A property tycoon in the Home Reit scandal exposed by The Mail on Sunday is facing a bitter blame game with the former owner of Blyth Spartans.
Irfan Liaquat, who briefly owned the famous Northumberland football club, said he believes Christopher Downing, a former business partner, is seeking to scapegoat him over the Home Reit affair.
Home Reit – or real estate investment trust – was a provider of social housing for the homeless and victims of domestic violence.
It bought properties, many from Downing, leasing them to charities, which placed vulnerable individuals in the accommodation.
But a report from short-seller Viceroy Research pointed to unpaid rents and inflated property values. Home Reit’s shares were suspended by the London Stock Exchange, and the Financial Conduct Authority launched an investigation which remains ongoing.
Liaquat is best known for his seven-month ownership of Blyth Spartans. He took over the club in April last year but sold it in October following criticism from fans.
Kicking off: Irfan Liaquat is best known for his seven-month ownership of Blyth Spartans
He is facing possible disqualification as a company director for his role at one of Downing’s firms embroiled in the Home Reit fiasco.
Downing, whose role in the affair was laid bare by this newspaper in 2023, has since decamped to Italy where he has reinvented himself as a hotel developer.
But in a letter sent to the Government’s Insolvency Service in November, Liaquat’s lawyers claim he was ‘bullied’ by Downing into becoming a director in 2022 of Dom Asset Management.
Dom was one of a web of companies in the property deals with Home Reit. His lawyers claim Liaquat had ‘no involvement in the company’s operations and no knowledge of what he was stepping into when being pressured into taking the appointment’.
‘It is now clear to our client with the benefit of hindsight that Mr Downing had in fact premeditated our client’s involvement and that our client was being used as a ‘scapegoat’ for the company’s downfall,’ the letter said.
Downing has robustly denied the claims to the liquidator.
Downing’s lawyers told The Mail on Sunday they believe the ‘personal pressure’ Liaquat is under to explain transactions made while he was a director has prompted his claims.
They added that his claims were simply a means of exerting pressure on Downing in the context of ‘personal issues’ Liaquat has with Downing.
It is understood the pair are also embroiled in a separate debt row.
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