Where a Politicians actions, comments attitude and manner, are so blatantly outrageous, hostile and inappropriate and where challenged they respond in derisory, converse and threatening terms it seriously brings into question their fitness for office.

Resignations from Public Office have resulted in cases when far less serious matters have been exposed. This Man should resign from Politics.

This site contains confirmation in both documents and audio clips of these facts to specifically draw attention to these issues.

The audio clip headed Startling Revelations Revealing a Pre-Broadcast Radio Interview With Brian Stowell Never Before Heard is particularly revealing.

The bizarre story of the tenancy dispute over the lease renewal of 2008 and the grudge held by Brian Stowell.

Brian Stowell was instrumental in the Commissioners squandering over £10,000.00 on legal fees on a Tenancy dispute, which they tried, but could never possibly win as their defence was a sham and always doomed to failure.

Issues regarding the Lease renewal of 2008.

Our lease was due for renewal on 31^st October 2007.

It is our genuine belief that this renewal was completely mishandled and made unnecessarily difficult by two members of the Board of Commissioners, namely Mr Derek Crellin and more particularly Mr Brian Stowell who acted ultra vires and abused his position in pursuit of a personal agenda.

This agenda was because of a grudge harboured against the tenants including the Squash fraternity generally and their other supporters, which began in March 2006 when the tenants were required by law to change the “type of licence” to sell alcohol from a “club licence” to an “on licence” He was seriously aggrieved after he had failed to prevent the change and the Court had granted an “On Licence” and was extremely vocal about this both during the application and even afterwards when he went out of his way to give interviews with the local radio and newspapers, which were both in contempt of Court and ultra vires where he slammed the decision of the Court even though it was a legal requirement and the Police had advised the Commissioners accordingly. This is explained in greater detail in accompanying documentation.

The documentation in this bundle is a record of the mishandling of the renewal and the wrongful and bizarre events, which were ultra vires and, which led to the ratepayers of Onchan being subjected to totally avoidable and huge legal costs as a result.

The previous renewals of our lease had all been completed without any difficulties whatsoever by discussion and the latest renewal should have been a very simple and straightforward matter also. It is understood that when a rent is increased the onus is on a Landlord to justify any increase.

We had written to the Commissioners on 8^th December 2006 notifying them that we wished to renew our lease and although we had received an acknowledgement and had spoken with the Deputy Clerk on several occasions throughout the interim period enquiring as to progress we had not received a written response.

We eventually received a letter from them dated 25^th September 2007 suggesting new terms. We responded accordingly and suggested by letter dated 4^th October 2007 that our respective agents should discuss the renewal and agree terms to resolve the matter by agreement without the need of applying to the Courts for renewal and incurring further unnecessary costs. However we were informed that the Commissioners had rejected our suggestion stating that this was to avoid costs!

We offered £xx,000.00 per annum for the renewal of our lease in a letter dated 16^th October 2007 on similar terms as before.

Notwithstanding this we ourselves instructed agents by letter dated 4^th December 2007 to contact the Commissioners to try and agree terms. The Commissioners ignored our agent’s first letter in an attempt to discuss and resolve the matters and only responded almost two months later after a reminder letter had been sent although the response did not properly deal with the issues.

Accordingly the Commissioners had failed in their duty to disclose any rental valuation evidence to requests from both our agents and us. We were later to establish that they had obtained a valuation (dated 3^rd August 2007) although this was not finally disclosed until shortly after 17^th June 2008 and after five Court hearings.

We feel that a major reason for failing to disclose this valuation earlier was because of the embarrassment it would have caused them in attempting to increase the annual rental valuation by stating the description of the premises now as being a “Purpose built first floor full licensed premises, benefiting from a full licence to hold private functions and events” the very thing they, and in particular Brian Stowell, had been so vehemently opposed to earlier in 2006 when they had objected to a requirement by the Police for the change to this type licence from a Club Licence.

Despite further communication we were unable to agree terms and as a result we were left with no alternative but to instruct Advocates to issue proceedings in the High Court to renew our lease under the terms of the Manx Business Tenancies Act. A petition was filed with the Court dated 16^th January 2008.

The Commissioners caused their Advocates to respond to our Petition and they eventually filed their own Petition dated 3^rd April 2008 with their answers to ours.

There were to be six different Court hearing dates listed throughout the course of this matter as on each occasion the Commissioners Advocates had requested a further adjournment.

The Commissioners position, although they offered no valid reason for this, was that they did not wish our lease to be renewed. They confirmed this in paragraph 9 of their response to our petition, submitting that renewal of the lease should be dismissed. Accordingly they must have been fully aware of the implication that this would obviously have meant that the club would have closed.

Despite this Brian Stowell issued correspondence dated 13^th May 2008 in response to a question regarding the future of the club, which was “Sadly however you, like so many other people, have been convinced that the future of the club is in some doubt. That to my knowledge is not the case and has never been the case” This was untrue and deliberately misleading as he was well aware that the Commissioners did not want to renew the lease and the resulting implications.

All the grounds for objecting to a renewal are clearly set out within the Act itself and in the circumstances the Commissioners wrongfully objected to our renewal stating in paragraph 8 that they were proposing a general redevelopment of Onchan Park, which would involve demolition, alteration and/or reconstruction of the business premises within Onchan Park.

This was completely untrue and misleading and totally contradicted by themselves in various letters issued by their Authority. Furthermore to date no such redevelopment has either taken place or has been suggested and no proposals have been made.

Paragraph 8 also states that they had given notice to each tenant in the Park requiring them to vacate their premises at the end of the summer season 2008.

This was also completely untrue and misleading. A Landlord cannot simply require a tenant to vacate their premises and give up their lease when they see fit. A lease is a legal contract between the parties and provisions for renewal exist in law and the Commissioners had no power to interfere with that.

As a result of the Commissioners letter dated 25^th September 2007 we stated at the outset that we should discuss the renewal and agree terms to resolve the matter by agreement without the need of applying to the Courts for renewal and incurring further unnecessary costs. However by now there had already been considerable communication between the parties and substantial costs were already accruing.

There had been a considerable number of discussions on this matter by the Board of Commissioners both in public and in committee all of which should be recorded in the minutes and available. Despite our request for copies they were never provided and it is our understanding that Derek Crellin but more particularly Brian Stowell continued to act ultra vires and oppose our application for the lease renewal in the High Court.

It became apparent therefore that no matter what we suggested these two members of the Board Derek Crellin and Brian Stowell in particular were adopting a stubborn and dogmatic attitude by continuing to refuse to negotiate and in the process allow the costs to escalate out of control ultimately to be paid for by the ratepayers. We commented at the time, we were sure they would not have put their own money at risk in such a manner. We however continued to seek to resolve the matter by discussion to avoid unnecessary legal costs and repeatedly urged the Board to vacate their dogmatic position and negotiate a settlement but to no avail.

As a result of the elections new Commissioners joined the Board and there was a reduction in members numbers from ten to seven.

In disbelief of the ongoing situation and the escalating costs we became very concerned that not all of the members and especially those newly appointed may actually have been made fully aware of the position and of all of the communications between the parties in this matter and the full extent and the financial implications on the ratepayers.

Accordingly in May 2008 we began copying all correspondence from all parties to individual Commissioners to ensure nothing was suppressed and each was fully aware of all the emerging events because it was inconceivable that they could continue with their dogmatic position if they were all aware of everything.

There was considerable further correspondence in this matter without progress although we continually and repeatedly suggested that they should withdraw from their dogmatic position and negotiate a settlement.

Apparently their Advocate early on in the proceedings had advised the Commissioners that their position was untenable and that they could not possibly defeat our application to renew our lease if the matter reached Court. They clearly and wrongfully ignored this advice. The only issue would possibly be the level of rent but they continued to refuse to negotiate on this or provide the rental valuation they said they had obtained.

In a meeting in September 2008 with their Advocate, and bearing in mind none of the facts had changed, he again informed them of the forgoing and that they would have to bear the costs. Even the two members who were causing all the problems Derek Crellin and Brian Stowell in particular were told they could no longer maintain their present position and had to agree to settle.

Apparently it was put to a vote which was unanimous 7 – 0 that they appoint him to negotiate a settlement and gave him full authority to do so without the need to refer back to them.

Consequently our Advocates made an offer of settlement on our behalf in a letter dated 22^nd September 2008, which was subsequently accepted by the Commissioners Advocates in a letter dated 25^th September 2008.

What this amounted to was a negotiated settlement, which was exactly what we had suggested at the outset of the matter in October 2007 (almost a year earlier)

Furthermore we had offered terms at the outset for a new 3-year lease at rent of £xx,000.00 per annum. Almost a year later and after a huge amount of legal costs had been incurred, virtually identical terms had now been agreed. This was a rent of £xx,000.00 for the first year with a slight increase of £500.00 in the second and third years equating to an overall compromise increase of £1000.00 over 3 years.

The huge legal costs incurred were in the region of £10,000.00 and were wrongfully imposed on the Onchan ratepayers when the matter could have been resolved for a minimal cost.

As has clearly been established two of the members of the Board of Commissioners Derek Crellin and more particularly Brian Stowell were entirely to blame for this situation for continuing with their attempts not to renew our lease and their defence to our application in this regard and refusing to discuss or negotiate a settlement. The various discussions and votes of the members of the Board should be recorded in the minutes.

It must be obvious from all the circumstances and clearly established from the facts that as far as Derek Crellin and more particularly Brian Stowell were concerned that this issue was never about money or obtaining a higher rent. This is further evidenced by the fact that the overall increase in rent for the 3-year term was only £1,000.00 whereas the costs of the futile defence of the Court action, which they were ultimately forced to abandon, exceeded £10,000.00.

Furthermore, since we disposed of our lease the premises have been split into two separate parts, the upstairs and the downstairs, each with their own tenants. We are aware that the annual rent for these individual parts is £x,000.00 and £x,000.00 respectively (£xx,000.00 in total) which is less than the amount the Commissioners had tried to suggest we should have paid on renewal of our lease and even less than what we actually agreed to pay on renewal.

The agreed settlement became the subject of an Order in the High Court dated 29^th September 2008 when they ordered that the Commissioners should renew our lease and that they should pay our costs in full.

We gave an interview with Manx Radio after the Court Order had been made setting out the facts of this matter and the Commissioners were asked to respond. They made the following response wrongfully and in contempt of the Court Order “It would be wrong of the Commissioners to comment as legal proceedings were under way” This was completely untrue and misleading as the legal proceedings had already ended and the High Court had issued an order against them.

It is maintained that Brian Stowell’s forceful and outspoken nature had a considerable and inappropriate influence on other Board members. Additionally his actions in regard to matters referred to in this report and supporting documentation were ultra vires and an abuse of his position on the Board of Commissioners and were all because of the grudge held against the tenants and the Squash fraternity generally, referred to earlier, which had become a personal agenda and even a vendetta against those concerned.

We requested copies of all minutes regarding any discussions relating to the renewal of our lease whether in Committee or otherwise by telephone and by letters dated 1^st August and 12^th September 2008 to ascertain the facts. However, neither letter received a written response and copies of the minutes were never provided.

We also provided them with on overview of the whole affair in a letter dated 31^st October 2008 advising them we had already been in touch with DOLGE and advising that we would await their decision on if they intended to conduct their own enquiry first. We received a short acknowledgement dated 25^th November 2008, which we responded to by telephone and a letter dated 10^th December 2008. Once again just like on so many previous occasions we never received a reply. It has been suggested that this is standard practise for Onchan Commissioners in the hope that matters will lose momentum and not be pursued. In our experience of dealing with them this has without doubt certainly proved to be the case.