The potentially massive scale of a RollOnFriday veteran's shenanigans has begun to emerge in evidence given at the High Court.
John Blavo, who was the Managing Partner and Senior Partner of mental health firm Blavo & Co, first made the RollOnFriday headlines when he blamed his staff for forcing him to put all 240 of them at risk of redundancy. It was subsequently revealed that the Legal Aid Agency, from which Blavo & Co received the bulk of its work, had terminated all its contracts with the firm as a result of "significant concerns", and had reported it to the police. Within a fortnight the SRA had shut down Blavo & Co and suspended Blavo's practicing certifcate.
The firm was compulsorily wound up in November when the LAA claimed £22.3 million as a creditor. It also won a freezing order against Blavo. In a hearing this January to apply to extend the order, the agency told the court that Blavo & Co had made 24,658 claims for attending tribunals, but that the HM Courts and Tribunals Service only had records of Blavo & Co attending 1,485 tribunals, suggesting that 94% of Blavo & Co's claims were fictional. Of 144 cases randomly selected by the LAA for closer examination, the relevant NHS trusts had no record of Blavo & Co clients being patients in 98 of them. In one instance the hospital in question did not even have a mental health unit, and in another it had shut down eight years ago. And then burnt down.
Of 23,173 matter files requested by the LAA, Blavo managed to send over only four. He told the court that the "discrepancies" (that's 23,169 missing files) were possibly due to multiple mergers undertaken by his firm. Garnham J said that there was virtually no evidence to support Blavo's interesting theory. Ruling that there were “real grounds for suspecting dishonesty” of Blavo, evidence of a "less than scrupulous approach" to disclosure and a "strongly arguable case" that Blavo was party to an arrangement whereby false claims were submitted to the LAA "in many thousands of cases", Garnham J ordered the continuation of the freezing order.
On past occasions, Blavo has always been happy to provide an explanation (always nuts) to RollOnFriday via a PR team, but this week they said that they no longer represent him.
Tip Off ROF
John Blavo, who was the Managing Partner and Senior Partner of mental health firm Blavo & Co, first made the RollOnFriday headlines when he blamed his staff for forcing him to put all 240 of them at risk of redundancy. It was subsequently revealed that the Legal Aid Agency, from which Blavo & Co received the bulk of its work, had terminated all its contracts with the firm as a result of "significant concerns", and had reported it to the police. Within a fortnight the SRA had shut down Blavo & Co and suspended Blavo's practicing certifcate.
The firm was compulsorily wound up in November when the LAA claimed £22.3 million as a creditor. It also won a freezing order against Blavo. In a hearing this January to apply to extend the order, the agency told the court that Blavo & Co had made 24,658 claims for attending tribunals, but that the HM Courts and Tribunals Service only had records of Blavo & Co attending 1,485 tribunals, suggesting that 94% of Blavo & Co's claims were fictional. Of 144 cases randomly selected by the LAA for closer examination, the relevant NHS trusts had no record of Blavo & Co clients being patients in 98 of them. In one instance the hospital in question did not even have a mental health unit, and in another it had shut down eight years ago. And then burnt down.
 |
Johnny Blavo |
Of 23,173 matter files requested by the LAA, Blavo managed to send over only four. He told the court that the "discrepancies" (that's 23,169 missing files) were possibly due to multiple mergers undertaken by his firm. Garnham J said that there was virtually no evidence to support Blavo's interesting theory. Ruling that there were “real grounds for suspecting dishonesty” of Blavo, evidence of a "less than scrupulous approach" to disclosure and a "strongly arguable case" that Blavo was party to an arrangement whereby false claims were submitted to the LAA "in many thousands of cases", Garnham J ordered the continuation of the freezing order.
On past occasions, Blavo has always been happy to provide an explanation (always nuts) to RollOnFriday via a PR team, but this week they said that they no longer represent him.
Comments
98
79
107
91
102
90
Also - he doesn't look overly like the phonejacker chap. Other than it's a black man in a suit.... Oh.. Oh dear me.....
106
99
106
109