Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

A Sussex businessman who went bust leaving some of his customers homeless has set up a new company which is still mis-selling properties abroad, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ South's Inside Out team have discovered.

John Jayne, from Horsham, put his Storrington-based company Breakaway Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔs into administration in December with debts of Β£2.2million.

But in tonight's programme – Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One in the South of England, Wednesday 11 February 2009, 7.30pm – we hear that, while some customers have lost their life savings after paying for mobile homes which were never delivered, Mr Jayne continues to ply his trade under a new company.

Pam Griffin sold her house in Calne, Wiltshire, to pay Breakaway Β£43,000 for a mobile home on a site in Spain. She paid the company in July, but her home had not even been ordered when Mr Jayne put Breakaway into administration five months later.

"He might as well have put his hand in my bag and stolen my purse," she said.

"I have worked all my life and it's all gone. That is my money gone. Where am I supposed to live now?"

Some Breakaway customers who did get their mobile homes delivered could still end up homeless.

Pam and Phil Reilly are the only people living on Monte Vista, a remote site on the side of a Spanish mountain, where none of the promised facilities have been built. They get limited electricity from an extension cable and their only water supply is a plastic tank.

"We had a period of five days without water and we took water bottles down to the town and filled them up at the fountains to bring water back," says Phil Reilly.

"We feel we have been abandoned by Breakaway. Whether we stay here or end up on a street corner I simply don't know. I just cannot foresee the future anymore."

The couple were told by Breakaway that they could live on Monte Vista, but the planning permission specifically prohibits people from staying full-time on the site.

Mr Jayne has now set up a new company, Europarks Group, which is still selling homes on Monte Vista.

But the businessman told Inside Out that his salesmen always make it clear that customers cannot make the park their principal residence.

"I can categorically state that no one has ever promoted a park as having planning permission when it does not, or as being residential when it is not," he said in a statement.

"This has always been made clear to every client in advance of purchasing a home."

Inside Out presenter Joe Crowley wanted to find out if this was true, so he posed as a potential customer and went to meet one of the Europarks' sales team.

"Mr Jayne's salesman assured me that I could live full time on Monte Vista," said Joe.

"He also said it had planning permission as a residential park, which is simply untrue.

"I find it hard to believe that just weeks after Breakaway went into administration, Mr Jayne is back in business and still misleading customers."

However, Mr Jayne says Breakaway was an honest company that became a victim of the credit crunch.

"Having sold several thousand homes to several thousand happy clients, it will be appreciated that the decision to bring it all to a close was made with a heavy heart and because it was inevitable, given the impact on the company of the world economic crisis."

He says Breakaway was his life's work and that customers will get some of their money back when he sells his land in Spain.

"I do not expect any respite from the sleepless nights, the high levels of stress and the painful decisions that I have suffered in recent times. But everyone concerned may be assured that I will be doing all in my power to protect their interests as far as I am able to."

And the sleepless nights for Mr Jayne's former clients also go on with a meeting of creditors for Breakaway Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔs tomorrow (Thursday) in Worthing.

HB