Publican Geoffrey Monks ‘settles for up £14m’ with Northampton council after wrongful imprisonment

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An upmarket publican who lost everything after he was wrongly imprisoned alongside murderers over a ‘vendetta’ with his local council which destroyed his life is to be paid millions of pounds in damages. 

Geoffrey Monks, 67, who ran The Snooty Fox in Kettering, Northamptonshire, was accused of breaking food safety laws when East Northamptonshire Council falsely claimed they found ‘mouldy ham’ inside the premises in the late 1990s.

During his High Court action Dr Monks described local solicitor Jenny Lawrence as a ‘sexual partner’ of former Northamptonshire Council chief executive Roger Heath, after she she was reportedly furious over being served the ‘wrong bottle of wine’. Both Heath and Lawrence strongly denied these claims when speaking to MailOnline.

A furious Ms Lawrence then complained that she had suffered food poisoning from eating pâté at the upmarket pub, with the ENDC launching an investigation into alleged malpractice at the Snooty Fox.

But instead of letting environmental officers handle the fallout of these hygiene ‘breaches’, which were later quashed on appeal, Chief Executive Mr Heath was said to have been handed responsibility for overseeing any final punishment in the case.

74-year-old Mr Heath, who would leave East Northamptonshire Council in early 2000s, now works as an independent consultant and most recently ran for political office as a Conservative council candidate in the Tomohun ward of Torquay. 

Speaking to MailOnline on Friday, married Mr Heath said he was contacted by the council’s solicitors in December 2020, telling them he had never had ‘any relationship with Ms Lawrence’, later claiming he ‘had never even met her.’  

After vehemently maintaining his innocence for more than two decades, Dr Monks has now agreed a seven-figure settlement figure after launching a High Court battle against the council in 2019.

Dr Monks had claimed £14million in lost earnings, but the council reportedly agreed to hand over a fee of around £4million earlier this year. His case marks just the third time in history that an applicant has successfully claimed ‘abuse of process’, the last such example being in 1861. 

But further headaches may lie in wait for Northamptonshire Council – as Northamptonshire police force confirmed it will investigate any potential criminal charges that derived from the case.

Dr Monks’ ordeal began in 1998 when he barred solicitor Jenny Lawrence from the Snooty Fox after she was reportedly furious over being served the ‘wrong bottle of wine’. 

Ms Lawrence complained that she had suffered food poisoning at the upmarket pub, with the ENDC launching an investigation into ‘mouldy ham’ at the Snooty Fox. The council did not deny this claim.

Following six alleged infractions, Dr Monks was hit with the-then largest fine on record for breaching food safety offences – £25,500 plus his legal costs of £8,300, which were later reduced to £20,000 on appeal.

The pub boss could not afford to pay the fees after losing his businesses and his home, and in 2003 was imprisoned at the maximum security HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes – with his cell adjacent to Soham murderer Ian Huntley. 

Roger Heath, then-Chief Executive of ENDC, was invited to oversee punishment by the council’s environment department, and it was claimed in court that the local authority had pursued a ‘vendetta’ against Dr Monks. 

The effect of the prosecutions, and the surrounding publicity, on Dr Monks’ businesses was catastrophic and he was forced to sell all three pubs at a loss.

He also sold his home and suffered a heart attack while in prison and has experienced serious health issues ever since.

In 2000, Monks was convicted for the Snooty Fox ‘offences’, despite his legal team arguing the evidence offered against him was both ‘thin and contradictory’. The prosecution was quashed 15 years later. 

In 2015, Dr Monks won a retrial of the Snooty Fox case, and two other prosecutions made against other former venues were also quashed. 

Monks alleged that Ms Lawrence, who is understood to no longer practice law, was in a ‘sexual relationship’ with East Northamptonshire Council’s chief executive, Roger Heath at the time. While Northamptonshire Council did not deny this claim, both Lawrence and Heath did when contacted by MailOnline.

Speaking to MailOnline on Friday, Ms Lawrence said: ‘I have no idea who Roger I simply do not know anyone at Northants Council sexually or otherwise.’

She said she did fall unwell after eating pâté and drinking wine with a male friend at The Snooty Fox in 1998, but ‘never asked for East Northants Council to do anything about it’. 

‘At the end of the meal, I had hardly had anything to drink from the bottle of wine that we’d ordered and I said that I didn’t think it was the bottle we’d ordered,’ she said. 

‘We pulled back the napkin that had been wrapped around the bottle and I think it was a Liebfraumilch or something but not what we’d ordered.

‘I called over Monks and pointed out that it was the wrong bottle. There was no scene, no nastiness and he certainly didn’t throw us out as he has alleged. 

‘He says that I was part of a conspiracy but it did not happen like that.

‘On the Sunday, after dinner, I had the most awful sickness and diahorrea that I’ve ever had in my life.

‘By the Wednesday I couldn’t work it was so bad and the GP told me to get a sample to him. My son took it to the docs and that went to Kettering General Hospital.

‘Several days later, when I was over it, I had a letter from East Northants Council saying I had a notifiable infectious disease.

‘It was crazy and the Council wanted to know what I had eaten. I went through what I had eaten and they immediately went to Monks’ kitchen at the Snooty Fox and prosecuted him. They didn’t even ask me to attend the hearing.

‘I am absolutely shattered by the suggestion I had sexual relations with someone from the Council. It’s utterly absurd and this has come completely out of the blue.

‘I did not think I had done anything wrong and Mr Monks was found to have had two further health and safety breaches which had nothing to do with me at all.

‘I was described as being merely the butterfly who flapped her wings. 

‘If there is any vendetta it is a vendetta against me by Mr Monks.’

She added: ‘The infectious disease was Campylobacter. It was like an ecoli. It can only be picked up from puppy dogs, chickens, dirty barbeques and pate.

‘He tried to suggest it was from my barbeque but his insurance paid me out £6,000 for lost earnings as a result of what happened.’

Dr Monks was later accused of having mice and broken glass in his other local venues, The Vane Arms and Samuel Pepys pubs.

But appeal judges remarked that out of more than 7,000 food standards inspections by East Northamptonshire District Council over the course of a decade, just four convictions were made – three of which were against Mr Monks. 

Environmental officers suggested Monks carry out ‘remedial’ actions for the phantom breaches, but this was ignored and the punishment was directly overseen by Mr Heath. 

Monks would later claim the local authority launched an ‘abusive campaign’ against him after winning his appeals against his six convictions for food safety breaches. 

Dr Monks would spend 57 days in Category A HMP Woodhill in Buckinghamshire after failing to pay the record-breaking fees from the alleged food safety breaches. 

While imprisoned in the maximum security jail that once housed murderers, rapists and terrorists, Dr Monks suffered a heart attack and has suffered crippling health issues since. 

The publican was financially ruined by his prosecution, losing his home and businesses, and was unable to afford legal costs to challenge the rulings until 2019. 

He is understood to have run up bills of more than £150,000 following his high-profile action against the local authority that he claims ruined his life.  

Dr Monks sued East Northamptonshire Council, now North Northamptonshire Council after the former went bust in 2018, for £14million after claiming loss of earnings for his three former thriving establishments.

Speaking after the trial, Paul Mitchell QC, for Dr Monks, said: ‘The evidence against him on each occasion was thin and contradictory. 

‘He achieved the remarkable distinction of being the defendant to three of only a handful of food safety prosecutions the council had undertaken between 1990 and 2001, during which period it had carried out over 7,000 investigations.

‘Dr Monks said that ENC had persecuted him because he had offended a powerful local solicitor who was a lover of ENC’s chief executive. ENC did not deny this.

‘If that had been proved at trial, then it might well have been established that the abuse of process consisted in ENC’s prosecuting Dr Monks because of an outrageous abuse of power by its chief executive: that was the ‘vendetta’ abuse of process, where the true aim was to punish Dr Monks for offending the mistress, not for serving contaminated food.’

North Northamptonshire’s taxpayers are now set to foot the bill for their local authority’s infractions in the late 1990s. The council will also offer an apology in open court for their predecessor’s actions.

Geraint Thomas, partner and head of the disputes team at Laytons ETL Global who led Dr Monks’ claim, insisted the settlement ‘provides full vindication for our client more than 20 years after East Northamptonshire Council began its abusive campaign against him.

‘The impact on his health, finances and wellbeing has been nothing short of devastating, but I hope that today’s settlement will enable him at least to begin to rebuild his life.

‘It is accepted East Northamptonshire Council’s actions caused serious personal injury, loss, and damage to him over a period of more than 20 years, and I sincerely apologise for those actions.’

Cllr Jason Smithers, Leader of North Northamptonshire Council, said: ‘East Northamptonshire Council’s decision to prosecute Dr Monks in relation to the Snooty Fox was an abuse of process and should never have occurred.

‘It is accepted that East Northamptonshire Council’s actions caused serious personal injury, loss, and damage to him over a period of more than 20 years, and I sincerely apologise for those actions.

‘I hope that Dr Monks is able to have his reputation restored and that the substantial damages which the Council has agreed to pay to him go some way towards assisting him to move forward with his life.’

Northamptonshire Police have since confirmed they are investigating to determine whether or not criminal offences should also be brought against the council. 

An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to David Oliver as having been the Chief Executive of East Northamptonshire Council in 1998, and suggested he had been in a sexual relationship with solicitor Jenny Lawrence. We are happy to confirm that Mr Oliver was in fact Chief Executive of the council from 2006 until his retirement last year, and was not involved in any relationship with Ms Lawrence. The article has been amended accordingly, and we apologise for the error.