The gangster and the pension fund: What's going on at Heaps Rice Mill?
We had a few boring questions about the building that used to make Rice Krispies. But then some lawyers sent us a much better story
Dear readers — Often, when a big law firm sends you a stern letter threatening to sue your media company, you have to drop the story. It’s too risky to proceed, and maybe your editor isn’t as confident about the sourcing as you are. Other times, you read the letter, you realise that the law firm’s clients don’t have anything that undermines your story and you proceed to “publish and be damned.”
I’ve had both of those scenarios in my career. But there’s a third option, that I’ve never been lucky enough to experience before: the scenario where the law firm gives you a much better story, seemingly by mistake.
That’s what happened when I was working on a piece about Heaps Rice Mill late last year, a project being funded by £60m from local Merseyside pensioners. As something of a Christmas present, the expensive lawyers representing the developer inadvertently sent me evidence that ultimately revealed the company was employing a once notorious Liverpool gangster, James “Pancake” Taylor, a man jailed for nine years for a vicious attack in a restaurant.
There is no suggestion of illegality on behalf of the developer, Legacie, or its director John Morley, nor that the pension fund knew of Mr Taylor’s employment. Legacie says that Taylor merely witnessed a land transfer document relating to Heaps Rice Mill because he “happened to be present on site at the time”.
