Cashier admits #23m fraud bid at Britoil Cashier admits #23m attempt to defraud Britoil

girl who died in a road accident 18 years ago.

A plea of guilty was made by Alison Anders at the High Court in

Aberdeen, after her co-accused's estranged wife had dramatically

revealed in her evidence that she had told police of her husband's

alleged involvement in the plot because he would not give her a divorce.

The plea was submitted at the close of evidence yesterday, and

Advocate-depute Mr Roderick Macdonald, QC, accepted it.

Mr Royston Allen, 36, has denied attempted fraud, and pretending that

Anders was Ann Glenda Killick, and fraudulently obtaining a British

passport by forging the signatures of Ann Killick and the Rev. Derek

Carpenter.

Yesterday Mrs Megan Allen, 32, wept and shook her head as she looked

at her husband sitting in the dock. Lord Morton told Mrs Allen it was

her privilege as wife of the accused not to give evidence against him.

''I'll give evidence,'' she said quietly.

She said that they had married in 1975 and had a boy and a girl aged

11 and 13. They had moved to Aberdeen five years ago and her husband was

a partner in Atom UK, an oil-related firm.

She told how she confronted him about his affair with Miss Anders, his

bridge partner, on his return from a trip to Abu Dhabi.

At the end of July last year she picked her husband up from the

airport on his return from the business trip. ''I had found out while he

was away he was having an affair with Alison Anders and obviously as

soon as I picked him up I confronted him.'' She said she stopped their

car in a lay-by between their Belhelvie home and the airport.

She said the possibility of an affair had been raised during a police

interview and things ''seemed to slot into place''.

She said that her husband did not come home on a Tuesday night before

going to bridge because he visited ''Al, a chap at work, '' and she

realised that Al was in fact Alison Anders.

During their car confrontation he denied having an affair with Alison

Anders. Mrs Allen said: ''He said he should not tell me this, if I told

anyone there would be trouble, but the only reason he was seeing Alison

on Tuesdays was to plan this #23m fraud at Britoil. All he said was

there are other people involved and they are big people and there could

be trouble.''

Mrs Allen said she told him: ''You are putting the lives of me and the

kids in jeopardy.'' She said he told her: ''If I had got the money my

cut was #5m and everything would have been OK.''

''I said how the hell are you supposed to bring it back into the

country? He said there would be some way of channelling it through Petro

Projects,'' said Mrs Allen.

Referring to a #1000 withdrawal from their joint building society

account which she had not been aware of, Mrs Allen said she had first

raised it during a telephone conversation with him while he was in Abu

Dhabi. During that telephone conversation he said he had taken it to buy

a ticket so she could join him.

In the car he told her it was his contribution to Alison for what was

being set up.

Asked if he had said anything about the success or failure of the

fraud plot, she recalled that she had told him over the phone when he

was in Abu Dhabi that Alison Anders's disappearance, and link with the

#23m attempt, was on all the news bulletins.

''I said: 'Guess what, your bridge partner has tried to rip Britoil

off for #23m,' not knowing he had anything to do with it. He said he

couldn't believe it.''

She said that a week after the confrontation he left home because of

the situation but she let him back into the house again the following

week.

She worked in Atom's offices answering the telephones and on two or

three occasions there had been calls to her husband from a woman. She

said the calls were ''hollow'' and sounded long distance.

''The woman said she was Ann Killick.

''The first call I put through to Roy and I listened at the door. I

said to him: 'That was Alison Anders, wasn't it?' And he said: 'Yes.' I

said: 'What the hell is she ringing us here for. I've had enough.' And

he replied: 'She was promised money from some sources and it has not

been sent to her so she was ringing for some money.'

''He said he was going to ring whoever it was and try to organise some

money for her,'' said Mrs Allen. She said her husband subsequently

cashed a #500 company cheque and sent the money to Alison Anders.

Mrs Allen herself went to Abu Dhabi for a two-week holiday at the

suggestion of her husband who felt things might be better when she

returned, but while there she was given a bag of his possessions which

included a number of receipts for two for meals. ''I knew they were for

Roy and Alison,'' she said.

On her return towards the end of November she told him and he admitted

they were. She said he told her: ''That's where she came after she left

Britoil that day.''

She said that their marriage had been ''bumbling'' on, and on December

12 they separated. They agreed that one of them would have to leave and

she went to stay with a friend.

She later went away to Abu Dhabi again on holiday and when she

returned her husband picked her up at the airport, having been told by

her friend that she had been in America.

''He asked why the hell did I go to the States? He was absolutely

fuming. He had had to ring Alison Anders from our phone at home to let

her know. Alison had to change her address, lose her job, and had to

move on.''

In early May this year when her husband was refusing to co-operate

with the divorce she told him: ''If you don't start co-operating I know

something about you I could tell the police.''

She said he had told her: ''Don't you dare. There are big people

involved and someone is going to get hurt and it won't be me.''

She had asked if that was a threat and he had said it was not.

She said that by this time she was having a relationship with her

husband's business partner, Mr David Nance, who had been staying with

her over the past 10 days since she had been told by the depute

procurator-fiscal of threats against her children.

She said that after consulting a solicitor with Mr Nance she had told

the police of her husband's alleged involvement.

In cross-examination Mrs Allen denied she had been having an

adulterous affair for 14 months behind her husband's back.

Asked if it was not the case that there were two sides to the story

and the marriage had gone sour she replied: ''It went sour 11 years ago

with my husband's first affair.''

In evidence Mr Nance said that when he told Roy Allen he was seeing

his wife and questioned him about his involvement in the #23m plot his

partner had said that he planned to launder the money back to Britain

through Atom's Abu Dhabi company.

He said that they had become involved with Petro Projects in Abu Dhabi

through a friend of Mr Allen who had played American football with him.

Earlier the court had heard how Alison Anders had been arrested as she

left a florist's shop in Portland, Oregon. She had been working there as

an assistant and had been traced by the FBI through information passed

to them by Grampian Police from documents found in the possession of Roy

Allen.

The trial continues.

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