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olive press Vol. 1 Issue 14 www.gibraltarolivepress.com
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NEWS
March 16th - March 29th 2016
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March 2nd- March 15th 2016
EXCLUSIVE: John Lennon wedding photographer makes urgent plea to track down his missing negatives, worth over £100,000
HELP!
SPECIAL REPORT By Joe Duggan
While Albert Poggio campaigns tirelessly in London, Fabian Picardo is targeting the Costa del Sol’s expats Our country needs EU Pages 4 & 5
THEY are some of the most iconic photographs in rock and roll history. But controversy surrounds the original negatives from John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1969 Gibraltar wedding taken by British photographer David Nutter, it can be revealed. Showing the Beatles singer celebrating his nuptials to his Japanese lover out of the glare of the public eye, the pictures have been published in thousands of publications around the world ever since. Yet, the valuable negatives - estimated to be worth over £100,000 - vanished in the 1970s after Nutter, 77, lent them to a friend Anthony Fawcett to use in his book, John Lennon: One Day At A Time. Included in the missing batch, taken on Nutter’s Nikon camera, are around a dozen never-before published photos of the wedding day, some seen for the first time in the Olive Press, this issue. Music photographer Nutter - who had flown out for the wedding from London to Gibraltar on a commission from the Beatles record label Apple - has spent the best part of the last four decades trying to recoup his property. Tet two separate investigations by British police and the FBI in America have so far failed to recover them. Now however, in a sensational twist, the Olive Press can reveal that various anonymous ‘sellers’ have recently tried to sell back Nutter’s own images. The London-born snapper, who now lives in New York, revealed that another photographer Brian Hamill, has also been suspiciously offered two strips of his original negatives taken of John Lennon. New Yorker Hamill had also lent the original negatives to Fawcett - a British art critic, author and media consultant - for the same book.
ICONIC: John and Yoko on wedding day and (top left) with certificate while (above) police letter
“Now we are being offered our own photographs back for thousands of pounds,” Nutter told the Olive Press, this week. “It is an outrage and it adds salt to the wounds that go back over 40 years,” he added. He had ‘stupidly’ lent Fawcett the negatives after they became friends, while living in New York in the mid 1970s.
Fawcett had worked with Lennon and Yoko as their assistant for a while and was writing a book about Lennon’s life. “He asked me if I could help with images for the book and I stupidly said ‘yes’ and lent him all the negatives. “When I asked for them back a little while later, he told me his apartment had been repossessed... and everything
had been taken. “Even when I called in the police, I never got them back.” Indeed, a 1983 letter from Southwark Police to Nutter (above), seen by the Olive Press, shows that officers questioned Fawcett at his home in south London. Fawcett told the officers about his flat being repossessed in the Big Apple and that while most of his property was later returned, the photographs and negatives were not included. "However, he (Fawcett) did say he knew someone in possession of the photographs and agreed to telephone Mr
Photos worth over £100,000!
A
world-renowned Beatles memorabilia expert estimated the set of wedding pictures to be worth over £100,000, last night. Peter Miniaci claims that he, himself, was offered the images in 2007, when he received an email offering him 'some rare John and Yoko wedding photos'. "I was suspicious and asked if the sender had the rights to the images, to which it was claimed that ‘the photographer is dead’ so I didn’t need to worry about it," he told the Olive Press. "Right away the red flag went up. I rang May Pang [Lennon's former PA] and she told me ‘definitively’ David Nutter took those photos and he is alive and well in New York." He later called the anonymous seller, who had a fake British accent, to try and track him down. He said he wanted £20,000 for the contact sheets (which are not as valuable or good quality as the original negatives). "Whoever offered me the contact sheets must know where the negatives are. If David could sell the whole set of photos I'm confident, because the majority are unpublished, he could get £70,000 to over £100,000 for them.”
SUSPICIOUS: Hamill
Nutter with the details,” the letter reads. But according to Nutter, Fawcett never called him with the name. Now living a hand to mouth existence in New York, he is desperate to get to the bottom of the mystery. "I go crazy thinking about it," he said. “I would write my initials in ink on every frame so I would know straight away know they were mine. “And, in any case, who else could have taken them… nobody else was there in Gibraltar. I know they’re still around. How do I get them back?” He continued: "It's heartbreaking. I’ve sort of given up. I could have done very well with those images and people are always asking me for them and I don't have them. I am living in poverty. “I could have made a lot of money not that that was the important thing. Its just the idea of someone having my stuff. I want them back.” As fellow photographer Hamill, who also suspiciously lost negatives in the 1970s to Fawcett, said last night: “Me and David are two old guys who survived the sixties. Those photos for us could mean something for my daughter and granddaughter.“ The Olive Press tried to contact Fawcett repeatedly by email and phone this week to discuss the missing negatives but received no response.
Voiceless BUDDING singer Corinne Cooper gave a valiant performance on UK talent show The Voice. Despite the Gibraltarian’s powerful ballad, she was sent home at the blind audition stage. Performing Sam Smith’s Lay me down, Cooper impressed but unfortunately didn’t wow the judges.
MARATHON: At Dusk
Dusk til dawn PARTY-goers are gearing up for a 12-hour live electronic festival. Dusk’s annual Spring Festival will feature bands and djs, including Dead City Radio, My Sick Project, Lazy Daiz and DJ Rookie. Starting at 6pm on March 12, the festival will also feature a tattoo and piercing studio, graffiti art display as well as a Harley Davidson show. Two-for-one cocktails will also be on offer as well as free tapas.
Monica Fabiani · Documentary Photographer · Create your memoir.......
JET SET: Nutter (below, now) and (left) en route to wedding with couple in plane
Telephone: 0034 617 616 533 or fabiani.monica1@gmail.com
TRACKED DOWN: Stolen negatives and (above) our story last issue 10% discount for OP readers Quote OP10
Taxing times BOOKIES have reacted angrily to a proposed tax on offshore betting. Ladbrokes is boycotting the Cheltenham Festival over the tax, while Betfair is pulling out of the Gold Cup. The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association is planning to fight the changes, which are expected to raise over £300 million in tax. Official horse racing bodies insist that bookies refusing to pay the tax on their offshore profits should be banned from racing. Over 3,000 people work in gaming companies in Gibraltar.
Get Back… to where they once belonged! THE Olive Press has tracked down a man claiming to sell the stolen negatives from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous Gibraltar wedding. Masquerading as a mystery buyer, we discovered that the original photos were allegedly being sold by a Beatles biographer from his home in the Far East.
EXCLUSIVE The writer, who we are not naming for legal reasons, put our undercover reporter in touch with an alleged Thailand-based ‘middleman’ before emailing proof sheets showing some of the
never-before-seen wedding negatives. The incredible shots, valued by Beatles experts at over £100,000, went missing in 1975 when British photographer David Nutter lent them to Anthony Fawcett to use in his book John LenTurn to Page 7
Man who sold the World
Soldier credited with ‘helping liberate’ Belsen concentration camp later made millions fraudulently in a string of investment scams linked to Gibraltar A FORMER British soldier who helped liberate Belsen concentration camp was a Costa del Sol con man, banned in Gibraltar. Colonel Leonard Berney who died this week aged 95 - turned to financial scams, including one with local firm Rock Financial Services, after leaving the British army. Despite being credited as one of the first soldiers to enter the hellish Nazi camp, he turned to a life of crooked schemes, perhaps traumatised by what he had seen. Basing himself in Marbella,
HERO TO VILLAIN: Berney, his cruise liner and (above) in army uniform
EXCLUSIVE By Joe Duggan he ran a string of dodgy investment companies, which left hundreds of victims around the world. His projects funded a lavish lifestyle, involving exotic holidays, a Bentley car and ‘gastronomic extravagances’. In later life, his ill-gotten gains even afforded him a £3 million luxury apartment on the exclusive cruise liner The World, with its own hot tub and jacuzzi. Sadly though he accrued
his incredible riches, via a range of investor scams, which were slammed by financial watchdogs in Britain, Gibraltar, Ireland, New Zealand and Hong Kong. One of his schemes offered investors a yield of 12% with no annual charges and ‘instant access to their money whenever they needed it’. Operating without any sort of licence, Berney claimed to have been investing in FTSE options since 1985. “The results have been very profitable. Over the years from 1985 until now, he has made an average return of
38% a year,” a statement from his company claimed. An advert placed in newspapers by Marbella firm Sensible Options asked people to invest in a British Government bond that would provide a ‘regular monthly income of 12% a year’. But no such bond existed and hoodwinked investors were directed to place £20,000 in Gibraltar firm Rock Financial Services or £40,000 with London broker Man Direct. Bets on the FTSE’s movements would then be placed by a South American-based
firm also registered under Berney’s name. When the scheme was finally uncovered, the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission ordered Rock Financial to stop trading and Man Direct severed ties with Berney. The Supreme Court of Gibraltar later ordered directors from Rock Financial Services to pay back £6.2m to compensate investors. In 1998, Berney used a similar ruse while operating out of Dublin and offering Turn to next page