Victor Bassey - The truth behind the airline entrepreneur

VICTOR Bassey was nothing if not ambitious. The Nigerian "entrepreneur" may have lived in a small terraced home in Middlesbrough rented from a housing association - but he had big plans.

And when bmi scrapped its service from Durham Tees Valley Airport to Heathrow in February, the 49-year-old businessman saw his chance.

He launched an ambitious bid to restore the region's flight services to London via a new company called Excelsis Airways.

Eschewing the popular cheap flights model that has worked for Ryanair and easyJet, Excelsis pitched instead for the top of the market.

Customers would be pampered in a luxury flight lounge before embarking on a Boeing 737. When they arrived in London a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars would be waiting to whisk them to their destination.

Excelsis said it could provide all this for £220 return.

To Durham Tees Valley, reeling after losing a series of high profile services, the plans sounded almost too good to be true.

As it turned out, they were.

Today The Northern Echo can reveal that Mr Bassey, of Grange Road, Middlesbrough, has left a legacy of business failures, unpaid wages and broken promises in his wake.

Mr Bassey's first North-East business venture appears to have been the grandly-named Siron Corporation.

In 2006, Siron announced plans to launch a new internet telephony business from Consett, North Durham, via a subsidiary called Siron Interactive Media.

Victor Bassey was a director of both companies.

However in October, Companies House, which records details of limited companies, received a request from Siron Interactive Media Limited to change its registered address.

The Northern Echo has established that the new address actually belonged to Murray and Lamb, a firm of Consett chartered accountants.

This week, director Stephen Lamb told us that he remembered Mr Bassey visiting, but said that he never gave permission for him to use the address.

Documents show that in February 2007, Mr Bassey registered a 26-year-old Stanley man as the company secretary.

Around 18 months earlier, that same man had been jailed for two years for pirating DVDs and computer games.

Then, in April 2007, Consett resident Tony Hughes was hired by Mr Bassey as a broadband consultant. Siron was by now based at the Park Road North Industrial Estate, in Blackhill, Consett.

Mr Hughes later introduced his partner, Suzanne Doherty, to Mr Bassey, who gave her a job as a personal assistant.

The couple say they were not paid during their two-month spell with Siron.

At one point, Mr Hughes says he was given a cheque which he cashed at a Consett cheque cashing company called The Cheque Shop. Days later, though, he was contacted by police investigating an alleged cheque fraud.

Barry Taylor, who owned The Cheque Shop in John Street, Consett, this week confirmed that two of Mr Bassey's employees had brought Siron company cheques in to be cashed.

He said the cheques had bounced and Mr Bassey had come into the shop promising that he would pay the outstanding amount of around £1,500.

Mr Taylor said: "He came up with an elaborate story about how he was waiting for some funding from the local council.

"We never got anything and I took it upon myself to go down to his unit, which by that point was also closed up.

"I called in at the police station on the way back to make them aware of what had happened, but I didn't hear anymore."

Mr Bassey disappeared in June 2007. Mr Hughes and Miss Doherty say he still owes them around £2,500.

Miss Doherty later discovered she had been registered as a Siron company director without her permission. This meant she received demands for money from the company's creditors.

Mr Hughes said: "I read the article about Excelsis in The Northern Echo and I couldn't believe it - I said to myself you've done this before.

"He said he would sort the wages, but nothing ever came through.

"He would ask you to meet him at HSBC in Consett. You would wait for an hour, but he would never turn up."

Mr Hughes added: "He was always trying to secure some money in America and was always waiting for this £10m to come through.

"In the end, there were people coming round wanting money and they took all the office furniture away."

Mr Hughes said he went round to Mr Bassey's house in Thomas Street, Consett, to get his money back. When he arrived, he found another man also hoping to recover money owed by the businessman.

Mr Hughes added that Mr Bassey would often take staff to a nearby pub and treat them to a meal - paid for by cheque.

He said: "Victor came across as genuine.

"He was always talking about a new car he was going to buy or wanting me to go and look at a new £700,000 house he was looking into."

Mr Bassey is still remembered by other business owners on the industrial estate. One man, who did not wish to be named, told us he remembered Mr Bassey using the premises for a few weeks several years ago. He remembered creditors coming looking for Mr Bassey after he had gone and one ramming open a door to retrieve items.

Our investigation revealed that after leaving Consett, Mr Bassey rented a terraced house in Edward Street, Spennymoor, which was let by BLP Property Management.

In December 2007, Mr Bassey paid his outstanding rent of £450 with a cheque. Tony Langdale, owner of BLP Property Management, said he even gave Mr Bassey change because he had paid too much.

However, it turned out the cheque belonged not to Mr Bassey but to a former tenant of the Edward Street property.

Police were informed and Mr Bassey was evicted from the house in October last year owing the company more than £3,000.

Mr Langdale said: "He disappeared and the next I knew he was on the front of the paper. It infuriated me." Post received after he left showed the tenant owed thousands of pounds to utility companies and personal credit providers.

Many of the bills were addressed to another company which is registered to Mr Bassey, Excelsis Travel Corporation Ltd.

In May this year, The Northern Echo revealed that Excelsis was poised to re-open the link between Durham Tees Valley Airport and London's Heathrow. The story generated at lot of interest, not least among former bmibaby cabin crew who had just lost their jobs on the London route.

It also generated a lot of suspicion. Although his start day kept slipping, Mr Bassey brushed aside the suspicion, saying: "When the time comes, everybody will see. I have a big backer in God."

This week, though, Excelsis' entire staff of about ten people handed in their resignations, claiming that, like Mr Bassey's other former staff, they had never been paid a penny.

Among those to resign were chief executive Andreas Blass, chief commercial officer Keith Watson, and flight operations director Andrew Bray.

It is understood that one member of staff was left with a bill for more than £1,000 after he gave the Thistle Hotel, in Middlesbrough, his credit card details when Excelsis hired a board room.

Another creditor is Middlesbrough company, E-Strands Ltd, which built the company's website.

Director Michael Janes said Mr Bassey owed the company a "considerable amount of money".

"We have not received any money from him and were taking legal advice," he added.

Jim Knight was hired by Mr Bassey as Excelsis' director of communications. He said he had suffered severe financial problems after not receiving any of the money owed to him.

Last night, Mr Knight said: "This might seem like a victimless crime but to hit people through a sort of escalating economic hardship has had a devastating affect on a lot of people."

Last night, The Northern Echo confronted Mr Bassey with the allegations at his home in Grange Road, Middlesbrough.

We arrived to find the Nigerian being evicted by his landlord, the Endeavour Housing Association.

Mr Bassey spent an hour inside the house watching his possessions being loaded into a van and a small car. He then left the house, refusing to respond to The Northern Echo's questions.

Last night, Durham Police confirmed that they did receive a complaint about Siron Interactive Media in June 2007. Officers considered the complaints a civil matter and took things no further.

Last week, Cleveland Police confirmed they were looking at allegations of fraud made against Mr Bassey by furious Excelsis employees, and they said last night that that investigation was continuing.

The Northern Echo has agreed to pass the results of its investigation to The Insolvency Service.

The Government department said anyone who had concerns about their dealings with Mr Bassey or any of his companies could call their enforcement hot-line on 0845-6013546.

• If you've had dealings with Mr Bassey, please let us know on 01325-505067.