One day, I will look back and laugh...

Sometimes I wonder if more things happen like they did yesterday, I might one day have enough material to write a rather entertaining book.

We had our meeting with Stuart Howatson yesterday, who I had been communicating with via email regarding a gig he had offered Jeanie in the Radiator at the Silverstone Grand Prix in July.  The meeting was full of fantastic news.  He worked as part of the Mercedes F1 team and was also in charge of a company which organised their corporate events.  We sat and talked with him for over two hours, during which he offered us two high profile gigs including the Silverstone one and a black tie event which would be taking place a few days beforehand.  Each gig would earn the band between £5,000-£7,500 and we would get transported to and from the venues.  It would be a big opportunity for all of us to play for a highly influential audience and he was willing to give the opportunity to a talented unsigned band as opposed to the usual mainstream acts they would book.

All sounded fantastic and we left the meeting elated.  He had even offered to sort us out with a venue for and transport to an EP Launch after-party, as several venues around Manchester owed him favours.  When I arrived home my dad was thrilled for us and encouraged me to check out how high up he was in the F1 team.  His name and picture did indeed come up on Google.

Unfortunately, this was the article that contained them: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/12/get-used-to-that-view-115875-21960485/

It turns out that Stuart has just recently got out of prison, having been jailed last year for Fraud, convincing his family and friends that he was a police officer for years.  He had also pleaded guilty to downloading indecent images of children and it seems that, upon his release, he has immediately started a new lie, conning people again.  He got us good.

He had mentioned being in touch with comedian Stephen K Amos.  I can only deduce that he did this to us, not for any monetary gain, but for the cheap thrill of meeting a 'celebrity' in our ex-Hollyoaks actress lead singer and to be a man with power for a few hours in our company.   Judging by Stuart's twitter feed, he had planned to do the same with Stephen K Amos and a host of other, more accessible, British 'celebrities'.

I have therefore spent this morning getting in touch with Stephen K Amos' manager, Mercedes-Benz, Odder bar (which Stuart had booked the whole top floor of for our 'Afterparty') and the police.  Long story short, everyone is now aware and I have resisted the urge to take any action against him personally.  At the end of the day, he wasted a whole afternoon of EP mixing as far as I'm concerned, and the professional thing to do is to make sure that he wastes no more of it.

This experience did initially leave me feeling quite shaken and confused.  But it would be detrimental to me and to my work to think much more about it.  I have put it out of my mind and started concentrating on the EP Launch, my major project, once more.  Although I always organise any meetings in a public place, in future I will also make sure that I try to further research anyone I speak to via email or otherwise not face-to-face.

At least the time I sat in a gig meeting with a paedophile con-man will make a great anecdote or, indeed, chapter of a book one day.