Cliff Stanford
Cliff Stanford | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 October 1954 London, England |
| Died | 24 February 2022 (aged 67) Estonia |
Clifford Martin Stanford (born Spiegel; 12 October 1954 – 24 February 2022) was a British
Early life
Stanford was born on 12 October 1954 and grew up in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.[1][2][3] His father was a civil servant, but left the family when Stanford was 11; his mother was a book-keeper.[1][4]
By the time he was 14, Stanford was beginning to show a flair for business. He devised a marketing scheme to win a newspaper sales competition at his part-time job. He had learned book-keeping by helping his mother with her work and left school, aged 16, to join an accountancy firm.[2][4]
Career
Demon Internet
In the early 1990s
Based in Finchley, north London, and initially equipped with eight modems and a single leased line, the company grew quickly, particularly after the appearance of the World Wide Web in 1993. By 1996 Demon Internet had 50,000 subscribers and more than 4,000 modems.[5]
Redbus Investments
Following the sale of Demon Internet to
In 2003, whilst attempting to gather information about possible wrongdoings by the board of Redbus Interhouse, Stanford discovered and exposed more than £34m of assets of Dame Shirley Porter.[6] This resulted directly in her repaying £12m to Westminster Council.[7]
In September 2005 Stanford was convicted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 of intercepting emails belonging to John Porter, son of Dame Shirley and then chairman of Redbus.[8]
Despite pleading guilty, Stanford claimed that what he had done was legal as "someone on the inside ... put in a redirect".
Personal life
Stanford had a son, Tony, and from 2000 was in a relationship with Sylvia Spruck Wrigley.[11]
Stanford died from pancreatic cancer in Estonia, on 24 February 2022, at the age of 67.[12][13]
Chess
Stanford was a chess enthusiast. He sponsored a Redbus knockout Grandmaster chess event each Easter in Southend since 1999. Following the death of his uncle, Jack Spiegel, who had for many years organised the annual Southend Easter chess congress, Stanford inaugurated a Jack Spiegel Memorial Invitational Tournament, also at Easter and in Southend. The first Redbus event and the first Spiegel Memorial event were each won by James Plaskett.[14]
References
- ^ a b c Everett 2005.
- ^ a b Marks 1998.
- ^ a b Rockman 2022.
- ^ a b Cassy 2001.
- ^ "Even a millionaire has his demons". The Independent. 15 January 1996. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ^ Telegraph 2005a.
- ^ "BBC NEWS – UK – Politics – Porter pays £12m to Westminster". BBC. 5 July 2004.
- ^ "silicon.com Demon founder pleads guilty to email snooping". Archived from the original on 3 April 2012.
- ^ "silicon.com Cliff Stanford to appeal email snoop verdict". Archived from the original on 3 April 2012.
- ^ Smith 2005.
- ^ Amy Vickers (19 December 2000). "Demon founder laughs off 'stripper' reports in Sunday newspaper". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
- ^ "UK internet pioneer Cliff Stanford has died". The Register. 28 February 2022. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
- ^ "Cliff Stanford obituary". The Times. 3 March 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "In memory of jovial Jack". The Telegraph. 29 March 2005. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
Reference bibliography
- Cassy, John (22 December 2001). "I'll be bigger than Branson". The Guardian.
- Everett, Cath (16 September 2005). "Cliff Stanford: The maverick Internet pioneer". ZDNet UK.
- Marks, Kathy (1 May 1998). "Cliff Stanford – Demon of the Internet cashes in his chips to make a fortune". The Independent.
- "Sir Leslie Porter". The Daily Telegraph. 23 March 2005.
- Rockman, Simon (28 February 2022). "UK internet pioneer Cliff Stanford has died". The Register.
- Smith, Lewis (16 September 2005). "Tycoon fined for e-mail spying". The Times. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011.