The wife of security boss Stephen Clarke today denied her gangster husband ran a “protection racket” and claimed she had no knowledge of a secret safe in their marital home.
Rachel Clarke, 38, of Westerdale Drive, Banks, near Southport also denied her former business, children’s indoor play-centre PlayTown inSouthport, was used to launder dirty money.
Clarke gave evidence at Preston Crown Court as part of a legal tussle to seize the alleged £2m criminal fortune of Stephen, 48, and his brother Peter Clarke, 37, who were jailed for a combined 26-and-a-half years in 2013.
The brothers, who had access to a fearsome cache of guns, samurai swords and machetes stashed in an Ainsdale lock-up, headed a ruthless gang trafficking cocaine and cannabis to Manchester and Northern Ireland
They were caught out by an extensive surveillence operation by detectives from Titan, the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit.
Prosecutors allege Stephen, Rachel, Peter and his wife Maria Clarke stashed their ill-gotten-gains in a “murky web of hidden assets.”
Stephen Clarke, left, and brother Peter
Today, defence counsel Alex Wright asked Rachel Clarke about payments from her husband’s security agency, Premier Approved, in which she was a shareholder receiving regular dividend payments.
The court had earlier heard extensive evidence in defence of the business, which operated by sourcing work on building sites and sub-contracting it out to other security firms, which would supply the guards and pay a percentage of the profits to Premier as commission.
But Mr Wright said written submissions, received from prosecution lawyers over the weekend, alleged the firm operated as a “protection racket”.
He asked: “Was that how you would describe Premier Approved?”
Clarke replied: “Not at all. We had a good relationship with our clients. My idea of a protection racket is someone who bullies someone, there was no bullying going on at all.”
Mr Wright also asked Clarke about £11,000 cash found in a safe during a police raid at the Westerdale Drive property, which was hidden behind a secret panel in a wardrobe.
Clarke said the money was “nothing to do with me”.
Mr Wright asked: “Did you in fact even know there was a safe there?”
Clarke replied: “I didn’t, no.”
Preston Crown Court
The court had earlier been told Clarke pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud, after lying to obtain the family home by claiming she was not married to Stephen, who was in jail for firearms offences at the time.
She said: “When I went to the mortgaage advisor, who we knew as a friend of a friend, I told him my income and Stephen’s income. He told me he didn’t want to mention Stephen on the form, and told me to declare Stephen’s income as my income from my personal training work. At the time I knew I could make the payments and I didn’t realise I was doing anything wrong. It’s not something I will be doing again.”
Mr Wright also questioned Clarke on a £100,000 payment from a prominent Liverpool property developer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to the business account of PlayTown in 2009.
Clarke told the court she asked the developer for a loan to finance the start up costs of the business, but earlier DC Duncan Watson, giving evidence, told the court he suspected the developer to be a money launderer for the family.
Prosecution counsel Nick Johnson, QC, had earlier grilled Stephen Clarke on £115,000 of payments to his bank account from the developer, which he claimed was a private arrangement to provide security on his friend’s building sites.
Mr Wright asked Rachel Clarke: “Why did you think (the developer) would be in a position to finance PlayTown?”
Clarke said: “He was a successful property developer, he had been building houses on estates for years and then he was moving on to bigger projects.”
She said the developer, who had gone to school with Stephen Clarke, was also a friend of her business partner Gillian Ashcroft, a 50% shareholder in Playtown.
Clarke said she had approached the developer after Mrs Ashcroft struggled to get credit to finance the business, and because she had been urged by her husband not to get a loan against their house.
She described Playtown as a “perfectly legitimate business” and said her staff had once been invited to “hand out goody-bags” at a policeman’s ball.
The court heard Clarke denied any link to £140,000 in cash found at her sister-in-law’s address, which Stephen Clarke claimed were untaxed savings from his years working in the security industry.
Rachel Clarke faces cross-examination tomorrow, and the complex Proceeds of Crime Act Hearing will continue into early ruary.
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Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/