TO CELEBRATE SEMANA SANTA NO LESS THAN 9 PAGES OF CULTURE
olive press The original and only English-language investigative newspaper in Andalucía
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Vol. 8 Issue 185 www.theolivepress.es
My NOT so Trival investment
IN THE MONEY: Former barman Phil Donneson
EXCLUSIVE: SMUG: Goldman and pal
Say cheated! EXCLUSIVE THEY like the high life and famously spit at their enemies. The same could be said for fraudster Nigel Goldman seen here posing with an alpaca while on the run at a recent country fair in England. Both sporting smug grins, the photo was posted on his girlfriend Suzanne Couling’s Facebook page, despite allegations that Goldman is currently being investigated for defrauding dozens of victims out of an estimated €15 million. The conman, known for his newspaper columns and radio shows in Spain, sucked the luckless punters into an elaborate ponzi scheme, promising them sizeable returns. However the addicted gambler was unable to keep his promises and was forced to flee his luxury home in Marbella with Couling last October. He has since visited Morocco and Portugal, but is currently living with his girlfriend’s family in the UK, it can be revealed. The latest revelation in the Goldman saga comes as his friend Richard Pope was handed a jail sentence for a similar scam. See Fraud Gang gets 50 years on page 2
April 16 - April 30 2014
Olive Press tracks down Nerja’s unknown Trivial Pursuit investor. See page 6
Out of our waters! SPANISH boats have strayed into British waters around Gibraltar more than 600 times since the beginning of 2013. There were 496 unlawful incursions in 2013 and have already been 112 in just the first three months of 2014, according to UK government figures. The worst month overall was August, during which 68 Spanish vessels entered British waters – at a an average of more than two per day. A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “Such incursions are an unacceptable violation
BETRAYED EXCLUSIVE By Imogen Calderwood
A DOCTOR has slammed his insurance company for refusing to cover his dying wife’s pain relief. Expat Iain Renfrew, 48, who worked as a radiographer for 20 years, has been left ‘almost bankrupt’ by the company Mapfre’s refusal to pay up for his wife, who died of breast cancer last year. Carol Pickard, 54 - who also worked in healthcare for more than two decades as a nurse - died at the Virgen de las Nieves hospital in Granada, on July 12. She had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer after months of pain and no less than four appointments with doctors and hospitals. But, while this is a shocking
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A doctor has been left nearly bankrupt by insurance company after the tragic death of his wife delay in diagnosis, it is the fact that her husband has now been hit with a bill for nearly €10,000 for her hospital stay that has most angered him. “I can’t afford to pay up and I can’t afford to pay my mortgage,” he told the Olive Press this week.
Nightmare
“There’s nothing left for me here. If they want to take my house then feel free,” continued Renfrew, who worked as a medic in Scotland and Ireland, and later for the United Nations’ war crimes tribunal in Bosnia. “The stress that I’ve been put through has taken its toll on my health too. I am not sleeping well and I’m suffering from anxiety,” added the doctor, who moved to Alcala La Real, in Jaen in 2006. The couple’s nightmare experience of Spain’s ‘healthcare lottery’ began last March
when Carol became seriously ill. While Iain was working in Oxford at the time, Carol began to experience severe abdominal pain and found a lump under her arm. When Iain returned to Spain the following week, the couple made their first visit to their local doctor, in their village of Las Pilas de Fuente de Soto. The doctor initially diagnosed her with gastritis, but as Carol’s symptoms worsened the couple made a second visit and were told she was merely suffering from ‘abdominal cramps’. “My wife disagreed with this diagnosis straight away,” said
DEVASTATED: Iain Renfrew and Carol Pickard Iain. “She was a trained nurse Carol had gallstones. and she knew what abdomi- Throughout the couple’s atnal cramps felt like. But there tempts to get a real diagnosis, Mapfre ignored their plight, was nothing we could do.” After another month in ago- telling them they weren’t covny, with her symptoms get- ered by their plan. ting worse by the day, the “They weren’t interested in couple went to the Hospital the slightest,” insisted Iain. de Alta Resolucion, in Alcala Continues on Page 8 la Real where they were told