EXCLUSIVE: A MyLondon investigation successfully appealed an FOI decision by Oxford University in order to expose a central flaw in a builder’s glittering CV – the Ministry of Defence should take note
Sometimes one line sums up a story, and after months of investigating a builder from South West London this one from Lisa Woolley made me smile: “If you’ve got a degree from Oxford University, you’re not going to be building loft of conversions in Feltham.” That’s not to say, there aren’t any Oxbridge-educated builders out there, but Lisa was right to smell something a little absurd.
As a crime reporter, I get paid to doom scroll through social media, looking for nuggets of illegality that might lead to a scoop. Facebook is especially useful, because joining every local group in London gives you the ability to sift through keywords like ‘crime’, ‘police’, and ‘fraud’, taking you straight to some poor sod’s complaint about their bike getting stolen in Croydon.
In July the poor sod was Peter Langenberg, who posted on Hounslow Community Group to ask if anyone knew where his builder was. The allegation: John Pembridge-Hore had made off with tens-of-thousands of pounds without completing building work on his new home. A decent story, I thought, remembering a childhood spent watching two men in leather sleuthing after brickies on motorbikes.
BBC One Rogue Traders was my inspiration (until one half of the presenting team got done for fraud himself), but I needed more evidence than Peter’s word to reach the threshold for publishing the something about a man who, it quickly became apparent, had completed an illustrious career in two branches of the military, earned a Doctorate, and set up his own therapy school.
‘Or had he?’ I thought as I looked through his LinkedIn page. There was immediately a sniff of the unlikely when I saw Pembridge-Hore’s career achievements laid out in full, and referenced in newspaper articles about a previous conviction for assaulting a child. I would later learn from the complainants, the colourful CV had been one of the reasons they trusted him to do the job.
And so, it quickly became clear that the story was not just about proving whether Pembridge-Hore had failed to fulfil the terms of his contract – that much was obvious by virtue of the work not being done and the money being paid – but that he was the type of person who would do such a thing: a conclusion you might reach after reading the findings of my investigation.
To the best of my ability, I went through every significant claim in Pembridge-Hore’s CV and company portfolio, and attempted to verify if it was true. This involved assuming the role of a lawyer to appeal an FOI decision by Oxford University, which I won. I also used open source techniques like reverse image searching and sifting through Companies House documents.
I spoke to architects and building companies, some of whom agreed to go on record and confirm Pembridge-Hore had stolen their work. I also tracked down another complainant, Mark O’Donnell, by combing through Pembridge-Hore’s social media, and attended his county court date in person to get a record of the judge’s ruling in person.
Of the many phone calls, my favourite moment was that one from Lisa, whose boyfriend Ryan Carling said he never got paid for the work he did on Peter’s house. That call also contained the most bizarre moment, when Lisa said Pembridge-Hore was known in the area as ‘John Darwin’. With that my mind immediately jumped to the teacher who was jailed for faking his own death to get an insurance pay-out.
When it came to getting a right of reply, I tried knocking on Pembridge-Hore’s door, readied for a confrontation with a former Royal Marine, as he claims, but the tenant who answered said he was long gone, leaving a trail of bailiff visits and legally threatening letters behind him.
Those important military claims are still outstanding, and no one reading this should take any inference from the fact I am still looking into them. But I have asked the Information Commissioner’s Office to investigate why the Ministry of Defence refused my request to verify information Pembridge-Hore has proudly splashed across the internet.
There were other complainants who reached out during my investigation, but some were too worried about the blowback if their names and experiences made the final piece. For that reason, I am sure there are more people out there who have had a brush with Pembridge-Hore and might want to speak about it – if that’s you, please get in touch.
Want to contact Callum about a story? Please email [email protected] or WhatsApp/Signal +447580255582
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