Man accused of Gray’s Inn bomb plot is married to £2,400,000 lottery winner

A wealthy businessman accused over a plot to bomb England’s legal heartland is married to a lottery millionaire, a court was told

Jonathan Nuttall, 50, is accused of being involved in a scheme that saw explosive ‘bomb-like’ devices left outside the chambers of two senior lawyers in 2021.

The Old Bailey heard how Nuttall held a ‘deep-seated grudge’ against Andrew Sutcliffe KC and Anne Jeavons for working with law enforcement officials in a case against his wife.

Amanda Nuttall had been the subject of a money-laundering probe by the National Crime Agency (NCS) in 2011, with Mr Sutcliffe leading legal proceedings.

Six years later, a second barrister, Mrs Jeavons, was tapped to work alongside Mr Sutcliffe.

An order was issued in April 2019 to wrangle more than £1,400,000 in assets from Mrs Nuttall to cover a settlement with the agency, the court heard.

Mrs Nuttall took out a loan from an Australian firm to cover the eight months of payments.

The settlement, Mr Nuttall’s barrister George Carter-Stephenson KC, said, was made on a ‘commercial basis without admitting the NCA was right about anything’.

But when the settlement was paid, the NSA refused to accept the cash – wary that it came from illegal means – so looked into repossessing Nuttall’s home.

Jonathan was angered by the prospect he would lose his home, Embley Manor, a mansion that was once the home of Florence Nightingale in Romsey, Hampshire.

Nuttall is accused of hatching the plot to leave the devices by recruiting a ‘middleman’, Michael Broddle, 46, and sons Charlie, 18, and Joshua, 20, it was claimed.

Michael Sode, 58, who worked as Nuttall’s driver, was also allegedly recruited.

Broddle, after six months of carrying out research and surveillance on Mr Sutcliffe and Ms Jeavons, then left the two contraptions outside the lawyers’ chambers on September 14, 2021.

Prosecutors told the court on Monday how the devices had a clear intention: to cause Mr Sutcliffe ‘alarm, distress and public and professional embarrassment’.

Mrs Jeavons named Nuttall as likely to hold a grievance against her and her fellow barrister, she told the court today.

She recalled a meeting held between her and Nuttal where he ‘made it quite clear he was not going to be happy with having his home threatened’.

‘In that meeting, Mr Nuttall said it would be a red line if the NCA sought to recover his home,’ Mrs Jeavons told jurors.

‘The NCA was seeking to repossess his home. I was being asked a couple of months after the Zoom meeting who might have a reason to be very, very angry and feel it might assist them to intimidate counsel, and that’s why Mr Nuttall’s name came forward.’

Asked why Nuttall attended a meeting about his wife’s settlement, she said: ‘The clear impression is Mr Nuttall is behind the scenes orchestrating everything and Mrs Nuttall acts accordingly.

‘He’s the decision-maker.’

‘Mrs Nuttall was fortunate and happened to win £2,400,000 on the lottery,’ Mrs Jeavons added.

At first, Mrs Jeavons, exhausted after working until the early morning the night before on a case, didn’t believe her office had been evacuated.

‘I was so busy at the time I saw the email and thought, it’s a hoax,’ she told jurors, ‘in fact, I thought someone’s left a package and had forgotten to ring the doorbell.’

Mr Sutcliffe was left ‘shocked and appalled’ by the allegations, the court heard.

‘He was an absolute gentleman, he could talk to anybody in the room. He was a lovely man,’ Mrs Jeavons said of her colleague.

‘I have never socialised with him other than work events.’

Nuttall, of Romsey, Hampshire, Sode, of Deptford, south-east London, and Charlie and Joshua Broddle, from Hounslow, west London, deny two charges of conspiring with Michael Broddle to place an article with intent on or before September 14 2021.

Charlie Broddle denies possession of an explosive substance in relation to one of the devices.

Nuttall, Sode, Michael Broddle, Joshua Broddle and George Gray, 25, of Hounslow, deny conspiring to transfer criminal property.

Nuttall faces six charges and Sode two charges of failure to comply with a notice.

The Old Bailey trial continues.

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