This interview is being recorded
and may be given in evidence at a later date.
We are in Interview Room 3, at Beltonfield Police Station.
The date is the 23rd October 2019
and the time is 15:34.
I am DS Callie Pritchard.
Please state your full name and date of birth.
Paul Stevenson, 5th July 1979.
Juliet Arnott, 13/02/1988.
Mrs Arnott, what is your connection to Jamie Phelps?
I'm Jamie's PA. We've been working together for seven years.
I moved with him when he left KPL and started up on his own.
What is your relationship to Jamie Phelps?
He's my brother. Look, is this going to take long?
It'll take as long as it takes, I'm afraid.
But you're here of your own free will – you may leave at any time.
Fine. Alright. It's just that... look, I've got work to do.
Look, I'm only here because Lucy's... Fine. Fine... carry on.
I'll cut to the chase then, Mr Stevenson.
According to Lucy Phelps, your sister-in-law,
there is £15,000 missing from one of her and her husband's accounts –
money paid to you by your brother.
Now, help me out here. You appear to be a wealthy man.
Why was Mr Phelps paying you all that money?
Jamie's such a wuss. He should have told her.
Told her what?
It was an investment.
We invested in a new cryptocurrency called Wok – really exciting stuff.
You get a better deal the more coins you buy, so we went in together.
He sent me the money. I bought us 2,000 Wokcoins.
Wok – wasn't that in the news recently?
Yeah. Yeah, it's all folded. Real shame.
The blockchain got hacked. But look, that's the deal.
That's the risk. You've got to be in it to win it,
but you don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
Could Jamie afford to lose fifteen grand?
Well, as it turns out, no.
Idiot.
But I only found that out this morning.
He's a lovely, lovely man, you know.
Head screwed on, heart in the right place.
And this wee boy – did you say he was found by the side of the road?
It never occurred to me that Pip was in the car.
I don't know how he's gotten himself into such a pickle.
I know no one's saying it, but...
you must think he's done away with himself.
That's what blokes do when they have money trouble, isn't it?
But it's not him – he wouldn't.
I mean, this morning he was stressed, but he had a plan.
He was engaged – I could tell.
A plan for what, do you think?
To deal with the ransomware.
What ransomware?
That's why I'm here, isn't it?
Hit me.
Right. So, the company's files were taken ransom
with this computer-virus malware last night.
It's pretty simple. The files are stolen and held
until a ransom is paid. In this case, £25,000.
The threat is to usually either delete them or publish them online,
but according to Mrs Arnott the threat was to publish.
They've got some pretty high-profile clients, so privacy is important.
And people pay these things?
Oh yeah. Happens all the time.
They're smart enough to ask for the amounts of money
that people might be able to scrape together.
Who is they?
Cyber criminals. Anyone, anywhere in the world.
Even some kid in California, in his bedroom.
And Jamie got one of these last night?
Well, it happened last night, but he only realised this morning.
He called me from the car. Said we'd been hacked and he was on his way in.
They'd sent emails to his personal account and the company's.
And how did he seem on the phone?
A bit shaky, shocked.
I shouldn't have told you. He made me promise to keep it a secret.
I know it's a lot of money, but I daresay he's got savings and investments.
The thing is, if the files were released,
it's not only his career that would be destroyed.
Some of our... our clients, you know.
She wouldn't talk after that. I think it suddenly occurred to her
that she might be about to lose her job.
OK... OK. OK.
So, the brother confirmed to me that he spoke to Jamie this morning.
Apparently Jamie called him asking for a loan,
but reading between the lines there's not
a lot of brotherly love going on there,
and Paul – charmer that he is – said no.
Nice. So, he's broke, he's lost all of his savings,
his business is being blackmailed. His brother...
Financial adviser of the year, by the way.
...won't bail him out.
So, the next person – last person he speaks to is...
OK. Cheers. Send him up.
We've only got celebrity chef Arthur Montgomery here.
Listen – before we get started,
can I ask him a super-quick question about his baba ganoush recipe?
No! Not a good idea.