Dragons' Den winner jailed over £6,000 blackmail plot

A Dragons’ Den winner has been jailed after demanding £6,000 from a former employee for a good reference.

When Lorraine Davies refused to pay, equestrian designer Nicola Fletcher, 49, repeatedly wrote bad references for her former friend, a court heard, leaving her unable to find a job for nine months.

Dubbed ‘the queen of high-vis’, Fletcher scooped £100,000 on the BBC show in 2015 after investments from Duncan Bannatyne and Piers Linney.

Her firm, Equisafety Ltd, which creates hi-visibility wear for horse riders, has worked with dressage Olympians Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester.

But she had wanted to ‘bury’ her former assistant in what she later told police had been ‘a fit of fury’, the court was told.

The dispute stemmed from an employment tribunal brought by Mrs Davies following a row at Badminton Horse Trials over mould in her accommodation, which led to her leaving the firm.

Under the terms of an out-of-court settlement, Fletcher had to pay £3,000 in costs plus a further £3,000 in termination and bonus payments, along with an assurance she would provide her former aide with a good reference.

Yet when mother-of-two Mrs Davies was subsequently offered a job at a veterinary hospital and quoted Fletcher as a referee, she got a letter from her ex-boss offering ‘a reference full of lies in exchange for the value of the settlement or a reference full of truth’.

When Mrs Davies failed to respond, bosses at Liverpool University’s Leahurst Equine Hospital pulled the job offer after receiving what was described as ‘an extremely personal reference’ from Fletcher.

It read: ‘To get rid of her I gave her £2,000 tax-free and it cost me £3,000 in legal fees.

‘So maybe the £2,000 blackmail money and the £3,000 legal fees was worth it!!!’

Just over a month later, Mrs Davies received an email from Fletcher saying: ‘Sorry about the job. But I promised I would send a truthful reference.’

Mrs Davies was subsequently rejected for at least one other job application when potential employers asked for testimonials from Fletcher, prosecutors said.

In a statement to Chester Crown Court, Mrs Davies said she eventually had to accept two part-time jobs on minimum wage without a reference. 

'As a result she was left in such penury that her 17-year-old A-level student son offered to buy Christmas presents for the whole family.

‘Never in my life have I experienced such cruelty and malice, as I have from Nicky Fletcher,’ she said. She branded Fletcher’s ‘pursuit’ of her ‘relentless but also extremely calculated’.

At Chester Crown Court, Fletcher, from Barnston, Wirral, admitted blackmail.

Simon Parry, prosecuting, said Mrs Davies contacted police after the first negative reference, but these continued with her subsequent job applications. When interviewed, Fletcher ‘admitted her actions but said she did not see them as blackmail’, he added.

‘She believed she was wronged in the employment dispute which she felt she was forced to settle. She hated Lorraine and wanted to get her back.’

In mitigation for Fletcher, Indunee Seneviratne said the initial letter was sent ‘in a fit of fury’ when she was overwhelmed by the death of her father. She said the business would cease trading if her client was sent to prison.

But jailing Fletcher for two years, Judge Michael Leeming told her that Mrs Davies had been deprived of a career which offered her and her family ‘financial security’ and that ‘you are entirely responsible’.

‘Every aspect of her life has been affected, her health, her well-being, her confidence, the emotions of her family,’ he added.

Fletcher was also banned from contacting Mrs Davies.

In October, Fletcher lost a High Court copyright fight to get her hi-vis horse-riding waistcoat recognised as ‘art’ after claiming a rival firm copied her.

A judge said that while it was ‘more attractive than a builder’s vest’ there was not enough ‘artistic craftsmanship’ involved in its design for it to be protected from imitators.