HOW CHARITIES LOST OUT AS FERGIE SPENT, SPENT!
HOW CHARITIES LOST OUT AS FERGIE SPENT, SPENT!
ALAN RIMMER
Fergie is claimed to have spent pounds 7,000 charity money for Romanian orphans on travel expenses.
Tomorrow night's World In Action programme on ITV will report that the high- living Duchess received about pounds 8,000 from Hello! magazine for coverage of a trip to the Romanian town of Podriga last June.
According to the magazine Fergie insisted that ALL the proceeds from the article would be split between three charities whose representatives accompanied the Duchess and her staff.
But documents show that all that was left in the kitty after the visit was a mere pounds 888.97.
One of the charities involved, The Princess Margarita of Romania Trust, has not received a single penny.
According to Hello! the purpose of the Fergie's visit was to "focus on humanitarian work in Romania since the 1989 revolution and to draw attention to the Podriga Hospital for People in Need."
But when it came to expenses for the Duchess and her entourage - which included her own hairdresser - Fergie's needs allegedly came first.
The scandal of the big-spending Duchess - earlier this year it was revealed she has debts of pounds 3million - emerged in a letter dated May 25 from the Margarita Trust confirming that no money had been paid to them.
A director wrote: "I was informed on the telephone by members of staff at HRH the Duchess of York's office that the royalties from the article were between pounds 7,000 and pounds 9,000, but that most of this had been taken up by expenses.
"The sum remaining is about pounds 900. Of this sum I was told that the Trust will eventually receive one third.
"As of today's date, no payment has been received from the Duchess of York's office." Another letter from a Press agency associated with Hello! states that pounds 888.97 had been paid into to the Fergie's "Donations Account" at her bank on March 4 this year.
Details of the Duchess' turbulent finances will be revealed by Granada TV's World in Action.
It is expected to show how Fergie's toe-sucking lover John Bryan tried to "twist the arms" of TV executives for pounds 9,000 to pay for the Duchess' expenses on another charity jaunt.
A Granada executive said: "The This Morning programme was covering a charity trip to Poland by the Duchess. She was visiting a children's crisis centre near Katowice. Out of the blue the show's then-producer received a call from John Bryan. He asked for pounds 9,000 expenses for the Duchess' party and Bryan.
"He was told that we thought that was excessive and we normally didn't do that sort of thing.
"But Bryan persisted and even suggested that money be raised from an appeal we were running for the Polish children. We politely refused."
The programme will also implicate Fergie in a financial scandal involving one of Bryan's former companies, Oceanics Deutschland.
The firm collapsed last year owing millions - a story first broken in a Sunday Mirror exclusive last year.
Oceanics director Allan Starkie is now expected to face fraud charges. But in 1992 Fergie gave Oceanics an endorsement in a personal letter to Starkie after the company carried out work at her Romenda Lodge home.
The letter gushed: "Dear Allan, This is a letter to confirm that the excellent work of renovating and rebuilding parts of Romenda Lodge was completed to the uttermost standard of perfection.
"Please thank you and your team of Oceanics for all their hard work. Sarah" As first revealed by the Sunday Mirror, the letter was used as an endorsement by both Starkie and Bryan in brochures to impress potential investors.
The Granada source said: "The really surprising thing about this is that although Fergie talks about 'renovating and rebuilding', we have discovered that the only work carried out at Romenda was things like tiling and other cosmetic work."
He added: "At the time, of course, the Duchess and Bryan were an item, as it were."
Fergie's solicitors, in a letter to Granada, blamed an "oversight" by a member of the Duchess' staff for the Margarita Trust not receiving any money.
AT the Duchess of York's request, all proceeds from the sale of this article will go to Scottish European Aid, the Princess Marguerita of Romania Foundation and the Romanian Orphanage Trust
Copyright 1996 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved