Treasury asks crooked regulators of accountants to help the Police clamp down on crooked accountants ...

"It takes a crook to catch a crook" .. as the saying goes .. so Tom McMorrow, his colleagues at ICAS, and his pal .. the well known bent Borders accountant Norman Howitt should be a good choice for the request from the Treasury to help clamp down on 'money laundering accountants'.

I've already written plenty about Tom McMorrow .. the executive director for regulation and compliance at ICAS who fiddled the complaint against his accountant colleague, Norman Howitt .. who ripped off my family .. links at : http://petercherbi.blogspot.com/2006/03/norman-howitt-crooked-borders.html and more at :

http://petercherbi.blogspot.com/2006/07/concerns-over-scottish-accountants-and.html

... so given he seems to be good at protecting crooks, he should be good at hunting crooks ... although only time will tell on that one of course.

Don't think Norman Howitt only ripped me off either .. he has also caused companies and individuals to go bankrupt .. with his crooked colleagues covering up for him yet again.

I remember for instance .. when McDonald Construction in the Scottish Borders went broke .. Ken McDonald coming to see me and showing me papers on how Norman Howitt fiddled the books .. and how the indemnity insurers tried to tie him to a non disclosure agreement to keep quiet about Howitt's crooked activities ... and then later on, crooked Norman Howitt became the secretary of the South Of Scotland Builders Federation ... I wonder who he has ripped off in that lot ? !

With 16,000 accountants in Scotland .. ICAS portrays itself by being an honest organisation at the head of an honest profession .. but it is far from it, as you can see from material I have already published on this site and in the press.

Indeed .. when crooked lawyer Andrew Penman of Stormonth Darling Solicitors, Kelso, decided to rip off my family ... his boss in the scam was the crooked accountant, and ICAS Committee member Norman Howitt .. .who helped Penman cook up various crooked schemes involving local banks, crooked local insurance companies in the Borders, and even a few more lawyers .. such as Nigel Hall from Haddon & Turnbill, Hawick .. to fleece as much money as possible from our family ..

All this proved to me that crooked lawyers and crooked accountants work very well together .. something I've found from looking into many cases were a crooked lawyer has ripped off other clients .. seeking out like minded crooked professionals in their locality to help them along the way .. just like Penman & Howitt .

So, for those who wonder why the press don't touch some of the scandals involving accountants and direct involvement with McMorrow and his lacckeys ... it comes down to MONEY and INFLUENCE.

Don't go thinking there is honesty in the press these days .. for some there is, for most there definitely isn't.

It's not the fault of 'some' of the individual journalists .. it's more to do with editorial policy .. clashing personalities, fears of reducing circulation, and quiet words from the heads of such bodies to editors and newspaper owners ... that's why many scandals don't make it to print - it's definitely not because they aren't occurring.

I remember, for instance, when I briefed a journalist from The Scotsman on files I had received from a good friend - Andy Duncan, on former First Minister Henry Mcleish .. 1 year before what became known as the "Officegate" scandal, was eventually broken by the Mail on Sunday .... but of course, some ex-Scotsman colleagues were also working for the Scottish Executive at the time as 'advisers' .. or shall we say .. 'spin doctors' ... one of the reasons the story was sidelined ... until of course, it broke, proving there are always ways around those who wish to stifle the truth and cover up scandals.

... if you want to break something, do it locally, then do it on the web .. or do it indirectly .. and if you have been directly affected by something, and want to do something about it .. make yourself happy doing something about it - use your imagination.

Many parts of the media are all too willing to suck up to the same professions and their people who are ripping off you, the consumer .. and that's why the majority of such scandals go unpublished ... nothing to do with issues being complicated .. its more to do with the press fearing for circulation, advertising, and of course, the lawyers sticking their finger in, killing any articles about their professional colleagues .. so, sucking up to criminals seems to be a hobby these days for some.

I, of course, do not suck up to criminals or crooks, or those who who wine & dine politicians & the judiciary to shut them up, so I can write about it plenty, and I can interfere in things when I please, .. and when organisations and companies come to me, as they do, and ask whether to trust a certain 'professional' or company, or individual, or politician .. I can say .. "oh well, the [person] is just a crook you know .. completely untrustworthy .. as bad as or worse than a criminal .. and they will rip you off too "

I could certainly say that about Howitt & McMorrow, for instance .. to me, they are just crooks .. completely untrustworthy .. very prejudiced ... McMorrow being just a con artist really who got his pal Howitt off the hook who robbed my family .. and. well - he's the executive director of regulation and compliance at ICAS ... so being a crook must be one of the requirements for the job then !

McMorrow hates my guts - and rightly so. I have a file on him and Jennifer Carpenter, the advocate who bought his legal practice in Falkirk and had a great habit of embezzling clients funds ... he hates that fact. He also hates me for making a complaint against his pal Howitt, and being as determined as I am to expose all the corruption that went with the ICAS investigation of the complaint.

His pal Howitt used the Police against me in the Borders to cover up him selling my late father's car to his neighbour and family friend .. the Police had to apologise, realising they had been conned by a crooked .. bent .. accountant.

McMorrow knew all about this - but chose to cover it up .. along with the rest of Howitt's crooked dealings ...

And to think I once thought drugs dealers were dirty enough to deal with in an operation involving the Police (something I will write about soon) ... this lot beat them, hands down !

Read on for an article, from the Herald newspaper, reporting on the Treasury putting crooks together with the cops to clamp down on .. crooks .., link at :
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/66818.html

ICAS to help police unregulated sector
PAUL ROGERSON July 31 2006

The Treasury has asked Scotland's institute of chartered accountants (ICAS) to help it clamp down on unregulated "accountants" who may be involved in money laundering.

The 16,000-strong body has been asked to consider sending its monitoring teams into practices staffed by people who call themselves "accountants" but who do not belong to one of the UK profession's six prescribed bodies.

Unqualified accountants operating in this grey market are not regulated at all.

Tom McMorrow, executive director for regulation and compliance at ICAS, said the body is looking on the proposal "very favourably", assuming extra resources are made available.

Unlike "solicitor", "architect" and other professional designations, the term "accountant" is not statutorily protected. Anyone can market themselves as offering accountancy services. ICAS continues to lobby for statutory protection and the Treasury's request clearly strengthens its case.

The Scots body favours a system of demarcation banning anyone who is not a member of a prescribed body from being able to provide professional accountancy services. The government has so far balked at the suggestion, sensitive to accusations of protectionism and restraint of trade.

ICAS, however, stressed that the Netherlands, whose accountancy profession has also developed in disparate fashion, has had laws protecting the terms "registered accountant" and "accountant" for nearly 25 years.

Some progress has been made recently with the launch of a consultation on the legal protection of the term "accountant" by Ireland's Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA).

"ICAS has, for a number of years, advocated to the Department of Trade Industry the statutory protection of accountant and continues to adhere to that policy,' the Scots body said. "Hitherto denied a debate on the public policy concerns underscoring our stance, the IAASA's stimulation of that debate is very welcome to us."

In a 20-page response to the Irish consultation, the Scots body stresses:

"Accountancy should be a profession which is discernible to the public, allowing it to distinguish those service providers able to afford them the greatest consumer protection. The public commonly does not appreciate that some accountants have to conform to certain (minimum standards) of behaviour and competence whereas others do not.

"The consequence of malpractice by an unqualified accountant may well result in significant and irrecoverable losses to the client, whereas qualified accountants are required to have in place a compensation system and other protections for the consumer.

"Another consequence of malpractice by an unqualified accountant is the unfair tarnishing of the reputation of qualified accountants and an indirect tarnishing of the competence of government for inchoate regulation."

The Scottish institute elegantly points out that there was a "latent non-sequitur" in the recent toughening of the regulatory climate within which qualified accountants operate. Even now the Financial Reporting Council's watchdog remit extends only to qualified accountants, leaving thousands of quasi-professionals free to operate with no oversight.

In the interests of joined-up government, ICAS suggests that this is one anomaly the Irish government might wish to avoid.

The Scottish body cites the inherent weaknesses of the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act, which sought to bind accountants of all kinds to the obligation to disclose to the authorities their suspicions of money laundering by clients.

"The UK government failed … probably because of oversight … to make sure unqualified accountants were subject to equivalent, or at least adequate, monitoring arrangements," the institute points out.

"It goes without saying that creating an obligation without a viable enforcement mechanism makes for ineffectual legislation."

Recognition of this oversight appears to be what prompted the Treasury's request to Icas to help enforce the act by regulating unqualified accountants.