shown that his resume, sent out to prospective employers last August, is riddled with false claims - from sporting achievements to his roles with major conferences, including Expo 86 and Globe 90 in Vancouver.

Davy claims to have spent 10 years from February 1988 to April 1998 working in some of the most cosmopolitan cities - London, Paris, Geneva and Vancouver - for a company called International Business Partners Inc.

However, Herald inquiries place Davy in the Canadian ski town of Whistler (population 9800) during the early to mid-1990s.

He operated an accounting business from a bedroom in a modest home.

The Herald has spoken to professionals who dealt with Davy, and who played sport alongside him.

A lawyer, whom the Herald has agreed not to name, recalls seeing two degrees hanging on Davy's office wall.

"I remember standing there and looking at them and thinking it was odd that they were from different places but were both printed on exactly the same paper," he says.

The lawyer was in the office to retrieve the files of one of Davy's clients. He had been hired after the businessman discovered he was facing penalties of tens of thousands of dollars for tax returns handled by Davy.

"He always stuck in my head," said the lawyer. "He's a little strange, and I remember driving him home once and he was singing at the top of his voice. He said he'd had a career as a professional singer. That song Red Rubber Ball was on the radio and he turned to me and said, 'I wrote this'."

Red Rubber Ball was a top five hit for 1960s group The Cyrkle. It was written by Paul Simon.

The lawyer had limited dealings with Davy after he began representing the former client. He wrote to Davy asking for information about his procedures and his letter was faxed back with 'F*** YOU' written in bold, black marker across the top.

Whistler accountant Robbie Thorn also knew Davy and took on some of his clients.

The men refereed social grade ice hockey games together, after taking a one-day training course.

Davy later claimed in New Zealand that he had been a National Hockey League referee, but Thorn found his skills with the whistle "very poor".

Dave Crowther, the former referee-in-chief of Whistler minor hockey, told the Vancouver Sun yesterday that Davy was a "terrible" on-ice official.

"This guy had the most unusual grasp of reality I've ever seen anywhere," Crowther said. "The funny thing about him was he really believed his own story, even though you knew quite well it wasn't true."

Davy had been given responsibility for handling the referees' payroll, but Crowther soon asked for it back.

"He could not reconcile the monthly referee assignments as to who worked."

Thorn took over some of Davy's former clients and found his fellow ref uncooperative during a review of their accounts.

He asked Davy to explain his accounting procedures and how he had arrived at figures which made no sense to the experienced accountant.

"I didn't see any grasp of any basic accounting procedures.

"With John it was difficult to get that information, and we realised after a while that he had just made things up. They [the financial records] were fairly inventive."

Mr Thorn said that in some cases it took three years to straighten out clients' finances.

"I'm sure almost every accountant in Whistler has heard of him or dealt with the aftermath."

In between refereeing NHL hockey games, Davy also claimed to be a former Canadian fencing champion - which was news to the Canadian Fencing Federation yesterday.

High-performance director Danek Nowosielski said the federation had no records of a national champion called John Davy.

"I've been in the sport for over 20 years. The name doesn't ring a bell at all."

Nowosielski said he had talked to other people active in Canadian fencing for the past 30 years, including national champions of the 1970s, and they had never heard of Davy either.

Davy continued to live in Whistler until about 1995, while local accountants worked through his clients' accounts. Then, residents say, he simply disappeared one day.

The next confirmed account of Davy comes from Saudi Arabia about 1999.

A New Zealand man who was in Riyadh says he played softball with Davy and knew him socially.

Davy's CV says he was CFO and director of HR and IT for Al Babtain Leblanc Telecommunications Systems at this time.

The Herald has so far been unable to contact the company to check his position.

The New Zealand man, who did not want to be identified, said Davy was living in one of the more expensive housing compounds.

"I think he was fairly well paid. I thought [his work] was more on the financial side but he never talked about it.

"To be quite honest, he always seemed to be trying to fit in.

"He never struck me as a sort of person who would have a high-pressure, high-profile job."

He said Davy was living with a blonde woman, possibly an Australian, who worked as a nurse at the King Fahd Hospital.

Davy's resume states he moved from Saudi to Hong Kong for the job with Asia Pacific Investment Advisors.

It is not clear whether that was where he met his present wife, a Filipina with two children. The children, aged 12 and 15, are living in the Philippines.

His next stop was New Zealand, for a job with Intercom3000 in Auckland. The struggling IT company hired Davy in June last year and he soon discovered the magnitude of his job.

Staff who worked for Intercom3000 said they were taking money from their own bank accounts to try to keep the company afloat and save their jobs.

When Intercom3000 went under, creditors say it had debts of more than $600,000.

Director Eric Anderton left town and Davy told the creditors, who have since spoken to the Herald, that his boss was seeking new investment finance in Costa Rica.

Anderton is still in Costa Rica, and Intercom3000 was placed in liquidation last week.

Landlord Martin van Zonneveld, who leased his Eden Terrace premises to Intercom3000, says he is owed $94,000 in rent.

Van Zonneveld says that around August last year he arrived at the office to find it stripped of its furniture and filthy. There was mess everywhere - beer bottles, food wrappers and rubbish.

He contacted Davy and they met at his Birkenhead home. It was there that van Zonneveld found the boardroom table from his office. The chairs had been sold.

Davy told his landlord that Anderton was in Costa Rica and "on the verge of signing a deal which would allow them to pay the rent in full".

As former Intercom3000 employees turned to Davy for wages owed and creditors contacted him about unpaid debts, he set his sights on finding new work.

He sent recruiting agencies and prospective employers a CV which stated that he had "just completed an interim assignment as CEO for Intercom3000".

"My mandate was to realign the corporate structure, finance and auditing protocols and relocate the office to San Jose, Costa Rica.

"Additionally, I was responsible for the setting-up and execution of the parent company and its subsidiaries' off-shore banking facilities.

"Having successfully completed my mandate, my wife and I would like to remain in New Zealand."

But as Davy tried to keep up appearances, Intercom3000's financial problems were spilling into his personal life.

On August 24 last year, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services repossessed a vehicle on which Davy owed $3000.

Then $4962 owed to Frontline Finance for household goods was written off on March 13 this year - the day before his appointment as chief executive of Maori Television was announced.

The Herald understands that Davy moved from the Birkenhead home of an Intercom3000 employee into his present Kohimarama home soon after getting the job.

He is paying $975 a week to rent the house, which has a swimming pool and is worth more than $500,000.

Full coverage: Maori TV