Move by Simon Nixon likely to spark fresh concern about tax avoidance by British businesspeople and multinational firms

Jersey – you're sooo moneysupermarket.com. The island of Jersey is expected to be the new home of Simon Nixon, the multimillionaire founder of the price comparison site, which would allow him to shelter his £400m fortune from HM Revenue & Customs.

A move by Nixon, who owns just under 50% of the company and who – only two months ago – cashed in some shares to benefit from entrepreneur's tax relief, is likely to spark fresh concern about tax avoidance by British businesspeople and major multinational firms.

Earlier this week, senior executives from Amazon, Starbucks and Google were accused of diverting hundreds of millions of pounds in UK profits to secretive tax havens during a fraught exchange with a committee of MPs.

All three repeatedly denied accusations that they were engaged in aggressive tax avoidance, but were met with derision from members of the committee.

Nixon's relocation to Jersey is likely to save the 44-year-old, who currently lives in Cheshire, millions of pounds in tax that he pays on dividends from moneysupermarket.com.

A spokeswoman for the company, where Nixon is now deputy chairman, confirmed he was considering a move to the island, adding: "It's purely a personal matter where he chooses to live."

Nixon launched moneysupermarket.com in 1999 after dropping out of university to work as a financial adviser. It floated on the stock market in 2007, instantly turning him into Britain's richest entrepreneur aged below 40.

On Thursday, the company reported revenues in the third quarter up by 11% and profits ahead by 12%, helped by a surge in customers hoping to beat the rise in electricity and gas prices by switching suppliers.

In June this year the company paid £87m to buy Martin Lewis's moneysavingexpert.com website. Lewis told the Guardian on Thursday night he had no plans to move to Jersey.

Guy Hands, who once owned EMI, is now based in Guernsey, while Peter Wood, founder of Direct Line, is also understood to be examining a move to Jersey.

Former São Paulo mayor Paulo Maluf took bribes while commissioning public construction works, St Helier court rules

One of Brazil's richest and most powerful men has been found guilty of stealing millions from Brazilian taxpayers and stashing it in a secret bank account in Jersey.

Paulo Maluf, a multimillionnaire businessman and serving congressman in the Brazilian parliament, took bribes and "kickbacks" when commissioning public work projects while the mayor of São Paulo in the 90s, a court in St Helier ruled on Friday.

A judge ruled Maluf, 81, and his son, Flavio, created a "slush fund" to hide cash they had stolen by substantially over-invoicing on a road-building scheme.

About US$10.5m (£6.6m) made from overcharging on the construction of the eight-lane Avenida Água Espraiada in São Paulo found its way into a Deutsche Bank account in Jersey through secret accounts in the British Virgin Islands and New York.

But in his ruling on Friday, the judge, Howard Page QC, said "other public works projects may also have been affected by similar (alleged) frauds" carried out by the pair.

It has previously been reported that Brazilian prosecutors believe Maluf took bribes and construction kickbacks amounting to US$344m during his mayoralty between 1993 and 1996. Father and son have been ordered to pay back the $10.5m, plus interest, to the Federal Republic of Brazil and the Municipality of São Paulo.

Prosecutors in Brazil believe they may have more success in pressing criminal charges against Maluf in his home country. He and his 50-year-old son are wanted by Interpol to face charges of fraud and theft in the US, and cannot leave Brazil for fear of arrest.

Despite the scandals surrounding Maluf, he maintains strong support and sufficient influence to be considered something of a kingmaker in his city. In the recent São Paulo mayoral elections, he was photographed joining hands with the former president and Workers party leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to support the eventual winner, Fernando Haddad.

The suggestion that Maluf's criminality could extend beyond the charges heard in Jersey will not surprise many Brazilians. Fraud and corruption allegations have dogged the latter stages of the political career of this wealthy businessman, who has interests in lumber, plywood and real estate through his company, Eucatex.

Most rumours concern kickbacks he is alleged to have received from energy companies and construction firms for major public works projects, such as the eight-lane Avenida Água Espraiada and the Ayrton Senna Tunnel, which were over budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Maluf has been one of the country's most notorious and powerful politicians for more than four decades. Such is his reputation for corruption, evasion of justice and underhand dealings that his name has is become synonymous with corruption.

Rising rapidly to high office, thanks to his close ties with the military dictatorship in the late 1960s, he served as mayor and then state governor of São Paulo. A proponent of lavish road-building projects, his mark is still evident in the concrete, elevated highways that loom over the city centre.

After two failed presidential bids in 1985 and 1989, he returned to his power base in the commercial hub, winning a three-year term as mayor in 1993 and various legislative posts – including federal deputy – as a senior representative of the right-wing Progressive Party of Brazil.

In 2003, a parliamentary inquiry was set up to investigate claims that he laundered money through Jersey. In 2005, police jailed Maluf and Flavio for several weeks for intimidating witnesses.

Two years later, the Manhattan district attorney indicted him for money laundering, prompting Interpol to add them to its "red list". Last month, a court in São Paulo ruled that Maluf must repay $21m of securities he misused. So far, however, he has avoided a prison sentence.

Much of the Brazilian coverage of the Jersey case has focussed on the defeats for Maluf's expensive Swiss legal team and evidence that shows the politician has been lying for years.

Under a headline, "Defence lawyers admit Maluf has money in Jersey", Veja magazine noted: "The admission by the lawyers dismantles the claim Maluf has maintained for years that he has no offshore accounts."

With court cases in Brazil often dragging on for more than a decade, other newspapers revelled in the judge's rejection of defence request for more time as a "cynical tactic" and his refusal to accept an appeal that the São Paulo government had no jurisdiction. The Estado de S Paulo newspaper cited city lawyers, who called this "the biggest victory so far".

Even if Maluf is found guilty of stealing money from Brazilian taxpayers, he may be too elderly to be sent to jail. But defeat in Jersey will reinforce his image as a representative of a corrupt era that has not yet ended.

President Dilma Rousseff has vowed to crack down on graft. Even before she came to power, prosecutors appeared to have been taking a tougher line. Brazil is in the midst of its biggest corruption trial – the so-called Mensalão (Big Monthly Allowance) case, which has resulted in numerous convictions, including a 10-year sentence for Lula's former righthand man, Jose Dirceu, for fraud and vote buying.

Creditors had used island to sue debt-ridden nations, with latest case involving Democratic Republic of the Congo

Politicians in Jersey have voted to ban so-called vulture funds from using the island's courts to sue the world's poorest countries for historic debts.

Vulture funds, which buy up poor nations' debts on the cheap before suing them for up to 100 times the original amount, had attempted to take cases to Jersey after British law banned the practice.

In the latest case, multimillionaire speculator Peter Grossman used Jersey's courts to sue the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for $100m (£64m) over a decades-old debt that started out at $3.3m. Grossman, who runs the FG Hemisphere fund, was able to take the case to Jersey's courts because the island is a crown dependency not covered by all UK laws.

The Jersey court ruled the DRC's state-owned mining company should pay back the debt, which was originally a loan from the former Yugoslavia to build power lines 30 years ago. The judgment was eventually overturned by the privy council, the final court of appeal for Crown dependencies.

Jersey's chief minister, Ian Gorst, said the island's decision to change its laws so they fall in line with those in the UK sent a clear message that Jersey was a "well-regulated, co-operative and transparent jurisdiction".

All but one of Jersey's parliamentarians voted in favour of changing the law to severely limit vulture funds' claims on debts owed by 40 of the world's poorest countries. The remaining member of the States of Jersey abstained from the vote on Tuesday.

"I am very pleased that the debt relief legislation received such strong support from my fellow States members," Gorst said. "Today's vote shows that Jersey is fully committed to supporting international debt relief efforts."

When the draft legislation was lodged last month, Gorst said the law would show Jersey is "demonstrating its commitment to play its part in the global effort, expressed in the UN Millennium Declaration, to support debt relief efforts intended to assist the world's most heavily indebted poor countries".

Draft legislation states that the change in the law will "prevent the Jersey courts being used to seek to enforce in full, the debts of countries to which the governments of other countries, multilateral lenders and commercial creditors have provided relief under the [heavily indebted poor countries] initiative".

The UK is the only country in the world to have brought in a law to limit vulture funds practices, but other countries are considering similar proposals.

The Treasury estimates the UK Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act passed in 2010 will save some of the most impoverished countries £145m.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank estimate that vulture funds are seeking total claims of $1.47bn from countries including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, and the DRC.

Tim Jones, policy officer at Jubilee Debt Campaign, which is campaigning for the cancellation of debts owed by poor countries, said: "We warmly welcome this legislation to protect 40 countries from odious vulture fund claims in Jersey. However, vulture funds continue to cause havoc across the global economy. One case currently being heard in the US may even force Argentina to default on its debt.

"Global action is needed to make all creditors comply when government debts have to be written off."

Last month, an Argentine naval ship was seized in Ghana as part of an attempt by a hedge fund run by US billionaire Paul Singer to collect on debts arising from the country's defaulted bond swaps in 2005 and 2010.

Argentina has asked the United Nations to order the release of the Libertad tall ship, which has been prevented from leaving Ghana after a local court ruled in favour of Singer's Elliott Capital Management.

During its 2001 economic crisis Argentina defaulted on more than $100bn of debt. Most of the loans were subsequently restructured, giving creditors back about 30p in the pound, but some creditors including Elliott, chose to hold out and pursue the Argentine government through courts across the world.

Channel Islands and Isle of Man will be among those ordered to reveal names behind hidden accounts

Radical plans to force the UK's tax havens to reveal the names behind hidden companies, account holders and trusts have been drawn up by the Treasury.

The news has delighted tax justice campaigners, who predict that the move, which is expected to be unveiled in the chancellor's autumn statement and come into force in 2014, will have major consequences for those trying to hide their money offshore.

A leaked document reveals that the UK plans to impose its own version of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) on the crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, as well as its overseas territories, such as the Cayman Islands.

Fatca, which will come into force in the middle of next year, requires foreign banks to report American account holders to the US Inland Revenue Service. The draft UK equivalent, seen by the magazine International Tax Review, will require British tax havens to make similar disclosures about UK account holders to UK tax authorities.

"It's a complete bombshell for these places," Richard Murphy, a tax expert who has seen the draft plan, told the Observer. "Some people will try to flee, but this is going to change the whole of the offshore market."

He explained that the draft plan amounted to the UK using US legislation to give tax havens an ultimatum: "It's either they give the UK the same data that they want to give the US or the UK won't pass their laws to let data flow to the US."

The ultimatum is crucial, Murphy suggested. If the UK refuses to pass the laws, its tax havens "might just as well shut up shop since there would be almost no banks or other institutions willing to locate there".

News of the plans is likely to surprise many tax experts. This month, responding to an international development committee report, the government publicly rejected the need for a UK version of Fatca.

Joseph Stead, Christian Aid's senior adviser on economic justice, said that if the draft was implemented it "would be the beginning of the end for tax haven secrecy".

However, he said it was vital that it should not just be the UK which obtains full information disclosure from its tax havens: "We should ensure that other countries get it too, so they can catch up with people and companies hiding money. Otherwise there will be tax haven secrecy for some countries and not others.

"Poor countries lose billions every year to tax dodging and tax havens are often involved. We hope the UK government will use the G8 meeting it is hosting next year to agree action to ensure a global end to tax haven secrecy."

The Treasury declined to comment but confirmed to the Review that it was assisting the UK's crown dependencies and overseas territories to produce their response to Fatca.

However, former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott was sceptical about whether the plan could succeed. "Tax havens really coming clean are as likely as a snowy Christmas day in the Cayman Islands," he said.

Last night the Labour shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, outlined a five-point plan for tackling tax avoidance. In an article for the Huffington Post, Balls writes: "We urgently need to look at how UK tax laws can be made stronger so as to properly deter tax avoidance."

James Ball travels to Nevis searching for Sarah Petre-Mears, who on paper controls more than 1,200 companies

In name, Sarah Petre-Mears runs a global empire. In reality it is a sham, an offshore network of porn sites and luxury property vehicles linked by PO boxes and letter drops

At the age of 38, Bradford-born Sarah Petre-Mears is running one of the biggest business empires on earth. Or so it would appear.

Official records show her controlling more than 1,200 companies across the Caribbean, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and the UK itself. Her business partner, Edward Petre-Mears, is listed as a director of at least a further 1,000 international firms.

But the true headquarters of this major businesswoman remains mysterious. The UK companies register lists 12 addresses for her, several in London. None are real homes: several are PO boxes, collecting mail for hundreds of locations, while others merely house the offices of incorporation agencies.

Only one listed address, a cottage on Sark, seems genuinely residential. Sark is a remote self-governing tax haven in the Channel Islands, a nine-mile ferry-ride from Guernsey.

Sark indeed was once the Petre-Mears' family home. But inquiries reveal the family left town more than a decade ago. As neighbours and friends working within the local offshore financial industry in Sark scattered across the globe, the couple moved to the Caribbean.

John Parker, the owner of a British incorporation agency, explained in an email: "Sarah and Edward Petre-Mears have dual residence – Sark and Nevis … The reason for this is that the UK government is trying its hardest to stop the 'Sark Lark', as it is known, and they decided to do something about it before it was forced upon them."

Nevis is a tropical dot in the Caribbean, more than 3,000 miles from Sark. A volcanic outcrop plagued by hurricanes, it is barely five miles across and its 12,000 population is smaller than that of many English towns.

Getting to Nevis from Sark requires a long, indirect and infrequent flight to the slightly bigger nearby island of St Kitts, followed by an hour's sea-voyage on the Mark Twain, an ageing boat. Donkeys, goats and chickens roam the Nevis streets. The low houses outside the tiny capital, Charlestown, are commonly roofed with corrugated iron.

But even in this very intimate spot, the Petre-Mears' ghostly business empire is hard to pin down. One possible address corresponds simply to a small PO box in the Charlestown post office. Another, called the Henville Building, turns out to be a branch of the local First Caribbean bank.

Finally, a clue emerges. One local responds: "You mean the English lady? Works with the offshores, right?"

On the far side of the island, the Guardian finally finds a prosperous-looking villa, quite deserted for the summer, with spectacular sea views and a noisy, unchained dog in the garden.

This is Sarah Petre-Mears' home in the sun, where she officially claims to be masterminding battalions of international firms. She also finds time to run marathons and cycle races in New York, Florida and Hawaii, and to bring up her two children on the island.

We tried to ask her about the allegations against nominee directors. But she didn't respond to requests for comment. However, the evidence we have gathered suggests her impressive directorships are a complete sham.

A DHL courier has for years been making regular overseas runs, carrying batches of company papers for Petre-Mears simply to sign in return for cash.

John Parker is one of her UK connections, who registers offshore entities for anonymous clients with her as nominee director. Petre-Mears does not appear to need to know much about the people for whom she passes resolutions, allots shares and helps set up bank accounts. All she has to do is sign her name.

Those names appear on activities ranging from Russian luxury property purchases, to porn and casino sites. Sometimes, such nominees even act as shareholders as well as directors.

Two Nevis islanders, Kellee France and Stanley Williams, were also recruited to sign up as nominees in recent years, adding apparent variety to the list of names for sale.

Parker, the owner of Offshore Incorporations Ltd, who says he is a former special constable in Northamptonshire, posted a photograph of himself online in police uniform this month. After the Guardian confronted him with questions, the picture appears to have been removed. He told us: "Sarah Petre-Mears has acted as nominee for BVI [British Virgin islands] companies which this company has formed … As far as we are concerned, she has acted as a genuine nominee."

He added: "The nominees [the legal owners] act on behalf of the beneficial owners … Every large financial institution in the world uses exactly the same arrangement."

He said: "All arrangements can be used for fraud and theft but we would not accept any client if we knew or suspected that was their intention."

The government of Nevis, a former UK slave colony that now largely runs its own affairs within the Commonwealth, shows no wish to interfere with the nominee trade.

The Nevis premier's spokeswoman Deli Caines talked frankly about the regime's attitude, while a herd of goats wandered into the grounds of her government offices, housed in a former hotel opposite a derelict petrol station.

"The offshores are one of the reasons Nevis and St Kitts are doing well," she said. "Is it locals complaining, or those from overseas? It's not the locals! If Britain is crying about its tax dollars, that's not really a problem for us."

From the Caribbean to Cyprus, former Channel islanders are taking money to disguise the ownership of thousands of companies

Many Britons who make a living from "the signing", as they call it, originate from the tiny Channel island of Sark, a notorious British tax haven. Following scandals more than a decade ago over the "Sark Lark", the group scattered, setting up residence in far-flung jurisdictions such as Cyprus, Dubai, Vanuatu, Mauritius, or Nevis in the Caribbean. Many still keep in touch on Facebook.

They make up teams of sham company directors, according to documents the Guardian has seen, taking money to disguise the real ownership of thousands of international companies. This is not illegal, and they generally say they are helping owners preserve legitimate privacy.

Sarah and Edward Petre-Mears, who moved from Sark to Nevis, worked through an agency in Northamptonshire. Some of their companies have been registered in the UK at Companies House in Cardiff.

A Petre-Mears neighbour on Sark, Jesse Hester, went to Cyprus to launch a similar operation called Atlas Corporate Services. He then moved on to Dubai with his colleagues Damien Calderbank and Matthew Stokes, and eventually onward to the small Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Hester offers his customers "anonymity of the ultimate owners". He tells them: "The prime advantage … is to place the 'management and control' issue firmly outside a high tax jurisdiction." This allows the owners to claim the company is being run from an overseas tax haven, rather than from where they live.

Hester says he is a genuine director. His lawyer said: "Our client has the right not to execute documents, can alter bank mandates, can enter into contracts, and is free to resign." The accountants and intermediaries he works for carry out identity checks on their clients, he said, and he complied with all legal requirements.

Atlas is associated with 12 people who between them have held directorships of 1,578 companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) as well as 4,460 UK companies. They frequently work for Cornhill, a company formation agency run in London by Mark Lance.

Lance said his provision of "non-resident directors for legitimate purposes" for occasional clients was not a significant part of the business. "Cornhill does not deny that the use of non-resident directors is open to abuse," but, he said, he obtained "full proof of identity" from all customers.

A second Cyprus nominee operation is run by Sean Lee Hogan, 41, who has put his name to nearly 100 BVI and 743 UK companies. He often works for a north London offshoring agent, the Stanley Davis Group. Hogan did not respond to invitations to comment.

Two other Britons who share a flat in east London, Ted Cocks and Joseph Sparks, signed up with a Moscow agency, GSL, to put their names and UK addresses on more than 450 BVI entities. The companies were subsequently sold on to anonymous Russians. They say their activities were legitimate.

Geoffrey Taylor and his son Ian have acted as directors for 291 BVI companies and a further 442 in the UK. From the Pacific island of Vanuatu, they offer clients an extra choice of UK or New Zealand addresses. "You can pick the jurisdiction that best suits you," Geoffrey Taylor emailed one potential customer.

Taylor's brochure even offered the opportunity of having him on their letterhead as "Lord Stubbington", a UK manorial title he purchased.

"He can act as director and shareholder for clients without arousing suspicion that he is a nominee only," it said. "In this way he can act as your frontman and attract attention away from you. Lord Stubbington provides your activities with credibility."

Ian Taylor said his father had now retired. "Only a small handful" of the companies they acted for were misused, he said. Nominees were used for various legitimate reasons. "Clients of certain nationalities are discriminated against only due to their citizenship. Some clients require privacy to avoid problems from jealous family members."

As long ago as 1999, Britain's sham director industry was officially struck down – or so it seemed. The minister Kim Howells, in the Department of Trade and Industry, boasted: "The government today struck a fatal blow against the practice of so-called 'nominee directorships'."

The government went to court to disqualify one Sark islander, Philip Croshaw, who was signing his name on company documents thousands of times. Howells said: "The trade in providing 'nominee director' services from the island of Sark has been a scandal … The courts have now effectively outlawed this abuse."

The DTI quoted Mr Justice Blackburne, pronouncing at Manchester crown court: "The message must go out that the office of director is one which carries responsibilities ... The court would not tolerate the situation where someone takes on the directorship of so many companies and then totally abrogates responsibility. If tolerated, it would undermine the whole basis of corporate management."

But the investigation shows that Sark's "nominees" simply moved elsewhere, and were never policed by the DTI or its successors, including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Jersey's chief minister says Channel Islands and overseas territories discussing agreement modelled on US arrangements

The UK government is exploring whether it can force the British Virgin Islands and other offshore havens for which it is ultimately responsible to share far more information on owners of offshore trusts and companies.

Jersey's chief minister, Ian Gorst, confirmed that Channel Island officials were meeting with the Treasury on Tuesday to discuss an extensive information-sharing agreement modelled on a new law being promoted across the world by the US, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Facta) – and that though it was only Channel Islands officials in the meetings, the new rules were also being discussed with the BVI and others.

"The UK has approached the crown dependencies and the overseas territories with a view to the principles of the US Facta arrangements possibly being more widely applied to an exchange of information with the UK," Gorst said. In separate comments to a Jersey paper on Monday, Gorst said UK officials were threatening to block territories signing up to US deals until they agreed to sign up to a similar information-sharing agreement with the UK – in effect forcing the territories' hand.

Taxation expert and campaigner Richard Murphy, of the Tax Justice Network, said the Guardian's Offshore Secrets coverage highlighted the need for transparency – and, barring loopholes, the information sharing sought by the Treasury might deliver it.

"What the Guardian is highlighting is the vital role of secrecy in offshore abuse. It is the secrecy provided by tax havens that lets people abuse tax law and avoid their creditors. We reckon only around 4% of the total sums invested are subject to information exchange under current rules. My belief is this new arrangement – if it goes through – would raise that to 99%. If it were to be extended to the BVI and Caymans, it would ratchet up to another level altogether."

Tonight's Panorama will surely enrage the notoriously touchy Barclay boys. Sirs David and Frederick Barclay are media tycoons who like to stay out of the media spotlight.

Often described as reclusive, the proprietors of the Telegraph Media Group dislike the term. They prefer to regard themselves as people who merely wish to be private.

Semantics aside, the point is that they have a history of complaining whenever they are treated to the sort of publicity to which other entrepreneurs are routinely subjected.

And they have also taken to the courts. In the 1996, they sued John Sweeney, the journalist who is presenting tonight's programme and the BBC for invading their privacy. In 2005, they went to court in France to sue The Times over a series of articles about their business deals (eventually dropping the action). In 2010, they sued Private Eye for running a spoof Daily Telegraph front page.

So the boyos have form. And I'd guess that they will be watching BBC1 at 8.30pm to see what Sweeney has to say in a Panorama entitled "The tax haven twins." Then again, maybe they cannot receive the programme live in their castle on Brecqhou in the Channel Islands or in their other home in the tax haven of Monaco.

But they have plenty of British-based aides, and lawyers, who will surely be monitoring the broadcast, which the BBC's publicity department says will allege that one of their London hotels, The Ritz, hasn't paid any corporation tax in 17 years.

Panorama has investigated the accounts of the hotel, which was acquired by the Barclays in 1995. It's a profitable business, but the hotel has taken advantage of a series of perfectly legal tax reliefs to ensure its corporation tax bill was zero.

The programme will also raise questions about another of their businesses, the catalogue company Littlewoods, which they bought in 2002. It secured a VAT rebate, plus interest, from the revenue commissioners worth £472m over payments dating back to 1973. But the company has gone to court to demand a further £1bn from the government in compound interest.

It's an important test case for taxpayers because, should Littlewoods win, it could open the door to claims worth billions of pounds from other companies.

The twins say they have had nothing to do with the running of the UK companies since they retired to Monaco more than 20 years ago.

"We have not attended office, management or board meetings in the UK since leaving the country," Sir David Barclay said in a statement. "My brother and I have no editorial, political or economic power in the UK."

Littlewoods, the Ritz and the Telegraph are each controlled by offshore trusts. However, the trusts were set up by the twins and one of the brothers attends trust meetings.

The UK businesses are managed by Sir David's son, Aidan Barclay. On the Littlewoods claim, he said:

"This represents tax taken incorrectly by HMRC and held incorrectly for many years, facts which HMRC publicly recognise and accept.

Directors of companies have legal responsibilities and duties to recover and secure their companies' assets from the perspective of each company itself and its various stakeholders. It would be a dereliction of their duties not to pursue repayments which are properly due from HMRC."

Aidan Barclay told Panorama that Littlewoods lodged its VAT claim before the family took over the company, which is true. But the £1bn test case for compound interest was launched after the Barclays' takeover.

He also explained that the Ritz had reinvested profits made by the hotel, adding: "The Barclay family members and their companies abide by the law and pay the taxes required by UK law and the laws of other relevant countries."

Sir David Barclay said: "We have always acted in a responsible way with regard to taxation and have never been involved in any tax avoidance scheme. We are not responsible for corporate taxes in the UK and are unaware what tax is paid on the Ritz."

Panorama will also touch on the controversy surrounding the Barclays' activities in Sark. the island adjacent to Brecqhou.

As David Leigh has reported, the Sark segment has already attracted complaints from the Barclays' estate manager on the island, Kevin Delaney.

His Sark Newsletter carried a lengthy article on 10 October criticising Sweeney for his (allegedly) "unbecoming drunken antics" during his visits earlier this year to film on the island. He wrote:

"Empowered by the might of the BBC, Mr Sweeney filmed people without their consent.

He aggressively invaded my offices and harassed and intimidated my staff in his concerted efforts at staging a hostile confrontation with me on camera - despite being made aware, in writing, that I did not want to be interviewed by him."

Delaney returned to the attack on the BBC in a bulletin dated yesterday (16 December) in which he alleged that the editor of Panorama, Tom Giles, had repeatedly threatened him with libel proceedings.

Sweeney says he'll let the programme speak for itself.

Source: BBC Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the programme

Online retailer makes move following the UK government's closure of a loophole allowing it to sell VAT-free CDs and DVDs from the Channel Islands

Online retailer Play.com is to shut down its retail business following the UK government's closure of a loophole allowing it to sell VAT-free CDs and DVDs from the Channel Islands.

The company is reportedly making 147 staff redundant in Jersey as well as 67 in its Cambridge and Bristol offices as a result of the move, although the website still plans to continue operating its online marketplace, which allows a host of different retailers to offer their goods for sale.

Via Twitter, Play.com said: "We're only closing our direct retail business. You can buy from our successful Play Marketplace as usual."

Goods bought for less than £15 and imported to the UK from outside the EU – including the Channel Islands – were exempt from VAT under the Low Value Consignment Relief (LVCR). The loophole, which was thought to have cost the exchequer about £130m in lost VAT, was shut by the UK government in April 2012 - marking the end of years of campaigning by the Guardian and scores of UK retailers including the music chain Fopp and the healthfood group Holland & Barrett. They had repeatedly told the Treasury they were unable to compete with VAT-free prices online.

In 2006, Jersey claimed to have weeded out UK firms using the Channel Islands as part of what it called a "scam" to avoid tax. Tesco and Amazon were among those who left the island at that time, though both returned with the help of agent firms on the islands, such as Indigo Starfish and The Hut Group.

In September the States of Jersey said about 400 people had lost their jobs elsewhere in the island because of the end of LVCR.

Channel Islanders recreate missing section thought by historians to show coronation of William the Conqueror

The final panels of the Bayeux tapestry featuring the coronation of William the Conqueror and the construction of the Tower of London have been finished by residents of the Channel Island of Alderney.

The original tapestry ends with the death of King Harold and historians believe that other sections depicting the reign of William may have been lost. The tapestry is believed to have been made around 10 years after 1066 and the conquest of England.

Kate Russell, the librarian on Alderney, led 416 residents, around one-fifth of the population, in producing the new tapestry.

"I have been fascinated by the Bayeux tapestry since I first learnt about it. When we thought about it we thought: 'why not make something original to the Channel Islands?'," she told the BBC. "One of my great delights has been watching the reaction of the artist who designed our tapestry. She has put in the stitches herself and felt that it was coming to life in a way that she had not possibly imagined and was thrilled by it."

The Bayeux tapestry was commissioned by William the Conqueror's half-brother Bishop Odo to celebrate his victory over Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

It was unveiled in 1077 at the dedication of the Bayeux Cathedral and shows events from a Norman point of view from the death of King Edward the Confessor to the Norman victory over the English, with the missing section probably showing William's coronation.

The Channel Islands were part of the Duchy of Normandy when William invaded England in 1066 and won the crown.

The tapestry will go on display in Alderney from 1 April but Russell said that she would love for it to be shown alongside the original tapestry in Bayeux.

Watch out, daffodils, house martins and commuters: freezing conditions, Met Office warnings and rail chaos are here again

Snow and icily low temperatures have returned to the UK in force, with blizzards in southern parts of England and the freezing weather threatening even the Channel Islands.

Ferries have been interrupted between Jersey and St Malo, in France, as stormy weather moves along the Channel, possibly bringing snow to all parts of the country by nightfall.

The best of the morning weather has brought bright sunshine to northern England but with snow flurries lending an Alpine feel. Further south, the picture has been far more disrupted, with a spate of accidents on the M40 as blizzards began snowfalls that are expected to reach 10cm (4in) by the evening in the worst-affected areas.

On the Meteorological Office's map of weather warnings, the country is wearing a large yellow shawl, signifying the third, "be aware", level of the standard four alerts.

Jersey airport has been closed by snow that also caused long delays to local and London commuter trains in Sussex and Hampshire. Strong winds have caused traffic problems and road closures from Cumbria to Wales and the West Country, with the winds reaching gale force in some parts of the UK's western seaboard. One lane of the M48 Severn bridge has been closed. Other areas affected include Newquay in Cornwall, Lynton in Dorset and the A353 through Dorset.

No one has escaped scot-free, including the Scots, who have suffered signalling problems to trains in the Carstairs area. The new Arctic spells inflicted the same blow to services run by CrossCountry, East Coast, First TransPennine Express, ScotRail and Virgin Trains.

Other ferries affected include TransEuropa, which is running a reduced service between Ramsgate and Ostend, and Stena, which has scaled down sailings between Holyhead and Dublin and cancelled the 9am Rosslare-to-Fishguard run.

Forecasters said Monday would be the coldest day of the current shift in temperatures, which was expected to continue until Thursday at least. There was an outside prospect of snow at Easter, but the Met Office goes no further than predicting unsettled conditions, with snow on its radar as far as 24 March and colder-than-average conditions into April. Ladbrokes has evens on snow falling in any major UK city on Easter Sunday, and 4/1 against it being the coldest Easter on record.

Julian Mayes, of MeteoGroup, said temperatures would struggle to top 0C (32F) on Monday before climbing back up for the weekend.

"Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights are all expected to be very cold and frosty, with overnight temperatures as low as -6C in places," he said. "But by Friday the wind will have eased off and temperatures could reach 7C. That is still below average for the time of year, but will seem much warmer after this cold snap."

The cold weather came as an unpleasant surprise for burgeoning spring bulbs and migrant birds, which return from Africa and the Mediterranean to breed in the UK in March and April. House martins, usually the earliest arrivals, have been seen in southern England, where conditions will make their foraging for insects difficult.

Grahame Madge, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said the martins and the related sand martins were certain to face problems: "There's a limit to the amount people can do, but we would ask people to carry on putting food out."

Forty other new arrivals in the UK were more sanguine about the dip in temperatures. They are Royal Marine Commando reservists, who have been taking part in an Arctic exercise, Operation Hairspring, in northern Finland, in temperatures as low as -50C.

The horseracing world was concerned about the effects of the weather on this week's Cheltenham festival, however, and the RAC and other road services were on standby to deal with a 20% rise in callouts over the next three days. The Highways Agency said it was "well prepared", with more than 500 salt spreaders, snowploughs and blowers deployed at 100 depots on the main road network.

Ray Bitar who was charged with bank fraud, money laundering and online gambling offences faced a jail sentence of 65 years

Ray Bitar, the online poker tycoon who ran the world's second largest poker site from servers in Guernsey, has abandoned his defence against criminal charges brought by US prosecutors, striking a plea bargain as he awaits a heart transplant in California.

Bitar, 41, one of the founding figures behind Full Tilt Poker, becomes the second of 11 senior poker executives and payment processor intermediaries charged two years ago with bank fraud, money laundering and online gambling offences.

He was charged in April 2011 on five counts, and faced a maximum jail sentence of 65 years. Full Tilt was shut down and assets frozen. In four and a half years since the US enacted anti-online gambling laws, prosecutors alleged Full Tilt – branded around star players Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, each of whom had a stake in the business – had taken "at least an estimated $1bn" from the US alone.

However, bank fraud and money laundering allegations turn out to be just the start of Bitar's woes. Detailed investigation led the US authorities to further allege that he and co-conspirators had secretly been plundering purportedly ring-fenced customer accounts, where poker players thought they had safely deposited cash and winnings.

Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of New York, said Full Tilt had become a "Ponzi-style scheme", with a $350m (£228m) black hole. The formidable prosecutor – best known for breaking the insider trading ring linked to New York hedge fund Galleon – said Bitar had "bluffed his player-customers and fixed the game against them as part of an international Ponzi scheme that left players empty-handed."

A fresh indictment was issued and Bitar returned to his native the US last July. At the time he issued a statement through his lawyers saying: "I know that a lot of people are very angry at me. I understand why. Full Tilt should never have gotten into a position where it could not repay player funds."

On Tuesday, his US lawyer John Baughman confirmed to the Guardian that an unusual plea bargain had now been struck, which took account of his exceptional health circumstances. Bitar is said to be awaiting a heart transplant in California. His serious health condition had not been made public previously.

Full Tilt had operated under a licence from the remote Channel Island of Alderney, though inadequate IT infrastructure meant it was forced to locate its servers on nearby Guernsey. Allegations that player accounts were plundered and that the company had been deeply involved in bank fraud for many years are highly damaging the reputation of the Channel Islands, where the offshore financial industry trades a on a reputation for not tolerating criminality.

While Full Tilt's regulatory and IT functions were largely conducted from the Channel Islands, other operations were located on a business park just south of Dublin. Bitar is said to have spent much of his time between the Channel Islands and Ireland.

Together with market leader PokerStars, Full Tilt came to dominate the multibillion online poker industry after the US introduced tough laws making it illegal for banks to process payments from US citizens for internet gambling.

Scores of websites closed their operations in the US, including Party Poker, now part of London stock market-listed Bwin.party. PokerStars and Full Tilt for years appeared to flout the rules, continuing to take bets from America, which was said to account for almost half of global demand for poker games.

The two sites allegedly used a string of intermediaries who set up sham online retail websites – purporting to sell golf clubs, watches, bicycles, jewellery, clothing, or even settling medical bills. In truth, payments through these sites masked deposits into poker accounts.

PokerStars, based in the Isle of Man, was also targeted by Bharara, but struck a deal last July that saw it forfeit $547m to the US authorities. It had managed to continue trading outside the US, unlike Full Tilt. In addition, PokerStars agreed to rescue Full Tilt, pledging to reimburse $184m owed to the effectively bankrupt group's players outside the US.

The Full Tilt site has since been resurrected and is operated by PokerStars.

Under the terms of its settlement with Bharara, PokerStars had to promise that its founder Isai Scheinberg would step down as a director of the company. Scheinberg, a former Canadian executive with IBM, is one of three facing outstanding criminal charges and is said by the US authorities to still be at large. Two years ago was charged in the US with five offences of variously committing bank fraud, money laundering and online gambling offences. Reputedly resident in the Isle of Man, but with strong links to Israel, he faces a maximum of 65 years in jail.

PM urges havens to 'get our own houses in order' before G8 summit in June, where he claims tax avoidance will be a priority

David Cameron has written to the leaders of Britain's offshore tax havens stressing the need to "get our own houses in order" as he pushes for international action to tackle avoidance schemes.

In a message to 10 crown dependencies and British overseas territories Cameron said he backed their right to be low tax jurisdictions but insisted that rules needed to be set and enforced fairly.

The move comes ahead of next month's G8 summit in Northern Ireland, where Cameron will push for an agreement aimed at clamping down on tax evasion and avoidance.

He said he wanted the G8 to "knock down the walls of company secrecy" to reveal who really owns and controls firms.

Cameron's initiative came as he prepared to raise the issue of corporate tax dodging with Google's boss, Eric Schmidt at a meeting in Downing Street.

The internet fim's executive chairman is a member of Cameron's business advisory group, which has its regular quarterly meeting on Monday, just days after Google was given a mauling by a House of Commons committee over its tax affairs.

The group holds its meetings behind closed doors and Downing Street does not reveal the content of its deliberations but a source inside No 10 confirmed that tax will be up for discussion, insisting that "nothing is off the table" when Cameron meets the group of 16 business leaders.

The PM's letter calling for more transparency about tax information and the ownership of companies was sent to leaders in Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Cameron wrote: "As you know, I have made fighting the scourge of tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance a priority for the G8 summit which the UK is hosting next month.

"With one month to go, this is the critical moment to get our own houses in order. I am looking to all the overseas territories and crown dependencies to continue to work in partnership with the UK in taking the lead on two critical issues: tax information exchange and beneficial ownership."

He told the leaders: "I respect your right to be lower tax jurisdictions. I believe passionately in lower taxes as a vital driver of growth and prosperity for all.

"But lower taxes are only sustainable if what is owed is actually paid – and if the rules to achieve this are set and enforced fairly to create a level playing field right across the world. There is no point in dealing with tax evasion in one country if the problem is simply displaced to another."

He welcomed commitments made by the territories to exchange tax information but said there was also a need to improve its quality and accuracy.

"Put simply, that means we need to know who really owns and controls each and every company," he said.

"This goes right to the heart of the ambition of Britain's G8 to knock down the walls of company secrecy.

"Some of you have already led the way with public commitments to produce action plans on beneficial ownership – and I hope those who have yet to can do so as quickly as possible.

"Getting the right content in these plans will now be critical. These will need to provide for fully resourced and properly managed centralised registries, that are freely available to law enforcement and tax collectors, and contain full and accurate details on the true ownership and control of every company."

Ed Miliband has pledged to write new rules to tackle corporate tax dodgers if he wins the next election, even if there is no international consensus for action.

In an interview with the Observer, he said Cameron's government was "dragging its feet" on the issue.

Court in Jersey orders convicted criminal to part with his illicit fortune – or it will extend his prison sentence

One of Britain's most notorious drug smugglers has been told to pay £185m – or face another 10 years in jail. Curtis Warren, the only drug dealer to make it on to the Sunday Times Rich List, faces a confiscation enforcement hearing this week in Jersey, where he was jailed in 2007 over a £1m cannabis-smuggling plot.

Authorities believe the 50-year-old has benefited to the tune of £185m from a global empire of drug trafficking that once saw him named as Interpol's most wanted. Warren, a former bouncer from Liverpool, who has spent all but five weeks of the last 17 years in jail, says he does not have anything like that amount of money.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, he said: "It's pathetic. I've been in jail 17 years. It's such a fantastic figure that it can't be met in any currency unless they are expecting Turkish lire or [old] Italian money, which is a million-note job."

He believes authorities in Jersey, working closely with the UK's National Crime Agency, simply want to keep him behind bars. If he loses the case and doesn't pay up, he will be given an extra 10 years in jail.

As things stand, Warren could be released as early as January next year, after serving half of his 13-year Jersey sentence. Ever since his arrest in St Helier in the summer of 2007, he has been shuttled around various prisons, including Belmarsh in south London, Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire and La Moye, Jersey's only jail.

This month he agreed to measures restricting his freedoms on his release – including access to mobile phones and phone boxes.

Keir Starmer, the outgoing director of public prosecutions, said at the time: "Curtis Warren has a long history of serious offending at home and abroad. By agreeing today to this order being imposed, he has admitted that he has been involved in serious criminality.

"There are very real grounds to believe that without this order being made, Curtis Warren would continue to be involved in serious crime. This order will severely curtail his ability to do so."

Warren claims that what profit he had made from a life of crime was taken by the Dutch authorities when he was released from prison in Holland in 2007 – just five weeks before being arrested in Jersey for another drugs plot.

In 1997, he was jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of importing 317kg of cocaine into Holland from Venezuela and for the possession of MDMA, 1,076kg of cannabis, guns, three hand grenades and 940 canisters of CS gas. In 2001, another four-year term was added to his sentence for the manslaughter of a fellow inmate.

Asked whether he had squirrelled away millions by investing in football clubs, petrol stations, houses and ski resorts, Warren said he had "nothing. Holland have got it all. Holland done a massive, massive investigation."

He added: "There is no money. It's a simple exercise of putting me in jail. There is no money, I've been in jail 17 years. There's no money."

Warren made headlines when he walked free from Newcastle crown court in the early 1990s after a case against him collapsed, ostensibly because of lack of evidence – although his co-accused, Brian Charrington, turned out to be a high-level, paid informer for the North-East Regional Crime Squad, which proved unhelpful to the prosecution. The men were accused of importing 2,205kg of cocaine into the country, hidden in lead ingots in 1991.

A book written about Warren, called Cocky, alleges that he goaded police officers on his way out of court by saying: "I'm off to spend my £87m from the first shipment and you can't touch me." Warren denies ever making this comment, saying it was a lie made up by detectives who could not believe he was walking free.

"Do you know why that was said? By them. They were so pissed off with the judge that day, they wanted to embarrass him. How do you get a man who sits in a police station, sits in many, many police stations since 13 years of age and never gives comments in an interview, come out of court and [say]: 'By the way, I'm off to spend my ... '? It doesn't add up. It is crazy, it's nonsense. It doesn't make sense … they were so angry with the judge the only way to get back at him was to kick him in the face."

Warren claims there is "no evidence of any fantastic lifestyle or anything like that" and that it was unfair that Jersey law requires him to prove a negative. "I have to prove I haven't got any assets. How do I prove that?" he said.

In 2005 Warren featured in the Sunday Times Rich List, which estimated his wealth then as £76m, although other estimates have suggested he amassed up to £300m from crime.

Warren was transported back to Jersey last week under armed guard and is expected to appear in court on Monday amid tight security – a measure he thinks is unnecessary, despite admitting killing another prisoner in his Dutch prison in the late 1990s after getting into a jailyard brawl.

"I've never ever escaped, jumped bail or anything like that in my life, and I think it's a bit late to start now. If I want to escape from here or any establishment, I've got to take a guard hostage. Do you think I'm going to give myself a life sentence? Logically. Youse can all say whatever you like about me, from reading books and all that, but one thing I'm not is crazy. I have some faults but I hope that's not one of them. And I think, if it was, I think it would have manifested a long time ago rather than late in life."

In documents served to Jersey's Rroyal court, the island's solicitor general, Howard Sharp QC, said: "Warren is not known to have, or have had, any or any substantial legitimate income at any time."

He added: "A man of Warren's criminal standing and connections has access to a wide variety of resources, methods, and personnel in pursuance of the concealment of assets around the world."

• This article was amended on 24 October 2013. The earlier version said Curtis Warren faces trial this week in Jersey; it is a confiscation enforcement hearing, not a trial.

He is Britain's most notorious drug dealer and once headed Interpol's target list. In his first ever interview, he tells Helen Pidd at his prison in Jersey that he is 'anti-drugs', hasn't squirrelled away £198m – and is the victim of a miscarriage of justice

There is only one prison on Jersey. La Moye is tucked away down an unmarked country lane and has to cater for everyone caught on the 14km-wide island: drink-drivers, money-launderers, paedophiles, women and children. And, for the time being at least, probably the most notorious drug dealer Britain has ever produced.

Curtis "Cocky" Warren is a category A prisoner, defined as someone "whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public, or the police or the security of the state, and for whom the aim must be to make escape impossible". Normal visiting rules don't apply. He receives guests in a room looking out on a bleak internal courtyard, separate from other prisoners and their visitors. The chairs are fixed to the floor; so is the low table. Cameras and microphones monitor every move, every word.

After Warren has entered the room, wearing a boxfresh Hugo Boss polo shirt, tracksuit bottoms and pristine trainers, he has to put on a bright red seatbelt-like harness. The purpose, he explains in a cheerful scouse accent on one of the two occasions I visit him, "is so that I don't morph into you and you into me". In other words, so that we can't switch places – Warren, formerly Interpol's most wanted and the only drug dealer to make it on to the Sunday Times Rich List, cannot be allowed to run free in the guise of a Guardian reporter wearing a red polka-dot dress and yellow sandals.

He insists he has no interest in doing so. "I've never, ever escaped, jumped bail or anything like that in my life and I think it's a bit late to start now. If I want to escape from here or any establishment, I've got to take a guard hostage. Do you think I'm gonna give myself a life sentence? You can all say whatever you like about me, but one thing I'm not is crazy. I have some faults but I hope that's not one of them."

Warren is 50 and has been in prison for all but five weeks of the past 17 years. He is currently fighting a confiscation order in St Helier that could well see another 10 years added to his current sentence of 13 years if he doesn't pay up the £198m investigators believe he has made from drug dealing.

He insists that he is broke. They disagree, firmly believing he wrongly walked free from a huge drugs trial in Newcastle in the early 90s, taking with him tens of millions of pounds and investing it in petrol stations, vineyards, football clubs and hotels. Unhelpfully for the prosecution, it emerged during the trial that Warren's co-defendant and business partner, Brian Charrington (currently in jail on remand in Spain), was a high-level police informer. More recently, detectives secretly recorded Warren boasting during a 2004 prison visit of funnelling huge amounts of cash via a money launderer. ("Fuckin' 'ell, mate, sometimes we'd do about £10m or £15m in a week," he told a few scouse lads on the visit. Warren's explanation: "I was bragging like an idiot and just big-talking in front of them.")

Those five weeks of freedom came in the summer of 2007, when he was released from a Dutch jail after serving part of a 12-year sentence for importing 317kg of cocaine into Holland from Venezuela, and for the possession of MDMA, 1,076kg of cannabis, guns, three hand grenades and 940 canisters of CS gas – with extra time added after he killed a fellow prisoner in a jailyard fight.

After leaving Holland in June 2007, Warren began spending a lot of time in Jersey, ostensibly to visit his new girlfriend. His every move was watched, every possible conversation bugged. After just over a month, Warren was back inside. On 7 October 2009, he was unanimously convicted by a jury of conspiring to import £1m of cannabis into Jersey.

Warren, nicknamed the Cocky Watchman for his chutzpah and erstwhile talent for sniffing out surveillance, has not been idle during his latest spell of incarceration. The Toxeth-born former bouncer has kept himself busy bringing (and losing) numerous legal challenges and appeals – over the mysterious removal of a juror from his trial (nobbled by the police, said Warren, while the prosecution accused him of doing the nobbling), and various alleged abuses of process.

And, according to prosecutors, possibly arranging yet more drug deals from seven illegal mobiles smuggled in to his jail cell. They believe analysis of cell-site data can prove he made 34,000 calls to prime drug-producing nations, including Iran, Morocco, Ghana, Thailand, and various countries in South and Central America.

Despite being renowned for having a photographic memory, Warren claims he can't remember how many convictions he has had, dating back to his early teens. But he seems proud to recall that in hundreds of police interviews over 40-odd years, he has always answered "no comment".

He claims to have had nothing to do with a bestselling biography, Cocky, which documented his rise and fall. And he has never stepped into the witness box in any of his trials either. On Tuesday this week the court in Jersey was told Warren was considering breaking the habit of a lifetime and taking the stand to explain why he has not squirrelled away £198m. But his Jersey barrister, Stephen Baker, said he first wanted assurance from the UK attorney general, Dominic Grieve, that anything he said under oath would not be used to prosecute him for any crimes on the mainland. Grieve gave him short shrift, and Warren asserted his right to stay silent once more.

He has never given an interview to a journalist either. Yet suddenly, back in June, I heard he wanted to talk. I received a letter, written in capitals, in which he said he was going to take the governor of La Moye to court unless I was allowed to visit. He had the relevant case law at hand. Last year a BBC reporter had been to the high court in order to interview terror suspect Baba Ahmad. The way Warren sees it, if alleged terrorists are allowed to speak to the media, alleged drug dealers should be too. (He won the argument and within a week I was on a plane to Jersey to meet Interpol's former target one himself.)

Warren might have been in jail for most of the past two decades, but his legend lives on. You can still buy T-shirts printed with his face in Liverpool – an old mugshot from the days he had eyebrows like black caterpillers and a face bloated from all the steroids he used to take. There are some young pretenders – such as the scouse rapper on YouTube proclaiming himself the new Curtis Warren (also now detained at her majesty's pleasure, according to his Twitter feed). But the authorities still believe he is a dangerous man – last month, after Warren accepted a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO) at the high court, the outgoing director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there were "very real grounds to believe that without this order being made, Curtis Warren would continue to be involved in serious crime".

These days Warren is in good shape – 5ft 9in, clear-eyed, his light brown skin peppered with freckles. He speaks softly, rarely raising his voice. He is polite but demanding, asking the guards to bring more cups for the water cooler and kicking up a fuss when it emerges my files on his case have been confiscated at reception.

Anthony Barraclough, Warren's UK barrister, says his client is popular in prison because he, in effect, polices the corridors, cutting out bullying and drug use. So he is anti-drugs, I ask, surprised.

"Yeah, believe it or not," he says. Why? "It's just not good, is it? Bloody hell, I've never had a cigarette in my life, or a drink. I've never tasted alcohol or anything. No interest."

His objection to drugs is, he says, what it can do to young kids. Wouldn't decriminalisation solve the problem of kids robbing in order to score? He is not sure. Because it would put his mates out of business? "It'd put your mates out of business, then it'd probably put the government in business," he says. Warren hates the government and the police. When he gets out he wants to go abroad – something the SCPO will severely restrict. "I just wanna leave England, don't I? And never come back."

There are plenty of people in Britain with grudges against Warren, who is suspected of involvement in a number of gangland murders. Asked whether he thinks there is a bounty on his head, he immediately says yes: "From the police." But Warren insists he is not a danger to society, despite his manslaughter conviction for killing a Turkish murderer in his Dutch prison. He looks incredulous when I say that people will be frightened of him as a result.

"Are you serious? So if I'm attacked in the jail by a guy who has killed 16 or 17 people and he ends up dead in that attack, not by stabbing him or hitting him on the head with a hammer or cutting his throat, but basically a fight gone wrong, then I'm dangerous? That can happen to anybody. It happens with boxers in the ring."

He adds: "I can't help what people think about me. But I would like to think if you were to spend time with me in a normal setting you would see that I'm not some animal, some bully or whatever." He calls across to the guard blocking the exit. "I don't want to go on about myself in any terms. But who cut all the bullying out here on the young kids? The wretches, the young kids who can't defend themselves?" The guard looks embarrassed: "You know I can't say anything, Curtis."

Warren is clearly a smart guy, despite leaving school early with no qualifications. Does he ever wonder how different his life would have been if he had been born in Buckinghamshire rather than Toxteth? "I just wish I'd not been such a worry to me mum," he says, his voice lowering. "I've had a great mother and father – not known much of him – but a great mother, intellligent, educated. My sister's been to university, brother used to play chess for Wales, sister's got a degree in maths, physics and statistics. Got scholarships to private schools."

Warren seems to hate the idea of hurting or disappointing the women in his life. When I ask him to dispel one of the many myths about him, he chooses to claim that he has never mugged a woman. It then transpires he is still smarting from one of his earliest convictions, in 1979, when he was found guilty of robbing a woman called Pamela Walsh, having been accused of cracking her skull with a shotgun. It wasn't him, he insists. "I've never done it. Never ever ever ... For my mother to read that! I'm 50 years of age. Whatever decisions I've made have been my responsibility. But for the likes of my mother, that's not nice stuff to read. If it's true, write it all day, but if it's not true, don't print it. It's crazy. It's like last time I was arrested in Holland they said I was in bed with a prostitute. It's not true, as I told my girlfriend at the time. But she was upset."

I ask him if he has any children – I have never heard of him having any. He says he has a daughter whom he never sees, and for the only time in the two interviews I have with him, he looks sad, almost defeated. "She's married now, grown up. That's how much you lot know about me, isn't it?"

What else would he have liked to have done with his life? "I'd have loved to be a lawyer, but fought them properly," he says. Fought who? "Y'know, the system, when it was wrong. Fought them properly. I would have loved to have done that."

Warren claims he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. It has been accepted in court that the Jersey police illegally fitted a listening device to a car rented in France by one of his co-conspirators. Warren's lawyers have argued in court that they did so on the advice of Matthew Jowitt, a law officer (roughly equivalent to a crown prosecution lawyer), who encouraged them by saying: "If it was me I would go ahead and do it but don't quote me on that." They then lied in their witness statements, which were submitted to the court by Jowitt, Warren argues.

Jowitt strongly denies advising the police to break the law. He says he cannot remember the "don't quote me" statement but that if he did say it, it related to a different scenario. He says the police wanted to know if evidence gathered using a bug legally fitted to a Jersey car would be admissible in court if the vehicle drove through France. Jowitt insists he did not read the witness statements but merely served them and denies any misconduct.

In time, Warren intends to launch a fresh appeal against his conviction. A previous appeal, which went right to the privy council in London, the highest court on Jersey matters, was only very narrowly dismissed, with one judge, Lord Rodger, saying that if the Jersey police behaved so badly again, "the court might have no alternative but to strike the balance decisively in favour of indicating the rule of law, however undeserving the accused".

Earlier this month, Warren scored a minor victory when he gained access to a police disciplinary report that exonerated the Jersey officers involved in the illegal bugging of his mate's hire car. In this, the officers accuse Jersey's attorney general and the law officers of allowing a false version of events to be placed before the court and making them scapegoats.

Which brings me to the obvious question: why should anyone care how Warren was caught this time? "If the keepers of the keys aren't right, nothing's right," he says. "It matters not only for me but for the people of this island. Because when they've finished with Curtis Warren, what do they do with other people?"

He refers to a report from the Jersey Law Society, which recommended that Jowitt face a disciplinary hearing himself – a recommendation that fell down because Jersey law officers are exempt from charges of professional misconduct brought by the Law Society. In court, the prosecution barrister Howard Sharp QC has said an independent report written by another QC into the whole affair has exonerated Jowitt from any wrongdoing.

After perhaps a dozen phone calls and two sit-down interviews, I note that Warren has never actually denied being an international drug dealer. He answers: "Well, what is a miscarriage of justice? A miscarriage of justice is when the justice is not working right, irrespective of whether I've done something or not. Justice has to be seen to be done right. Creating false evidence, putting it in, is possibly worse than anything I could do in Jersey."

"Did you conspire to smuggle £1m worth of drugs into Jersey?" I ask him.

"No, no, absolutely not," he says.

We spend a few minutes discussing the evidence that convicted him in Jersey, particularly his regular use of phone boxes on the island, before he points up to the security camera recording my visit. "Obviously, under better circumstances I could be more open with you on many many issues," he says, with a knowing look. If the Jersey authorities get their way and add another 10 years to his sentence, I could be waiting a long, long time.

People on board walk away safely after plane lands in field in St Mary, in north of island

A plane has made a crash landing after getting into difficulties while taking part in a search operation for two people missing in a dinghy off the coast of Jersey.

Five people were on board the plane – operated by Channel Island Air Search (CIAS), part of a voluntary organisation that assists the coast guard – but walked away safely after it landed in a field in St Mary, in the north of the island.

Jersey police said they had received a call shortly after 7pm from the Airport Fire Service and Coastguard to warn them that the plane was encountering problems.

The Jersey coastguard said the two people missing in the dinghy were later located and a rescue mission was launched shortly before midnight.

The coastguard said: "The two missing men involved in this evening's incident at Les Ecrehous have been found."

John Dowling, manager of the Priory Inn, said the five who were in the plane came into his pub with police after they had landed.

"No one was injured, everyone was all right and that's the main thing, isn't it?" he said.

"Of course they were shaken up. You would be too if you'd just crash landed a plane, wouldn't you?"

The coastguard received a call at about 6pm reporting that two people on a dinghy heading towards a group of islands known as Les Écréhous were missing.

The CIAS operate a PBN-2B Islander aircraft, Lion's Pride, which was built in 1982. It was bought in 1992 after airline use in Ecuador, according to the CIAS website. Jersey airport was briefly closed as an emergency was called following the crash.

Former Channel Islands politician sentenced to three months in prison for refusing to take down 'highly defamatory' articles

Jersey's former health minister has been sentenced to three months in prison after refusing to take down articles on his blog making serious allegations against a number of people on the island.

Stuart Syvret, described by one judge as "a thorn in the side of the [Jersey] establishment", did not attend the court hearing in the royal court in St Helier on Monday but was arrested at his home after locking himself in his flat.

According to John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, Syvret has been unfairly prosecuted for revealing information in the public interest, including evidence that a nurse on the island may have killed some of his patients.

Hemming accuses the Jersey judiciary of behaving oppressively by misusing the Data Protection Act in order to silence its critics.

For a number of years Syvret has written a blog which publicises and examines what he sees as injustice and malpractice in Jersey. As a judge put it a number of years ago, the blog "frequently contains extremely grave allegations against people living in the island, some public figures some not. Many of the allegations, if not capable of justification, are highly defamatory."

From 1990 until 2010, Syvret was an elected politician in Jersey and from 2005 until 2007 served as health minister.

In April 2010 he was disqualified from membership of the States of Jersey - the island's parliament - ostensibly due to his absence from the island. For a period prior to his disqualification he was living in Hemming's flat in London as he launched and fought a number of legal actions, rallying against what he refers to as the "corrupt nature of Jersey's judiciary".

In parliament in 2009, Hemming used parliamentary privilege to reveal that Syvret had made murder allegations about a nurse on his blog. Hemming told the Commons: "He [Syvret] was then prosecuted under the Data Protection Act by Jersey. He was not allowed to adduce as evidence the case to which he referred on his web log, which is a public interest defence that he needed to reveal the failures of the judicial system in Jersey."

On 17 November, 2010 Syvret was convicted of two offences under the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005, one of disclosing personal data without consent, and the other of processing personal data without being registered as a data controller.

After losing an appeal against conviction and refusing to take down his blog he was eventually jailed for contempt for three months at the end of 2011. In 2012 Hemming raised Syvret's case again in parliament to make public the fact Syvret had been served with a superinjunction by the court ordering him again to take down the offending posts from his blog.

Hemming told MPs that a number of individuals "have, with the assistance of the Jersey government, obtained a superinjunction against ex-senator Stuart Syvret – under the Data Protection Act of all things – to prevent from him saying things about them on his blog … ."

None of the four individuals named has ever attempted to sue Syvret for defamation. Instead, the data protection commissioner in Jersey, Emma Martins, has prosecuted him under the Data Protection Act.

She argues, highly unusually, that Syvret is the "data controller" of his blog (a position usually held in a large corporation) and that he has no right to name and shame people on his blog, whether or not the information he reveals about them is correct.

Hemming said on Monday: "This use of the Data Protection Act to silence people in Jersey is oppressive.

The Guardian spoke to Syvret on Friday after he learned of his sentence. He claimed to have locked himself in his flat and said: "I am about to become a political prisoner in Jersey – again, for whistleblowing, for being a dissident."

Former Liverpool bouncer, who is only drug smuggler on Sunday Times Rich List, given Europe's biggest confiscation order

A Jersey court has ordered Curtis Warren to pay £198m after the drug dealer failed to prove he had not earned that sum in a lifetime of high-level criminality.

Warren, a 50-year-old former bouncer from Liverpool famed as the only drug smuggler to make it on to the Sunday Times Rich List, will be handed a default sentence of 10 years unless he surrenders the whole amount in the next 28 days.

He told the Guardian last month that he was unable to pay such a "fantastic" amount of money, saying the case against him was ridiculous.

But a panel of lay judges – known in Jersey as jurats– disagreed, and on Tuesday ordered what Jersey's attorney general described as one of the largest-ever confiscation orders made in Europe.

The case against Warren centred around cocaine trafficking between 1991 and 1996 – much of it for which he has never actually been convicted.

Warren did not give evidence at the court in St Helier after the UK attorney general refused to grant him immunity from future prosecutions in the UK as a result of anything he may have cited in evidence.

Tony Barraclough, Warren's long-serving UK barrister, said his client would "no doubt appeal". He said: "Bearing in mind Warren is in prison, with the communications restrictions that entails, even if he had this amount of money, how is he possibly able to settle £198m in 28 days? It just shows a failure to grasp reality."

The prosecution claimed Warren – who has been in prison for all but five weeks of the last 17 years – had shipped cocaine directly from cartels in South America to Europe on many occasions and got away with it. The shipments, said the crown, ranged from 500kg to consignments of several tons, generating huge profits of about £20m a ton.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the attorney general in Jersey, Timothy Le Cocq QC, said: "The confiscation proceedings are the result of several years of extensive investigation into the criminal career and financial affairs of one of Europe's most notorious organised criminals."

Barraclough said the confiscation order was the result of proceedings unrelated to any money made as a result of the 13-year sentence Warren was given in Jersey in 2009 after being found guilty of a plot to smuggle £1m of cannabis on to the island.

Barraclough said: "The Jersey conviction triggered a legal process which enabled the Jersey authorities to investigate his alleged activities outside Jersey and the test was "on the balance of probabilities". The proceedings in Jersey must be considered against the backdrop of the opinion of the Privy Council in relation to the activities of the Jersey police and other persons in authority in the original cannabis case."

In a statement, the National Crime Agency said: "The prosecution was supported by specialist evidence provided by the National Crime Agency (NCA). The agency's expertise in areas including telephone communications analysis and decoding Warren's conversations proved crucial in demonstrating how he was able to orchestrate drug deals from his prison cell and quantifying the vast wealth he has accumulated through his criminal activity."

Steve Baldwin, NCA regional head of investigations for the north-west, said: "The authorities in Jersey have achieved a tremendous result against Curtis Warren, one of the most prolific drug dealers of a generation.

"Making sure that criminals do not profit from their crimes is key to making the UK less of a target for organised crime, and we will be relentless in pursuing their money. This is an excellent example of how the NCA uses its specialist resources to complement partner agencies to target the most serious organised criminals."

In 2011 Warren went to the Privy Council in London, the highest court on legal matters in Jersey, to ask for his conviction to be quashed. He argued there that the Jersey police had illegally bugged a hire car used by one of his co-defendants.

The appeal was narrowly dismissed, with one of the judges, Lord Rodgers, saying that "were the Jersey police to act in this sort of fashion in future, realistically the court might have no alternative but to strike the balance decisively in favour of indicating the rule of law, however undeserving the accused."

If Warren somehow pays the £198m demanded, he could be released as early as January 2014 after serving half of his sentence.

• The subheading on this article was amended on 6 November 2013 to better reflect the article.

Justice committee says divisions between new parliament and Barclay brothers is harming stability of Sark

The tiny island of Sark, car-free and verdant, feels like it ought to be a haven of tranquillity and prosperity. But tensions between the island's fledgling parliament and the wealthy owners of the Telegraph Media Group, the Barclay brothers, may be harming Sark's future, an influential House of Commons committee is warning on Thursday.

Five years after feudalism was banished and the island's first democratic elections held, the justice committee has produced a report claiming that divisions between the new parliament and Sir David and Sir Frederick , who have a gothic mansion on the neighbouring island of Brecqhou, are threatening the stability of Sark.

The committee says "conseillers", the equivalent of MPs on the Channel island, feel they are being targeted by threats of legal action and subjected to "intimidating attacks" in a newsletter edited by the Barclay twins' manager on Sark.

But the committee also acknowledges that the brothers, who have invested millions in land and businesses on Sark, believe the island parliament has brought in legislation that discriminates against them – and are pushing for more constitutional change.

The committee concludes: "This is a very difficult atmosphere in which to work towards a sustainable economic future for the community on Sark. We deeply regret the apparently intractable discord on Sark."

Like Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, Sark is a crown dependency with its own independent administrative and legal system but Westminster has ultimate responsibility for "good government" on the island and the report opens up the possibility of the British government stepping in.

It says: "Just as the establishment of democratic government in Sark was a matter of good government, any threat to the ability of that system to operate fairly and robustly has the potential to raise good government issues which might require intervention."

Sark, a chunk of rock closer to France than the British mainland, hit the headlines in 2008 when after 400 years of feudalism ("Seigneur" Michael Beaumont was until then lord of all he surveyed) held its first democratic elections. The Barclays' preferred candidates failed to get elected and over the past five years the twins have been critical of the way the parliament, known as the chief pleas, operates.

The new committee report highlights evidence from former justice minister Lord McNally, who said there was "poison" on both sides of the divide.

He named the Sark Newsletter, a bulletin edited by the Barclays man on Sark, Kevin Delaney, which publishes fierce attacks on the chief pleas.

The newsletter claims Sark has become a "one party state" with a chief pleas which is composed of members elected because of their loyalty to Beaumont, compares it to the German government of the 30s and claims it is causing the island's economy to collapse.

McNally pointed out that "equally intolerant" views were expressed by those opposed to the Barclays in blogs. "In such a small community these things hurt, they cause resentment and they make progress more difficult," McNally said.

Also flagged up in the report are concerns about the pace of change – such as the three years it took Sark to separate the crucial roles of presiding officer of the chief pleas and the island's judge following the first election. McNally suggested that Sark needed to move forward more quickly: "I can see the attractions of going back to the quieter, more leisurely, more certain age it has, but Sark also has to provide a living for people. It has to have some economic future other than for retirees who have pensions that they have already made. It has to give a future for young people and for a working population."

The committee concludes: "Disputes between different interest groups on the island should not be allowed to get in the way of the responsibility of the authorities on Sark to continue to implement democratic processes and plan a sustainable future."

Both sides will find fault with the committee's findings.

Through their lawyer, Gordon Dawes, the brothers made it clear on Wednesday that they had no current litigation with anyone or any bodies on Sark. Any ongoing disputes were between Barclay family companies run by Delaney and the chief pleas. "They do not visit Sark, they do not vote on Sark," Dawes said. The brothers believe the justice committee is simply wrong to say that the government on Sark is run on democratic lines. Dawes added: "Their regret is that they ever invested in Sark at all."

Conseiller (and artist) Roseanne Byrne took a break from her water colours, to defend the chief pleas. "The conseillers are ordinary working people who have to earn a living but want to help create a future for the island. We're not professional politicians. We've gone from feudalism to democracy, a huge change – there's lots to do. All the time you are mindful that you could get a letter from the Barclays' lawyers or be attacked in the Newsletter."

Another conseiller, Sandra Williams rejected the idea that the change of pace was too slow. "I think Sark does things in its own time. We always get there in the end."