Lord Davenport Eddie Davenport wasn't an actual lord,
but he liked to call himself one. He led the fabulous life
of an international playboy and was friends with all kinds of celebrities.
But it turned out he was really just the mastermind behind a massive,
global fraud operation. At least he had a great time doing it too. Kate Moss, Prince William,
and Prince Harry were frequent guests at the crazy parties he threw at his 30 million pound mansion.
The mansion, 33 Portland Place, is one of the biggest houses in London, a truly magnificent
eighteenth-century residence. The inner decor looks like the setting of a ye old' romance novel.
While Lord Eddie's scam was still going on, 33 Portland was the most exclusive
party destination in the city. It had 8 reception rooms, a billiard room,
a club with a jacuzzi, a ballroom, and the only hydraulic wall in London. That means
there's a whole wall that can just move up and down. Why? Who knows, but people as wealthy as
Lord Eddie can do whatever they want… at least until someone catches them, that is.
The mansion was also used for things other than Lord Eddie's parties. Celebrities such as Johnny
Depp and Helena Bonham Carter had big photoshoots there. Amy Winehouse shot her music video for the
song Rehab there. Parts of the movie The King's Speech were also shot there, as it served as
Lionel Logue's clinic. Many believe various adult films were shot in the mansion, although that's
less certain. But it wouldn't be out of character for Eddie to let that sort of thing happen at the
mansion. After all, he was known for throwing the wildest adult-themed parties in London.
Like many high-profile criminals, the law caught up with him rather unexpectedly. Whenever he
needed to involve himself directly in his fraudulent business, he would
use the fake name 'James Stewart'. Yes, like the actor James Stewart. He must have been a fan.
Fire regulators were doing a routine check of his business premises, ensuring everything was up to
code. However, while they were looking around, they saw photographs of the man they knew as
Mr. Stewart. Only the name on these photographs wasn't Mr. Stewart; it was Edward Davenport. They
realized that the guy they had been dealing with was up to something, and they informed the Serious
Fraud Office. This bland, scheduled fire check ended up being the start of Lord Eddie's downfall.
Life of the Party If Edward wasn't born
to actual royalty, where did he come from? It turns out his true origin
story is slightly less glamorous. His father, Ormus Neville Talbot Davenport,
was a wealthy restaurateur. His mother was Ormus's second wife, Jean. His half-brother
from his father's first marriage was a banker and the director of MK Airlines. His family was rich,
yes, but they weren't royalty. The only real celebrity connection from his early life was
that he happened to go to the same school as Nick Mason, the drummer for Pink Floyd.
Lord Eddie began his entrepreneurial efforts young. He started selling second-hand clothes
on Portobello Road when he was just 15-years-old. When he got a bit older, he moved on to a career
organizing parties. He started at his own house and then moved on to nightclubs and real venues.
In 1986, when he was 20, Eddie stepped up his party business. He co-founded Gatecrasher Ltd,
a company that organized parties for teenagers at country houses like Longleat and Weston Park.
These parties were huge events, sometimes drawing up to 10,000 people at once. Eddie
was making a million pounds every year at the height of his success with Gatecrasher.
The idea behind the company was to let rich teenagers who attended same-sex
boarding schools meet members of the other gender. However,
'meet them' translated into 'meet and drink large amounts of alcohol with them.' The parties had
a reputation for being pretty crazy. One newspaper described them as being scenes
of Unbridled lust among upper-class Lolitas and public school Lotharios.
Gatecrasher met an untimely end that would foreshadow Eddie's later legal troubles. He
had to stop throwing the parties because an HM Customs & Excise audit found that Davenport had
underpaid his Value Added Tax bill. Eddie tried to claim that only a
tiny percentage of the money he made with entry fees was liable for taxes.
Most of it, he tried to claim, was for raffle tickets, a magazine subscription,
and postage. The government didn't buy this. Eddie admitted that he'd skirted around the
law in court. He was convicted for tax evasion and sentenced to nine months in jail in 1990.
Tatler magazine asked him in an interview what he thought of prison. He said it was
boring since there weren't many parties there. His sentence ended up being reduced
on appeal to a nine-month suspended term. He only spent 2 weeks in jail.
Not nearly enough time to learn his lesson, apparently. Later, he would say everything
happened because he was naïve and didn't understand how taxes were supposed to work.
Gatecrasher closed down. Birth of a Lord
After Gatecrasher, which had been very successful despite the tax issues,
Lord Eddie decided to turn his attention to the world of clubs. He owned a few clubs for a while
but sold them to start a high-end pawnbroking business with offices in Bruton Street. This
was not at all your average pawnshop. He pawned expensive jewelry and luxury cars.
It was around this time that he started to call himself Lord. He acquired the manorial title of
the village of Gifford in Shropshire and just started to call himself Lord Edward. Having this
manorial title didn't really make him a Lord, but he was good enough at lying to get away with it.
Being a lord wasn't the only thing he would lie about. He claimed to own 25 buildings
in the West End of London worth 100 million pounds. He supposedly controlled them through
a Monaco-based company called the Davenport Trust. He also claimed to have property in
Monaco and Thailand. In 1998, Eddie and a few other men ran into more legal trouble
when they ran up an 18,000-pound bill at a hotel in Scotland during a 5 day
New Years' party. The hotel said that they had posed as aristocrats with fake titles.
Eddie denied everything and didn't even show up to court. He claimed that he couldn't go because he
was suffering from kidney failure and couldn't travel because he had to receive dialysis.
He continued to have a sketchy relationship with the law after this incident. The police raided
his house, and investigators looked into his involvement with two property companies that
collapsed while still owing millions of pounds. Yet, he somehow evaded legal repercussions.
Fit for a King In 1996,
Lord Eddie was introduced to Professor Cyril Foray. Foray was the former Foreign
Minister and High Commissioner of Sierra Leone during the country's civil war.
Eddie got into negotiations with the government of Sierra Leone to refurbish their embassy, which,
at the time, was 33 Portland Place. He got a lease on the building, and eventually, he claimed the
property as his private residence. The government of Sierra Leone sued him, but the case ended up
being settled without a clear victor. The British government bought a new building for Sierra Leone,
and Lord Eddie got the remainder of the lease. He essentially scammed a war-torn African
country out of their London embassy while they were too busy trying not to collapse.
Crushing Dreams The scam that would eventually expose
Lord Eddie was something called advance fee fraud. He acquired a shelf company, which is a company
that exists but doesn't do anything, and called it Gresham Ltd. This was so people would think
it was connected to Gresham Financial, which was an established and successful company. Eddie told
people that his company had been around for years and had a great track record going back to 1958.
Eddie would offer loans to companies but then charge them for things he made up,
like "verification fees." The companies, thinking that it would
be worth it because they were getting a big loan from Eddie, would pay him.
But then Eddie never gave them the loan. In short, Eddy was being paid to do absolutely
nothing. The Lord got 4.5 million pounds from prospective borrowers through his scheme.
One notable victim of Eddie's scam was Elizabeth Emanuel, a famous designer who created Princess
Diana's wedding dress. She lost her life savings to Lord Eddie after he promised her a
loan for 1 million pounds. All she had to do was fork over 5,000 pounds.
When Eddie came under some scrutiny, he decided to end Gresham. He continued his advance fee fraud
with Cutting and Company, another shelf company that had been inactive since 2000. Clearly,
Eddie was smart enough to know when to get out and start over.
Fall of a Lord Lord Eddie's advance fee
scamming days ended when those fire regulators realized that he was not,
in fact, James Stewart. But by then, the operation was so big that one arrest wasn't going to wrap
up the whole thing. Police raided 19 properties all over England and arrested five other people
associated with the fake Lord. Eddie was charged with conspiracy to obtain money by deception,
conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, and money laundering.
The case ended up going beyond just the advance fee fraud. Eddie was also accused of running a
so-called price ramping fraud on a 2.4 million pound property in London. He artificially
increased its price at auction by falsely claiming there was a lease that his company guaranteed.
Police also started investigating allegations that Eddie had been running a rent fraud scam
with Gresham. The man had his hands in all sorts of scams. He was truly a serial scammer.
Over the course of the advance fee fraud, Lord Eddie and his partners had taken 4.5 million
in advanced fees, and they had never paid out a single cent of the 2 billion in loans they
had promised. Aftermath
Lord Eddie was sentenced to seven years and eight months in jail. He was also banned from becoming
a company director for ten years, and ordered to pay compensation and legal costs. However,
he was let out after just 3 years in jail due to illness. Once again,
he managed to weasel his way out of the full sentence.
Eddie had to sell 33 Portland Place to pay for his heavy legal fines.
But he ended up buying the building right across the street. As soon as he was out,
he got right back to hosting huge, wild parties. This has left most
people feeling like justice was never really served, and he got away with everything.
Unreformed The prison
time he did serve also might not have been all that bad. Lord Eddie claims
that he was allowed to eat lobster in his cell due to his special status.
Not exactly the typical prison diet. This could just be another lie of his, however.
Lord Davenport is still throwing huge parties to this day. His most recent brush with the law
was when a bouncer was fatally injured at his New Year's Eve party in 2019.
But that never led to anything that got Edward into serious
trouble either. It seems as though some people are truly untouchable.
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And let us know in the comment section whether or not you would want to party with Lord Davenport,
even if you knew he was a scammer!