New Years Eve 2016 - Tom Winnifrith wins major Award

There are awards for a multitude of achievements in the field of human endeavour: The Oscars, the Nobel Peace Prize, Sports Personality of the Year, the Albert Einstein Award, etc. But unfortunately, until now, there has been no award for the Biggest Hypocrite in London. I considered asking for nominations from readers but swiftly concluded it was a futile exercise: there can be only one winner, a Titan who stands so head and shoulders above the rest that everyone else can merely quake beneath the great man's shadow. For every one amateurish effort from a mere mortal, Winnifrith can point to ten, 24 karat, solid gold, in your face, hole in one, smashes. Mr Winnifrith is a one off, a legend, where the only right response is to simply applaud him onto the stage, to receive possibly the most deserved award of any likely to be given in 2016 (and probably for many years to come). 

Here are just some of Mr Winnifrith's masterstrokes: 

Attacking many companies for allegedly misleading investors, and then proceeding to lie to donors (not investors, donors) when raising money himself. 

Claiming to believe ardently in free speech, but quickly deleting any post that might shed light on the murky genesis of ShareProphets. 

Claiming to have been libelled whilst he himself manages double shifts in a state of the art libel factory. 

Claiming to be liberal minded, but being kicked out of the Liberal Party for helping to produce Racist material that even the BNP found offensive.

Accusing companies of lying, whilst making a career for himself out of lying on a blockbusting scale. 

Criticising directors when his own performance, whilst a director of Rivington, was strikingly worse than many of those he attacks. 

But possibly the coup de grace, the piece de resistance, the magnum opus of the great man is his use of guilt by association. 

Mr Winnifrith regularly tries to add weight to his false allegations of fraud against smaller companies by identifying any director, officer, substantial shareholder or adviser who may have had failings in the past to allege that the targeted company must therefore, currently, be engaged in fraud - regardless of whether or not the previous failing involved dishonesty. 

So, who does Mr Winnifrith choose as a backer and investor for ShareProphets? Who do you think the Grand Master would choose to be involved with a share tipping website, focused in large part in driving down the share prices of smaller companies? None other than Mr Christopher Potts, of course. A man found guilty of distorting markets and therefore, by Mr Winnifrith's definition, defrauding smaller investors. A man who ran naked short positions of more than 250% of the issued share capital of Room Service, whilst a market maker. A man found guilty of market abuse. How could I have missed it? Perhaps it's the purity of the hypocrisy, the faultless, matchless perfection. Whatever the reason, I can do nothing but gaze in dumbstruck wonder. 

I have nothing whatsoever against Potts and hope he is indeed a reformed character and is now - alone amongst men - perfectly virtuous. But for sheer, exquisite, championship winning hypocrisy, Mr Winnifrith serves up a blistering ACE. 

Even then, so natural is he as a performer, as Winnifrith takes his bow in front of the Royal Box at Centre Court and gives his victory speech to the awestruck crowd, he delights them with another, mere aside. He manages to slip into in his speech that he doesn't believe in rehabilitation - unless that person happens to be giving him cash. 

Truly, we are in the presence of greatness; Mr Winnifrith we salute you!

6th January 2017 - Biggest Hypocrite in London Award (update). 

Flushed with success after collecting his award on New Year's Eve, Mr Winnifrith has wasted no time in putting down a marker for the coveted prize in 2017. By sneakily arranging his financial affairs so that - to use his own words - his creditors "won't get a cent" when the inevitable Court Order to pay damages finally arrives, Mr Winnifrith has ensured that he can enjoy the freedom to libel all comers with unrestrained abandon; and, whatever else happens, his creditors will have more success finding gold at the end of the rainbow than cash from Mr Winnifrith. Having put in place a scheme to rob his creditors in this way, close watchers of Winnifrith can probably guess what happens next? Naturally, he has decided to criticise the financial arrangements of others. 

For those interested in finding out the truth about Mr Winnifrith's imaginative claim that "Mr and Mrs Earley live in a £3m house whilst bankrupt", see below. But for everyone else, why not just savour the smooth, refined, effortless, style of our 2016 Award Winner as he shows yet again why - when it comes to hypocrisy - Mr Winnifrith is simply a Giant, casually flicking his competitors out of the way.

6th January 2017 - Mr Winnifrith's comments on my family home

Having arranged his financial affairs in such a way that he can libel anyone he attacks with impunity, so that his creditors "won't get a cent", Mr Winnifrith no doubt assumes that everybody else should arrange their finances in the same way that he does. 

In contrast, in 1991, my wife and I bought a house in Beverley Way, New Malden for £129,500. By December 2003, I had also generated almost £1 million cash from stock market trading and investment. Sitting in Paris with my wife, around Christmas 2003, I was very happy, relaxed and peaceful. I had earned enough money to live a contented life, and the temptation was to ignore my promise to repay former creditors and enjoy a tranquil life instead. However, I decided to keep my promise and go ahead with a plan to purchase a private company, using my cash, with the intention to float that company on the market at a value exceeding the amount I owed to former creditors. By January 2005, we sold our home in Beverley Way because we needed a bigger house for our family. The Beverley Way property had increased substantially in value, and we were able to take the equity out of that house to put down as a deposit on our current property. Our current property has also substantially increased in value and yet we have used all the equity in it to support the effort to repay my former creditors. All the difficulties - the upset and the trauma that has caused - and the long suffering support of my wife and family in this endeavour forms part of my book. Suffice to say, however, that the rather grubby effort by Mr Winnifrith to put his assets beyond the reach of his creditors is the polar opposite of what we have done.