Australian millionairess takes on sheep farmer

#1 (**permalink**) 26-03-2010

Found this when I googled confused.com on uk google news site; quote from the Daily Record national newspaper:

"
Sheep farmer defies millionaire and refuses to quit home

Mar 21 2010 Exclusive by Stephen Stewart, Sunday Mail

A DEFIANT farmer has vowed to fight a millionaire internet tycoon trying to kick him out of his home on her £3million estate.

Confused.com founder Kate Armstrong and her lumberjack husband Malcolm are trying to get Will Connell to quit his home of 13 years.

Will lives in a cottage on the 295-acre Cassillis Estate near Maybole, Ayrshire, which the couple bought last year.

The Armstrongs last week took their battle to Ayr Sheriff Court after Will, 65, defied evicition notices.

He said: "This is my home. I have been here for years.

"They haven't actually given me any reason for kicking me out other than they claim it is a short tenancy and the lease is up so I should now simply go.

"The Armstrongs bought the place last year and almost immediately asked everyone to surrender their leases. It seems they just want to get rid of their tenants easily and quickly.

"My solicitor wrote to them pointing out that I had kept sheep here for 12 years and that was interpreted as an agricultural holding and entitled me to be here.

"They issued me six notices to quit in November last year alone.

"Whatever they have in mind for the estate, it doesn't seem to include me and my sheep."

High-flier Armstrong worked for Admiral Insurance when she was appointed to launch its confused.com website seven years ago.

The IT expert, from Sydney, became managing director of the Cardiff car insurance comparison site.

She met Malcolm in London in 1998 when he travelled from Scotland to help with the clean-up after major storms.

Their home - historic Cassillis House - boasts five reception rooms, 12 bedrooms and is set in 295 acres of woods and parkland.

For two centuries, it served as a fishing lodge attached to Culzean Castle, seat of the Marquess of Ailsa.

Previous occupants include the Marchioness of Ailsa, who lived there until her death three years ago.

The Armstrongs' court action is expected to last several weeks. They could not be contacted for comment."

Isn't she a Sidney girl made good?

#2 (**permalink**) 26-03-2010

Sounds like a stuck up heartless bitch.

franfran · #3 (**permalink**) 26-03-2010

As I am not generally prepared to take my news from the likes of the Daily Record or Sunday Mail, I did a bit of checking and found this report in a much more reputable newspaper, The Scotsman:

Quote:

Battle brews over castle 'clearances'
Published Date: 21 March 2010
By Mark Smith

Despite its peaceful setting in the rolling Ayrshire countryside, the ancient seat of the Kennedy Clan, Cassillis House, has seen its fair share of bloody feuds. Now a new battle is brewing at the 600-year-old castle, on the banks of the River Doon, after a dotcom millionaire bought the property in a multi-million pound deal from the family.

Kate Armstrong, one of the co-founders of the Confused.com website, has launched a court attempt to evict an elderly tenant who has occupied a small cottage and three-acre plot on the land for 13 years. There are also claims that the wealthy online insurance guru has removed a dairy farmer from a field he had rented since 1953 and evicted a group of fishermen who have rented a beat in the grounds for generations.

One tenant has now accused Armstrong and her husband Malcolm of instigating a "new Highland clearance" on the estate they bought for an estimated £2.5 million.

Retired civil servant William Connell lives in the Kennells Cottage, where he first raised ducks to sell their eggs to Chinese restaurants and now keeps a small flock of sheep. The whitewashed cottage, although in need of repairs on the inside, is in an idyllic setting and Connell hoped he might see out his days there. However, he was served with an eviction notice in November by the Armstrongs, who are believed to have purchased the castle and grounds earlier last year. Connell insists, however, that he will not leave and his court battle against the eviction was heard before a sheriff for the first time last week.

Speaking after the first hearing, Connell said: "I have loved living at the Kennells. I am a registered keeper of sheep, and I have a small number of animals grazing the land there. "There's a small pond on the site where I used to rear ducks for their eggs, which I sold to the Chinese restaurants in the area. "I really did think this was my home for life. I couldn't see any reason why I would leave. It is a bit of a hovel inside, but it is an absolutely beautiful setting."

However, he said his idyll was shattered when the head of the Clan Kennedy, the Marchioness of Ailsa, died in 2007 at the age of 91 and Cassillis was sold to the Armstrongs. He said: "There is a local dairy farmer whose family had rented a field at Cassillis for 53 years. They were told to go. A consortium of fishermen had rented a beat on the River Doon from the estate for many years. At first they were told they couldn't use the bothy in the grounds, and then they were ejected. "Now Mrs Armstrong has come for me, serving me with an eviction notice last November. It is like something from the Highland Clearances, with tenants seen as nothing more than an obstacle to be removed. "But this is not the 18th century. I intend to fight this all the way and will not be budging from my home."

He added: "My case will be based on the fact that the tenancy I have is actually an agricultural tenancy, due to my ducks and sheep, and is therefore not a normal short assured tenancy that can just be got rid off. It is my hope that the law will come down on my side, rather than the side of this rich person who is trying to create her own little kingdom here."

Cassillis had been the property of the turbulent Kennedy family since the 13th century. Their history, wrote the castle historian Nigel Tranter, "was one long catalogue of violence, savagery and sudden death". After the death of her husband in 1994, the Marchioness of Ailsa, head of the Kennedy clan, lived on at the castle until her own death. By this time her siblings were well established in homes nearby and none chose to live in the castle, so it was put on the open market for offers over £2.5 million.

Before buying the castle, Armstrong shared in a £21m windfall handed out to senior employees of the Admiral Insurance Group when they sold part of their stake in the firm. Armstrong, 47, an Australian mother of three with an IT background, helped found confused.com, which is owned by Admiral, and is thought to have become extremely wealthy on the back of the website's success. Admiral, in which Armstrong is a shareholder and non-executive director, also owns insurance brands such as Elephant.co.uk, Diamond and Bell Direct.

Despite repeated calls to the Armstrong home and requests made through their lawyers, Kilmarnock-based McIntosh and Wylie, nobody would answer questions on the eviction procedures at Cassillis. Their lawyer, Campbell Fullarton, said: "I have been instructed that they have no desire to speak to the press."

#4 (**permalink**) 26-03-2010

Reputable Newspaper.

Hmmm..... there is such a thing?

#5 (**permalink**) 26-03-2010

Firstly I should have stated that I am not Australian and have no Sydney connections I am a Scot from Glasgow a mature student researcher.

FranFran posted another newspaper version of the story by the Scotsman , which I found much in the same vein and there is yet another version in the Daily Mail which mentions something interesting about the Armstongs which seems reveal that they are as much victims in this matter as Connell.

Never mind the wealth that is irrelevant, the Daily Mail article Monday 22nd March 2010 mentions in effect that the Armstrongs should have researched the property before making the purchase. Fair comment, but not strictly true, more properly put, the Armstrong's solicitors should have uncovered any potential flaws and possible burdens during the legal conveyancing process. Nothing of real signifigance is mentioned of the sellers either, were they not aware that Connell was rearing sheep and ducks there?

I had never heard of confused.com's Armstrong before this business appeared in the papers but I had heard of Connell aka Bill Connell.

Sheep farmer he may be, retired civil servant he probably is, but you will also find him in the archives of the Scotsman newspaper quoted as a Partner in the Firm of Osborne and Connell of Dumfries in the early 1990s. Osborne and Connell were in those days private investigators in the employ of a number of Dumfries Law Firms. Their mention in the Scotsman was in connection with a major fraud perpetrated by a Scottish Solicitor Giles Davies who subsequently received a seven year jail sentence when he plead guilty to stealing 1.8 million pounds of clients money.

Davies' firm, Macormack Nicolson Symons and MacDonald were scammed by North American gangsters in a phoney Arbitrage deal so Davies could equally be described as a dishonest victim. The case was investigated by Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary who dubbed it "Operation Dollar", none of the money was ever recovered. "Operation Dollar" cost the Dumfries and Galloway tax payer's £2,000,000 !!!

Whereas I have no Sydney connections and Kate Armstrong has, it was intriguingly hinted to me (by a hack) over a pint of beer in a Glasgow pub that Connell was a friend or associate of the late Jimmy Anderson's daughter! Jimmy Anderson was also a Glasgow man better known in Sydney than in Glasgow as a member of the "Kings Cross Gang" allegedly "killed by a parrot" some years ago.

There might just be an elephant in the room. Who knows???