The former owner of Norton Motorcycles faces up to two years in prison after pleading guilty to illegally investing millions of pounds of people’s retirement savings into his own businesses.
Stuart Garner, who acquired the classic marque in 2008 and was feted by a series of UK government ministers including the MP Stephen Barclay, the prime minister’s new chief of staff since Saturday, admitted three offences at Derby magistrates court on Monday.
Garner will be sentenced at the end of the month, when he faces a maximum of two years in prison or an unlimited fine.
The admission comes after pension holders had been complaining for years that the businessman had repeatedly ignored their requests to return their retirement savings. It also follows a 2020 Guardian and ITV News investigation that showed how more than 200 “ordinary working people” had had their entire pension pots invested into Norton shares.
The motorcycle company slumped into administration in January 2020, leaving the pension fund holders owed about £14m. In June 2020, Garner was ordered to pay the money back after the Pensions Ombudsman ruled he acted “dishonestly”. It is understood the pension holders are still waiting for any of their funds to be returned.
On Monday, the court heard that the offences related to three Norton pension schemes, Dominator 2012, Commando 2012 and Donington MC, which had a combined total of 227 members.
The investments into Norton breached technical pensions laws preventing more than 5% of an occupational scheme’s value from being invested into assets connected to the employer’s company.
Nicola Parish, executive director of frontline regulation at the Pensions Regulator, said: “As a trustee, Stuart Garner failed to comply with restrictions on investments which are designed to protect the funds of pension schemes. Trustees have a vital role in protecting the benefits of members and we will take action where that responsibility is abused.”
While the Norton schemes were occupational pension funds, which are usually set up for the benefit of a company’s employees, most of the pension savings were originally invested into Norton during 2012 and 2013 by people with no connection to the motorcycle firm.
They were later shown to be victims of a so-called “pensions liberation” fraud, a type of scam when savers are tricked into switching their retirement funds out of established schemes. The case resulted in its promoter, Simon Colfer, being convicted of fraud in 2018 for the way in which he had sold the schemes.
Garner has always said he had no knowledge of Colfer’s fraud.
Two further Garner associates involved in setting up the Norton pensions schemes – Andrew Meeson and Peter Bradley – were also convicted of a separate tax fraud in 2013, when they reclaimed £5m of tax rebates from fictitious pension contributions.
Court documents from that trial state that £990,000 of the proceeds of the tax fraud were loaned to Garner, which he used to originally acquire the Norton brand in 2008.
Garner was not implicated in any wrongdoing in the tax fraud case. He did not respond to invitations to comment on Monday.
