ClickAsnap was the first successful online photo sharing platform in the world of its type. It took me 10 years to build it to almost £3m in revenue with a 90% profit margin. Just one wrong hire, Jason Hill from Southampton, destroyed the business
On the 13th February 2024 i was unlawfully and unfairly removed from my own company, Videscape limited by Jason Hill. During the next 12 months he had me unlawfully arrested (all charges now dropped) lied to shareholders, lied to the police, companies lawyers and even committed perjury in court.
But the justice system in the UK is too slow, underfunded and whilst we had court dates in September of 2025 to bring these individuals to justice, in February 2025 the company went insolvent (without informing the shareholders or myself) June 12th 2025 it went into administration and the assets were sold the same day to a related buyer leaving the 100 odd shareholders of Videscape limited (clickasnap.com), who just 12 months ago held shareholdings in a £30m business ready to IPO now held shares in a company with £1m in debt and no assets. Jason Hill stole the company, drained it of cash, then flogged the companies assets without informing the companies shareholders. Below, is my story as told to the police:
1. My name is Thomas Oswald and I am making this statement in relation to my arrest in March 2024 by Hampshire police. I have compiled an evidence pack which I will produce alongside this statement.
2. In this statement I will be referring to Jason Hill and Eliza Davenport who were two of my co-directors prior to my arrest in February 2024. I will also be referring to Jen Todd who was employed by Hill as our ClickASnap accountant. Todd is guilty of false accounting and fabricating documents in the form of my directors’ loan account. Hill and Davenport are guilty of providing false evidence to police and the court, misleading the criminal justice system as well as numerous incidents of fraud and falsifying documents/evidence to shareholders.
3. Clickasnap, (Company name: ‘Videscape’,) is a company that I founded in 2014 and single handedly grew to a turnover of circa £1.2m by late 2021. I have always been the majority shareholder of the company.
4. Davenport was hired in 2021 as customer services staff. Davenport was a close friend of mine so I was excited to afford her the opportunity to work within my growing company in a customer service role. Davenport had worked for an insurance company as a customer services representative.
5. Hill was formally hired in March 2022 and his responsibilities were managing accounting, payroll, shareholding and matters of a corporate nature. Areas I have limited knowledge and very limited experience of. He claimed to have 25 years of corporate experience, however, it was later established his CV was largely false with hugely exaggerated and many outright false claims. TO/11B is a copy of Hill’s CV and TO/11C are screenshot of filed accounts from some of the companies he has worked at showing vast differences to what he has claimed to have achieved within his CV. For example, claims of raising huge sums of money in his CV but no evidence of this in the companies accounts.
6. Within a few months of starting Hill sacked our accountants of 2 years (a reputable London based firm) and replaced them with his own accountant, a Jen Todd. An accountant he has a 20 year relationship with.
7. Hill visited the accountant monthly to sign off the accounts as well as the annual filed accounts and had access to all financial records, banking and associated software’s, plus I met with him at least once a week after September ‘23 and saw him 3 days a week in our Wimborne office prior to September’23 to discuss all pertinent matters. Between Hill and Todd they were wholly in control of recording where all transactions were placed without having to be transparent as evidenced by the initial directors loan account claim, exhibit TO/09F, which list unauthorised and untrue director loan transaction. This is explained in , exhibit TO/09D, a letter to Dan Bate which lists the falsified directors loans claims where Hill has fraudulently listed items such as his own outboard motor on my director loan account.
8. Given Hills level of control and monitoring of that aspect of the business (as was his job), It is highly implausible that the alleged theft, by myself, of circa £600k over a 2 year period in such a small company, with only 3 people with access to the bank accounts, would not have been noticed by either Hill or Todd within 4 weeks of any such transactions being made and communications relating to it being sent to myself. There are minimal communications and no meetings relating to any expenses throughout the 2 year period in question because every transaction was known and authorised by the appropriate parties.
9. At no point did I have the ability or access to place anything onto the companies accounts. All receipts/invoices were sent to hubdoc, a piece of accounting software that Todd managed and from there either raised queries or transferred the transaction to Xero, the companies accounting software. Every transaction the company made was vetted by the accountants prior to being placed on the companies accounts. Any large transactions were always discussed between myself and Hill prior to carrying them out, that included the lorry and tractor purchases. Hill’s claim in my dismissal letter, exhibit TO/02L, that I was putting invoices through the company without any of their knowledge was therefore impossible as transactions could not be placed onto the accounting software (XERO) without the accountants knowledge.
10. Since the day hill started to the day I was removed, less than a handful of accounting queries were made and all were responded to promptly with the required information with no further queries after my information was passed on. The exact number and nature can be determined with access to my emails assuming they have not been deleted. An example of this TO/02C1 where Hill and I confirm with Todd American express/Amazon payments relate to office and marketing items and TO/02F1 refers to an email chain with Todd from November 2023 discussing further transactions.
11. Hill would repeatedly tell me he was handling the accounts and corporate aspects of the business and for me to stick to the areas of the company I enjoy. By this he was referring to product design, content creation and customer interface and services, TO/12 is a folder of images showing a small example of my content creation which is how we marketed and promoted the business. (Exhibit TO-12B is a prime example of the video content I produced to market the Clickasnap platform. Page 1 is Hills attempt at marketing the platform with video, pages 2-4 are my marketing videos. Exhibit TO-08G page 5/7 is an independent marketing company confirming that ‘social and video marketing is the only way for the company to meet its revenue goals’ a fact I had established many years before and exactly what we were doing with projects like the dark room and telescope/lorry combination and given my removal, largely why the company is currently failing as they have no one capable of producing such content)
12. By October 2023 I had concerns regarding Hill’s integrity. On a number of occasions Hill and myself had discussed certain topics and he would later go on to deny these conversations had taken place. (Prime examples were the lorry and tractor). Hill promised the company would IPO within a few months and so I kept my concerns to myself to hold out for IPO which would bring in a legitimate board and with this Hill and Davenports positions would be short lived. I realise now Hill had no intention to IPO.
13. In 2023 Hill and Davenport had repeatedly displayed their incompetence within my company, whilst simultaneously making the office a hostile environment and pushing me out of key decision making (Exhibit TO-02E2) and ultimately my company. I was the CEO at the time and Davenport refused to add me into the priority team, (team who make high level decisions as to what goes into the website and in what order), TO/02E2 is a screenshot of this conversation highlighting just one example of them alienating me from the company by refusing to add me to these key discussions. Discussions that were absolutely vital to the success of the company.
14. On the 17th November 2023, I stepped down as CEO because Hill convinced me that (1) an IPO was occurring in January 2024, and (2) if I wanted to sell any of my shareholding at that point I could not do it if I was CEO of the company, And (3) I was tired of fighting with a team that was supposed to be helping me. I felt immense pressure to step down and in all honesty I dreaded going into the office as I was belittled by the team and treated as an outsider. I now know from conversations with ex-employees that Hill had manipulated the office staff against me and the very person I hired to run the corporate side of my business was using this position to take control of my company from me. In paragraph 4.1 of Hills court witness statement, (exhibit TO/06A), Hill states ‘Leandercap’, (the independent broker preparing the company for IPO), advised him I should not attend a fireside meeting as my manner and approach would be unproductive, as the founder this is completely demeaning and I would suggest a reflection of Hill undermining me to outside agencies as well as our own staff. A strong grounds for dismissal alone.
15. Tensions grew to the point that in late November 2023 I threatened to take their resignations over a disagreement regarding a piece of software (Merchr) (Exhibit TO-1A) they had arranged to put into the website behind my back. The software would result in severe damage to both businesses. TO/01A is an email chain between Hill and myself referring to my concerns about incorporating Merchr and his responses which highlights his complete disrespect for me and disregard to my position within this company as well as my knowledge of how best to make the site a success. A year on, Merchr have now pulled their business from the site due to failure to hit any of Hill’s promised targets by the company. Under the current management the company now has less features than it had 8 years ago. This decision set our business back by over a year resulting in significant revenue loss which was what I was attempting to avoid. To note this is an email dated around a week after I resigned as CEO showing Hill wasted no time in expressing his utter distain for me. Hill confirms twice within this email his knowledge of my true shareholding at 77%. It would appear very coincidental that at this same time, Hill claimed the accountant suddenly ‘spotted serious anomalies with my expenditure’ readers will note that according to Exhibit TO-6A paragraph 4.2 Hill claims the suspicious transactions were spotted by an informal audit by the accountant in November, in Exhibit TO-7A paragraph 23 Hill states the audit was carried out in December and was an audit in preparation of an upcoming IPO. A reader will note that this is around or after the time frame of where I threatened to sack both Hill and Davenport for their part in installing software on the platform which would damage the business. Further confirmed by Merje Shaw (20 years of experience as a customer experience strategist and employed by Hill) stating that Merchr would result in losses to the business in September 2023 (Exhibit TO-16A) ergo, justifying that the decisions the directors were making were detrimental to the business (and ultimately contributing to its failure) and therefore needed to be removed from the business. In turn, threatening both their lucrative salaries (at this time I had not yet discovered the payroll theft by the pair)
16. Early January 2024, I contacted the companies HR, Claire Lucarino, and explained my concerns to her about Hill. She was hired by Hill and I suspect my concerns were passed on to him.
17. Mid January 2024, Hill spent circa £25k taking himself and 3 staff, including Davenport, Sarah Flutter (customer services) and a part time CFO, Manish Kotecha, to Las Vegas for a business conference. There was a pre agreed budget of £10K for this trip. The conference gave no value to the business. No content was even produced for our socials.
18. Upon examining his company credit card further expenses included circa £10,000 for a personal ski trip, £900 for a birthday present for Sarah Flutter (one of the 100% pay rise recipients). Plus, thousands spent on his boat and fitting a kitchen in his home. I later discovered that some of these items ended up on my directors loan account such as his outboard motor, exhibit TO/09F line 92.
19. I had had enough and contacted an associate of mine (Paul Norton) to assist me with removing Hill and Davenport from the company.
20. Whilst this process was going on, a glance at the company bank accounts around 25th January 2024 showed an anomaly with Eliza Davenports salary. She was taking home in excess of £6,000 a month after tax.
21. Following the launch of a hugely successful new website in January 2023, (designed and orchestrated by me). A board meeting had been held in mid May ‘23 to discuss remuneration and the board gave the entire staff a pay rise of 20% (the directors also received significant pay rises; Davenport ~25% (at hill’s insistence), Hill ~56% and I had a 100% pay-rise. My pay-rise may sound like a lot but I had worked for ~9 years with no salary or compensation from the business) after which Davenport was on £65k (already a salary far in excess of her skills or qualifications), so clearly couldn’t be taking home £6k after tax. In this same board meeting the bonuses were allocated to the directors. Bonuses that were accounted for correctly for Hill (~£25k post tax) and Davenport (£10k post tax), but accounted for fraudulently as a loan to me (£50k post tax).
22. Going back through the accounts from September ‘23 to January ‘24 I discovered that not only had Davenport’s salary been increased by circa 100%, so had Sarah Flutter’s. Flutter was employed as customer service staff (Hired 2022) and had no experience prior to joining ClickAsnap and her experience and qualifications in this role did not reflect this pay rise. Hill had taken a personal liking to Flutter and I believe this pay rise was an attempt at impressing her along with the extravagant birthday gifts and business trip she was invited along to. There was no legitimate company reasons why staff members within Flutter’s role should have her salary almost trebled in a 12 month period. Hill demonstrated identical behaviour in Wooferoos, increasing salary of staff members without the appropriate authorisations simply to attempt to ‘buy’ their loyalty. (See TO/11D). Davenport has no experience, qualifications or track record in her position to support a trebling of her salary within a 12 month period. This is further evidenced in her current role as Chief Commercial officer, in a company that is collapsing.
23. After September 2023 The office consisted of 4 staff as all the rest were remote. (Davenport/Flutter/Waugh/Hill) Ben Waugh, the 4th staff member, had also received a pay rise of £10k. The pay rises coincided with the change in atmosphere within the office and the attitude of staff towards me when I attended.
24. Between September 2023 and January 2024 Davenport, flutter and Waugh had received pay rises almost every month without any authorisation from myself or board approval. Hill also received a huge pay rise in January without authorisation. Davenport also states in a court witness statement that she just accepted the pay rise and had nothing to do with its authorisation even though she is a director of the company, (Page 5 para 3.1 TO-06B). Looking at this at the time, it looked to me that the directors were sneaking pay rises through monthly in comparatively small increment, when it appeared that they were getting away with it, Hill then increased his pay significantly in January 2024, the month I caught them, and 20 days before hill removed me unlawfully from the company. By this time, Davenport, Hill and Todd were responsible between them for payroll and I had no access to the payroll software.
25. In February 2024, an audit was organised by Hill without my knowledge. I was not involved with, or even knew of this audit, yet both Hill and Davenport were interviewed and given an opportunity to explain transactions identified as theirs. At this time we were all directors and I was also the founder of the company. I was not extended this same opportunity as would be expected of an independent company audit designed to prepare accounts for an IPO scheduled in January 2024. An IPO that has still not happened a year later, or even scheduled. Ergo, the auditors were misled with the intent to provide Hill and Davenport with a ‘legitimate’ reason to remove me from my own company and prevent their fraudulent actions from being discovered as well as their lucrative positions removed from them. The audit was also used to justify the fabrication of the alleged £300K+ directors loan account that did not exist prior to my dismissal as evidenced in page 6, paragraph 5, of the audit itself TO/03A where it is stated at 31st January 2024 my directors loan account was £38,174 overdrawn. However this includes £68,000 of legitimate company payments which should not have been put on my account meaning my true director loan account was £29,826 in credit, and in fact when Hill and Todd’s fabrications are removed from my DLA it is in fact £103k in credit Exhibit TO-09K
26. Hill/Todd claimed Hill’s unauthorised personal transactions were loans which had been paid off via payroll to the auditors however, his outboard motor turned up on my director’s loan account clearly indicating it had not in fact been paid back by Hill and still has not been paid to this day. (TO-09 line 92 GAM Southampton). To this day I have seen no evidence Hill has paid back any personal expenses such as his outboard motor.
27. On January 25th 2024, Hill told Martin Varley in a text message, that he and Davenport were going to sack me, before the audit was started let alone completed, exhibit TO/02A refers to a screenshot sent to me by Varley clearly showing his intentions to remove me from my own company. Hill claims in a witness statement that the decision to remove me from the company was made on the 9th February 2024 when a ‘preliminary audit report’ was delivered. We have seen no evidence of this preliminary report.
28. I contacted Tandheep Minas at our company lawyers at Taylor Wessing and asked her for help with the theft. She said she would get someone to call back. No one ever did. Exhibit TO/05K refers to a screenshot of this call.
29. After making the call to Tandheep I was concerned she would tip off Hill so Paul Norton and I instructed Trethowans solicitors to review the evidence and if appropriate draft the necessary documents to remove Hill and Davenport for gross misconduct, for pay roll fraud, incompetence, and false accounting.
30. The evidence was reviewed and they began a case which would dismiss Hill and Davenport was to be suspended and interviewed for her knowledge and part in this.
31. The dismissal letters were ready to go circa 10th Feb ‘24, however, we had to put together a team to replace the staff being removed and to ensure there was no business interruptions
32. Whilst this was being done, I had to go to Devon for a content creation trip to market the platform. Hill and Davenport were to be removed the following Monday on the 19th February 2024.
34. Around 4pm on the 13th February 2024 I could suddenly not get into any company systems, slack, email, my Clickasnap account and the Facebook discussion group.
35. I then received an email, exhibit TO/02L, through my personal email from Hill instantly dismissing me as founder of Videscape based on his fabricated audit claiming I had stolen some £419,000 + another circa £300k from the company over a two-year period. To note £419,934 amount referenced within the audit as questionable transactions and within these outlined transaction were Hill’s ski holiday with ‘Boutique chalet’ as well as other legitimate business expenses, exhibit TO/03A page 9 refers. To note, I was at the time and still am a director of Videscape, (as per companies house records), as by law they would require the majority shareholder vote which Davenport and Hill do not hold. I am the majority shareholder on companies house as per the share register
Hill is disputing my shareholding but under companies law until this dispute is taken to and proven in court then the correct shareholding is as per the current share register and I at this time in law own 77% of Videscape. The board is not acting in line with the share register and has not ratified this despite being told in court at the start of 2024 they had to sort this as a priority. They have also spent a large sum of company money paying independent advisors to assist with the share ratification and still have no court date a year on, I believe this is due to Hill and Davenport knowing the current share allocation will hold up in court. Our breach of fiduciary duties lawsuit is suing them for not respecting and behaving as per the companies shareholding TO-07C.
36. I took one look at the claims and saw they were all false. By carrying out his actions whilst I was away and with no warning he anticipated that I would not be able to access any of the evidence required to disprove the claims. His entire premise relied on me not being able to obtain any evidence to disprove any of the claims he removed me for, which is why the directors could not follow the correct and lawful dismissal procedure, as evidenced in the unfair dismissal lawsuit TO-07B.
37. At the same time as I was removed, Sophie Thorne, our social media manager whom Hill had disliked for some time, was suspended for alleged theft. The directors simply printed out her expenses and told her she had stolen all of them. She proved all the theft claims false and resigned from the company to protect her mental health. She is available for interview if required. I believe Sophie was unfairly forced to resign as she was my friend and they did not want her reporting anything back to me.
38. I believe Hill and Davenport carried out the audit for two reasons (1) as a reaction to me questioning their positions and threatening to accept their resignations in November 2023 and (2) to get away with their payroll and expenses theft. With me gone, there was no one to oversee their behaviour anymore and they could do as they wish with the ‘keys to the piggybank’. The audit, exhibit TO/03A, does not claim that I have stolen funds from the company. It simply identifies transactions based on Hill and Todd’s input that it doesn’t believe align with the business activities. The audit recommends the company questions me to determine what the funds were for (although the company well knew what the funds were used for and their legitimacy for the company or a purchase I was repaying through my salary and therefore the evidence provided within this report is fraudulent).
39. I have not established why or even how auditors carried out a legitimate audit without involving me given my position within the company. How was it signed off legitimately without the Founder/director involved. There is one line within the audit, ‘ transactions identified by Tom Oswald’ which would imply my knowledge/involvement in this audit so potentially they’ve mislead the auditors that I had knowledge/involvement in it, which I did not.
40. In March 2024, after I was unlawfully sacked from my company by Hill and Davenport, I was subsequently arrested by Hampshire Police. This arrest was based on falsified documents carefully selected and compiled by Hill, Todd and Davenport. At the instruction of my legal advisor, who was informed of all the facts surrounding the company and my arrest, I provided a ‘no comment’ interview. All the evidence to prove my innocence and show Hill fabricated evidence to get me arrested was seized from my home address in both hard and digital formats by Hampshire police. From the date I was sacked in February 2024 I have not had access to any company communications including email accounts.
41. Hill arranged a meeting 2 weeks after my dismissal letter to discuss my position and the allegations. I was later informed by Martin Varley that he hounded the police to arrest me in between and place bail conditions preventing me attending or contacting anyone from the company. Which ensured only his story was told to the people who needed to hear mine.
42. Upon receiving this unlawful dismissal letter I raced home from Devon. I knew the actions being carried out by Hill and Davenport were highly illegal and they’d fraudulently falsified documents against me so I acted quickly in an attempt to save my company content in the knowledge the claims were fraudulent and I could prove it. I was also aware that these directors were not only utterly incapable of running a company like ClickAsnap, but would also, given recent history, utilise company funds to line their own pockets to the detriment of the business. My actions were carried out in line with my fiduciary duties as a director to the company and with the best interest of my shareholders in mind. We had just caught the directors committing accounting fraud.
43. Upon getting home I accessed the company bank accounts and removed Hill and Davenport.
44. I paid outstanding invoices to Paul Norton, Trethowans and Emmerdale agriculture as I knew (as later proven), the directors would be working to block me from accessing the bank leaving me personally liable to pay invoices for work and products already received.
45. I paid off the bounce back loan as the directors had gone to significant lengths to fabricate evidence against me using this, including my supposed fraudulent claiming of the bounce back loan and subsequent payments. (exhibit TO-07A refers).
47. Both Hill and Devenport had gone to such extraordinary lengths to dismiss me with complete disregard for basic company law and no hesitation is creating fraudulent fabricated documentation to support their case. Due to this, I knew that they would not simply respond to calling a vote to have them removed from the company.
48. I contacted a law firm called Healy’s to start the process of an injunction and to get the directors removed and transferred them £30k from the company bank account to fund the case. Healy’s, because they had not established the legality of my dismissal at the time could not take money directly from the company bank account, (exhibit TO-05E refers).
49. Because of the aforementioned reasons I transferred £50k to my personal bank account authorised by myself as the single largest shareholder/founder and director and in support of my fiduciary duties to the company and to the shareholders. The company also has no requirements for bank transfers/payments, neither is there any legal differentiation between the ability for a director or staff member to make payments, there was no legal reasons why the payment could not be made. Furthermore, when Hill and Todd’s accounting fabrications were removed from my Directors loan account it meant the true balance was over £103,000 in credit and owed to me (Exhibit TO-09K) £30k of these funds were immediately sent to Healy’s lawyers to file a lawsuit against the company to force the company to hold a vote. A vote that the company had refused to hold as the directors knew they would be voted out immediately if the truth were to be exposed.
50. Once Healy’s was paid, the remaining funds shortly thereafter were returned to the company bank account.
51. We went to court and the judge ordered the company to set a date for a shareholder vote. The judge also ordered the company to establish the shareholding as Hill had lied about that to the court. Claiming, the company did not know the true position, when it did (the company has received a 300 page evidenced document showing my shareholding as majority shareholder is legitimate within the files seized from my home by police). Exhibit folder TO/04 refers to correspondence between Hill, myself and layers at Taylor Wessing confirming my 77% shareholding.
52. In this court hearing, as part of disclosure, the company was given evidence proving that we knew the dismissal claims made against me were all false. The company did not inform the police the allegations were incorrect/false, and the company continues to claim the allegations are true, even in the latest statement of truth (exhibit TO/07A), for the unfair dismissal tribunal ergo, committing perjury even though hill knows the claims are false and he knows we can prove they’re false. His intention is to attempt to bankrupt me before we can get the unfair dismissal case to court and expose all of his fabrications.
53. On the date of my arrest my home was searched by the police, during this search a green folder, a hard drive and my computers were all seized. Within that folder there is a clear statement and exhibit list disproving all allegations against me.
54. The claims in my dismissal letter and I suspect the police report leading to my arrest are disproven with the evidence in the folder but a brief synopsis is as follows:
55. The £175k of funding circle loans were legitimately used for company expenditures as the statements TO/02B show (and as well Hill and Todd knew or how else do they explain the over £100k of invoices that would appear unpaid if not?). The directors have deleted all public evidence associated with the ‘Photomac’ (film development equipment, used for marketing) (exhibit TO-10A) transactions and attempted to put those on my directors’ loan account as well as the ‘Wessex’ (high end video camera used for YouTube content) payment, (exhibit TO/09F Lines 85 and 91) until I told them I had copies of the deleted evidence and video evidence that the Wessex camera was used in the office (exhibit TO-09D). Circa £50k of funding circle loans were used for agriculture equipment but this was agreed as part of the £265k share sale to the company as documented by the email chain between Hill and myself dated 17th October 2023 (TO-02F3), further confirmed in an email between myself, Hill and Todd, 23rd November (TO-02F1) and then further confirmed in January 2024 shareholder investment document (TO-02F2) showing Hills equity at 3% and Manish Kotecha at 1% (Hill originally had 2% and Kotecha 0%). Percentages that would come from that share deal. exhibit folder TO-02F. It is exceptionally important to note, that as per the timeline TO-09K lines 98 and 99, and evidenced by email chain TO-02F3 that no funds were paid to me until after this arrangement had been agreed by myself and Hill who made up the majority of the board. Hill was and is fully aware of this transaction and it’s legitimacy, a transaction he later told the auditors was unauthorised and unknown and then used to fire me from the company. He also misled the police by informing them that these transactions were unknown to him and fraudulent. Funding circle was agreed to be used to cover half the initial upfront payment to ensure minimal impact to cash flow. The equity deal enabled equity to be given to employees and partner companies without dilution to existing shareholders. The equity was discounted 90% from the established market value at the time of the deal.
56. The £65k horse lorry has been listed in Hill’s court witness statement, exhibit TO/06A, as a personal non-business related purchase using company funds, this is also cited within my dismissal letter (exhibit TO/02L), again as a purchase unrelated to the business. The horse lorry was purchased as transportation for the telescope. To understand the requirement for such a large lorry you must understand how the telescope functions. To put it simply, it uses highly sensitive cameras to capture photons discharged from stars and galaxies millions of lightyears away. It requires complete darkness to ensure tiny photons are not drowned out by brighter light sources. The lorry provided overnight accommodation, electricity and space large enough to store the telescopic camera equipment so I could travel to remote locations to capture content overnight. All public facing evidence, in the companies control, showing that the lorry was legitimately used for the company has been deleted by the directors. This includes content on Youtube, Linkedin, the company vlog, tiktok, Instagram and the companies own accounts. This shows systematic attempts by the directors to discredit me by tampering with evidence. Exhibit TO-10B.
The telescope was a USP for the site and I chose to spearhead this project as I knew it would provide unique content and help us promote brand awareness and traffic to ClickASnap website. At the time, it was the only mobile photographic telescope of its type and size in the world and was one of our most successful marketing campaigns with one video alone receiving over 600,000 views. Exhibit TO/02D4 is the receipt from the previous owner of the Lorry and TO/02D5 is the V5, both clearly showing ownership was transferred to Videscape from the seller. TO/02D9 is a screenshot of an open public Facebook conversation on the Solent amateur astronomers group discussing the purchase of the lorry for transportation of the telescope showing we were clearly using this for content to market the site and also proving Hill’s knowledge of this. TO-02D10 is a video posted by me on Tiktok 17th August 2022, showing exactly how we planned to use a horse lorry as a mobile astrophotography lab and how it was going to be used in conjunction with our business and it’s users. Folder TO-10B also contains extensive evidence, that has since been deleted by the directors, that shows the progress of this and mentions numerous times how integral this project was with the ongoing success of the platform and business. My removal and the subsequent failure to proceed with this project in 2024, largely led to the collapse of the userbase over the following year.
The lorry and telescope may appear a large spend, but to put it into perspective since my dismissal the directors employed marketing company ‘Red Sprout’, who cost £16,000 a month and produced 22 YouTube and TikTok videos over a period of less than a year with a total view count of less than 54,000 views. Whereas because of how niche and unique the telescope was, just one video on our telescope account received 690,000 views, with the average view count on the remaining videos exceeding 20,000 views per video, and the account as a whole still receiving 30,000 views a month. Exhibit folder TO/13 shows you the difference between the success of my content and Redsprouts. TO/13C is particularly relevant as it compares the huge success of the telescope account vs Redsrouts clickasnap promotional efforts. (Note the red line shows when Red Sprout took over the account.) There was significantly more content available such as telescope related videos eg TO/10B13 and TO/10B10 which have now been deleted by Hill and Davenport as well as videos such as TO/10C1 which specifically related to items claimed on my directors’ loan account. The company then released a statement to say the way to market the platform was through creating original content on Instagram, TikTok and Youtube, (TO/08G) the very model I have adopted since I started this company, exhibits TO/12 illustrate examples of this content. Content from the telescope shoots on the company TikTok account ‘Big bad telescope’ still receives 30,000 views a month even though the profile is stagnant.
The directors have deleted all evidence of its use by the company, across Youtube, Instagtam, tiktok, the company blog and my Clickasnap account and all evidence the telescope was ever used, all copies of which we have. Evidence sent to me by an ex staff member, Merje Shaw, also has Hill discussing branding the lorry, exhibits TO/02D2 refer to conversation showing Hill and Merje discussing branding the lorry. This evidence shows Hill perjured himself on a witness statement and lied to his lawyers, the court and you, the police. To confirm that Hill understood how we market the business TO-12A is a series of receipts for circa £21,000 which Hill spent on sponsoring a racing car owned by his a friend of his.
57. The tractor purchased June 2023 was originally agreed to be paid out of my salary, TO/02E3 shows the invoice on the companies account referencing this purchase. TO/02E4 shows screenshots of a conversation with Davenport which shows both her and Hill’s knowledge of the purchase and reimbursement plan via my salary.
A discussion took place later during which it was agreed that I paid the Hunt Forest group invoices out of the £30m IPO that was due to happen shortly. TO-02E3 shows the invoice in the company accounting system with a handwritten note on it stating that it is to be paid from 2 months salary payments. That writing is Jen Todds. The purchase of the tractor was legitimate and agreed and was not any form of theft as claimed by Hill. As with any directors loan, payment in full is not required until 9 months after a companies year end. In this case, the loan for the tractor did not have to be paid until May 2024. The IPO was supposedly scheduled for Q1 (TO-6A page 5) Therefore, there was plenty of time to use funds raised in the IPO and paid to me as part of the raise, to pay off a £26k debt. If there was no sign of an IPO by April, it could simply be paid off with 2 salary payments and still be paid off before it was required to be.
58. The £90k in purported directors’ loans; Split into two payments, £40k which was an agreed down payment for part of my £200K share sale agreed October 17th 2023 attested to in the email chain between myself and Hill (TO-02F), a further £40K payment was made via funding circle again as per the share same agreement and then the remaining balance of this share deal £120K would be paid over 12 months). A £50k payment made to me in May 2023, that was fraudulently accounted for on my directors’ loan account rather than as my bonus. Both Hill and Davenport received £25k and £10k post tax bonuses in the same month. Whilst Hill and Davenport claim no bonus was paid to me, it would appear a bit strange that 2 directors (both of whom had been with the company less than 18 months) would receive substantial bonuses and the CEO/Founder of the company would receive a £50k debt. I had no knowledge that the £50k was not accounted for correctly until relatively recently when I was given a copy of my alleged directors loan account. Both transactions were made to my bank account by Hill to my knowledge.
It is important to note, that at the date the share deal was made, my Directors loan account was at the very least £2k in credit. This is evidenced by the Knight Good head audit Exhibit TO-03A page 6 paragraph 5. Where it is stated as of 31 Jan 2024 I allegedly owe £38k, which includes £68k of unlawfully placed transactions, including £40k from the share deal, meaning on the 17th October I had a credit balance of at least circa £2k, but if properly accounted for, my credit balance was in fact near circa £80k
59. The bounce back loan was calculated on company accounts at the time I applied for it. I do not have access to my company communications to clarify the exact figures and as it was over 5 years ago and I cannot recall the figures from memory. When I get access to my company accounts I will clarify this. What I can confirm is that every penny of the bounce back loan was invested into that company, leading it to become a multi-million pound business within 18 months of the loan being taken. The company missed no payments, took no payment holidays and paid it off in full with interest.
61. Had I been involved in the audit (TO/03A), I would have been able to explain all listed anomalies on the company account as Hill, Todd and Daveport well knew hence my exclusion from the process. They have used the report as a tool to remove me from the company using an official report as their justification to shareholders. As the listed screenshot and email exhibits I have mentioned in the above paragraphs have shown they knew these spends were legitimate and therefore they’ve clearly manipulated data to mislead the auditors by denying and withholding knowledge and therefore falsifying information within this report.
62. Upon investigation of the green folder and my computer that the police removed from my house, you will find extensive court documents in the form of witness statements and exhibit lists from myself, Davenport and Hill. You will note upon their examination both Davenport and Hill lie on statements of truth for the court. You will also establish that the police were used as a free gagging order, misled to carry out Hill’s requirements at no cost to himself or the company.
63. Almost 1 year on the company has still not taken their share dispute to court to established the share position of the company. Something that should be a priority for any competent CEO and management team and was ordered to be complete within 1 month of our original court date. The company had promised it would be completed prior to the end of 2024 and we are now 2025 still awaiting a preliminary court date. Their last shareholder update in December, (exhibit TO/08C refers), has now claimed they have no timetable to confirm the shareholding most likely due (as previously stated), because they’ve been advised I will win the case and remain in control of 77% shareholding. The company has also missed its revenue target by circa £1m and has had the first annual revenue drop since its founding.
64. During our first court appearance early 2024, the judge reviewed our evidence and stated that the directors’ positions were clearly untenable and ruled that the company commit to a date to hold the vote. The judge wanted to know why, if the directors were certain of their claims, were they not holding the vote immediately?
65. Shortly after the court appearance, the shareholders had a Facebook group setup where they could question myself and Hill to establish the true story, (TO/08D).
66. The Facebook group invitation went out on the 5th March, I was arrested on the 6th. I strongly suspect, that Hill hounded the police for my arrest around those dates to silence me. I will also point out at this time that Hill made fabricated claims to the insolvency service, companies house and HMRC, (TO/02K refers), all based on claims he knew to be false, simply desperate to stop me from interacting with the shareholders in that group, in turn exposing the truth.
67. I joined the group, started presenting my evidence and then I was arrested. The bail conditions meant I had to leave the group. This allowed Hill to continue to lie to all the shareholders and I could do nothing to defend myself because of the bail conditions imposed on me. Hill and Davenport lied consistently and manipulated evidence to make it look as though I was trying to dilute my shareholders and steal or buy high value items with company money. The evidence pack disproves all of these allegations.
68. Hill and Davenport announced on this very group to all our shareholders within the group that I had been sacked. Davenport announced the alleged thefts as well as other completely untrue allegations and Hill later updated the group that there was a warrant out for my arrest, (prior to me having any knowledge of police involvement against me). Exhibit TO/02K outlines the malicious Facebook post he publicised about me the libelous content of which has completely and utterly destroyed my professional and personal reputation and had a detrimental effect on my personal life.
69. Whilst I was arrested and put on bail to prevent me deleting evidence, ironically, the two directors behind this were in fact using this opportunity to do just that. I have created a folder containing exhibits TO/10 which show screenshots of company marketing projects which have now been deleted from the site, I suspect by the directors as these items now feature on my directors’ loan account.
70. Hill then spent the next month fabricating the most incredible lies and reiterating the claims he made in my dismissal letter. He even had a circa 100 page document made up as a smear campaign and sent to the shareholders by mail and email and extracted invoices from my emails that he knew were not company related and portrayed them as if they were.
71. He also brought in 2 non-executive directors (NEDs) who were told his story, but because of my bail conditions I was not allowed to communicate with them, exhibit TO/08B refers to their appointment letter. They then phoned shareholders loyal to me and convinced them to vote for Hill based on his fabrications. Shareholders that confirmed to the NEDs that they had planned to vote for me.
72. Unfortunately, because of the bail conditions I lost the vote, (exhibit TO/08E refers), a vote I would have easily won if the bail conditions had not been in place. TO/08A shows the letter sent to shareholders explaining my vote would not be counted at the meeting despite Taylor Wessing having full knowledge that another shareholder, Mike Brown, held my proxy vote, (by this I mean he was able to act on my behalf as I could not attend in person). Taylor Wessing refused to count my vote due to me not submitting it prior to the meeting, a meeting which allowed people to vote on the day and in person and in fact change their earlier vote if they wished.
73. However, the vote did force Hill to appoint two non-executive directors which prevented any further financial mismanagement.
74. Of the 2 NEDs Martin Varley was fired after discovering the truth about me from one of the shareholders and starting to act on it, Exhibit TO/08F refers. Dan Bates has also since resigned, without notice, simply walked out, this was announced in the December 2024 shareholder newsletter (TO/08C). Jason Hill is now back in charge and attempting to bankrupt me based on a fabricated director’s loan account to prevent the unfair dismissal tribunal going ahead and the truth coming out.
75. A year on, the company is losing users by the droves with negative reviews at an all-time high. I have also had to launch an unfair dismissal case against the company and breach of fiduciary duties suit against both Hill and Davenport, (exhibit TO/07).
76. Late August 2024, Dan Bate reached out via my lawyers and offered to settle my entire alleged £400k directors loan account if I would drop the unfair dismissal case. After some back and forth with lawyers we reached a settlement agreement which would save the company from extensive lawsuits. Bate returned to the board and this settlement was rejected by Hill, likely due to his personal vendetta against myself. Without a settlement the company will not be free of extensive lawsuits. This settlement would have been in the interest of the company and would have allowed it to progress. Given what had happened to me by these criminals, I was loathe to even consider discussing a settlement. But, for health reasons I wanted this over so was open to discussions.
77. It has since been established that Hill and Todd had been falsely accounting for at least 12 months prior to my dismissal. This included the placement of the £50,000 bonus payment on to my directors’ loan account in May 2023. Given his appointment of an inexperienced, and easily malleable director within 11 days of his directorial appointment, It is very plausible that he has been planning this since the day he joined.
78. It has also been established that Hill misled the auditors intentionally to gain credibility for his narrative that I had stolen large sums from the company. They did this by taking legitimate expenses made by me such as the lorry, film equipment, cameras etc and not informing the auditors of their true purpose. You can clearly see from the following evidence these were used in marketing and content creation; TO/02D7 refers to the telescope and lorry purchases, TO/10 refers to now deleted social media evidence showing funding circle purchases were used for marketing as well as the social media post relating to the telescope/lorry.
Furthermore, the directors withheld evidence specifically relating to certain transactions that had been agreed by the board such as my company May 2023 bonus, and an agreed 5% share sale, TO/02F3 shows an email chain outlining this agreement. This gives the appearance as if these had been carried out by myself as theft. Without my involvement in the audit, the auditors would then not be told the truth and shown the evidence relating to said transactions.
79. Hill’s police report was vital in providing credibility of his narrative to shareholders. The claims he made to police were completely false and he mislead police by making a false report where he manipulated and withheld vital evidence to accomplish my arrest, (i.e his own audit). Hampshire police have all the evidence to prove this within the material seized from me March 2024. All of which are in the accompanied evidence pack.
80. Hill also misled our company lawyers; In paragraph 2.12 onwards of TO/06O Hill claims that only I signed the share memorandum of article, I have evidence of multiple shareholders having signed these documents which I can produce in evidence as exhibits TO/14A1 which are received consent emails from shareholders. TO/06O is a statement of truth Hill submitted for our first court hearing showing he is more than willing to blatantly perjure himself and has done so. Furthermore, Hill has claimed he had no involvement in the June 2022 mem and arts update yet TO/14A2 is an email from Hill to the shareholders sent 4th July 2022 stating “following the plethora of documentation you received allowing us to update our memorandum and articles for the business…” showing his full knowledge. TO/04 refers to correspondence with both Hill and Taylor Wessing confirming full knowledge of share ratification making me a 77% shareholder.
81. Because of my unlawful and illegal removal from the company, since the audit has been carried out I have been blocked from the extensive evidence held within my company communications and bank records which would further disprove the allegations against me. Based on the directors behaviour and that they clearly have no ethics when it comes to preservation of evidence concerning this case, there is also a very serious risk that any internal communications that relate to my innocence have been deleted by the company directors and time is of the essence to recover backups before they are also deleted due to company protocols (slack for example only keeps deleted data for 1 year after channel deletion so time is not on my side to recover such documentation as I would require to fight these allegations).
82. Over the last year I have collected evidence from various sources to disprove the allegations against me were false (this has been extremely time consuming without the documents police seized and without access to many communications). I now have enough evidence to prove the directors of the company have committed extensive levels of fraud specifically to hide their own actions.
83. Hill’s speciality is to make a ‘mess’ a lot of noise with the intent to hide the truth, and to make it very difficult and very expensive to disseminate fact from fiction. The evidence pack I now present you has been divided into sections relating to each aspect of this case
85. Exhibits TO/01 refer to Hill and Davenports dismissal documents. Including bank statements showing the pay roll theft
86. Exhibits TO/02 refer to my dismissal. This includes evidence that shows each claim against me has been fabricated. Items highlighted in red have deleted evidence associated with them
90. Exhibits TO/03 refer to the audit: this is a brief audit of the audit, carried out with what access I had to what information at the time. It clearly shows the auditors were misled.
88. Exhibits TO/04 refer to shareholding information showing that I have always been the majority shareholder of the company, and any statements made by Hill about myself intentionally diluting shareholders are fabrications to prevent his removal by me and cause confusion amongst shareholders.
84. Exhibits TO/05 relate to our first court appearance, the use of Paul Norton and Trethowans alongside other individuals to establish the legal position of the company and the legality of the directors actions thus confirming payments made after my unlawful dismissal were not for personal use or gain and were carried out in the interests of the company and the shareholders.
96. Exhibits TO/06 refer to witness statements and court evidence from Hill and Davenport from February 2024 as part of our court hearing. You will find that the evidence in this package proves Hill knowingly perjured himself, signing a statement of truth knowing he lied to the company lawyers on multiple occasions to maintain his fraud.
89. Exhibits TO/07 refer to lawsuits: the lawsuits we currently have against the company and directors. The unfair dismissal case will make all of this public.
93. Exhibits TO/08 refer to shareholder communications including newsletters showing promises made to shareholders and consistently reneged on. Pay particular attention to share ratification and IPO claims.
87. Exhibits TO/09 refer to my directors loan account. Including a timeline of factual events entwined with transactions. It also has the original directors loan account with items I was accused of stealing. Each line is itemised by myself showing the legitimacy of each transaction. Exhibit TO-02F4 was added to this folder on 29/01/25. At this time we are engaging with Escalate, a debt collecting company regarding the falsified directors loan account. This exhibit is a slack message from Hill that has been edited to claim that £40k of my directors loans was in fact an authorised directors loan. He had to edit this message and present it as fact to attempt to void the share deal contract as if the message was true and correct, the share deal contract would be contingent on IPO, which of course, it wasn’t. Unfortunately Hill did not notice that ‘Edited’ had been added to the end of the message, as is standard with any messaging platform, and sent it to my lawyers.
95. Exhibits TO/10 relate to deleted evidence concerning film development equipment and its use by the company which was paid for by funding circle loans, loans that I have been accused of spending on farm equipment in it’s entirety without any evidence supporting this.
91. Exhibits TO/11 refer to Hill’s previous business involvements, his CV and a witness statement from Clare Algar-Blofield. Algrar-Blofield is an ex-business partner of Hill’s and was the owner of ‘Wooferoos’. Wooferoos was an 8 year old dog walking company before Hill partnered with the owner to grow it into a nation dog care business. After collecting investment and being with the company for only 18 days he resigned from his position and attempted to extort £150,000 from the founder/CEO. This resulted in the destruction of her business, a business she had spent 8 years building. Clare is happy to be contacted and interviewed by the police if necessary for purpose of bad character and her witness statement is within this folder.
94. Exhibits TO/11 refer to marketing images used as examples of the work I was creating and content for the site using the camera equipment that has been placed on my personal director loan account. The directors attempted to place the film equipment onto my directors loan account and deleted public facing evidence associated with it when they received evidence in our first court hearing that is contrary to their statements. The funding circle loans had been used for legitimate company purchases, including the purchase of film development equipment for one of our marketing campaigns.
95. Exhibits TO/12 is a folder containing work used to market the platform on the companies social media accounts.
96. Exhibits TO/13 is evidence relating to Red Sprouts social media management company and their lack of results in comparison to the work I carried out.
97. Exhibits TO/14 is the consent to variation of right which contain singed consent forms I have been able to collect from shareholders consenting to the update of the memorandum and articles June 2022.
98. The directors of the company have consistently given timelines for ratification of the shareholding to shareholders in line with Hill’s statement’s that I am not the majority shareholder, in court, and have consistently failed to carry this out to date. The judge in court, ordered the company to establish the shareholding within 30 days, before the vote which took place April 2024.
99. Evidence seized by the police from my house on the day of my arrest will (1) corroborate these events and (2) demonstrate that Hill is happy to perjure himself to the courts and lie to the company lawyers for his own gains as well as lie in statement of truths for court for his own gain.
100. Since I was removed, the company has had its first ever annual drop in revenue, a £200k drop on the previous year. That is the first annual drop in 6 years. This year they also missed their revenue target by circa £1m (£2.2m instead of £3.1m). Exhibit TO/06A page 5 paragraph ‘I’ refers to Hill’s statement where he outlines the company is on course to meet this target, and TO/08H shows this target was missed by 33%. A target that was on course to be hit before I was removed. A target that would have been hit had I not been arrested and had successfully removed Hill and Davenport at the shareholder vote. On top of that, 3 promised IPOs (January/May/November) which have not materialised and a failure to ratify the shareholding as well as both Non-executive directors leaving, one of whom, the Chairman, instantly leaving with no notice period and the other being sacked for asking too many uncomfortable questions. Furthermore circa £300k of shareholders’ funds has been spent on legal bills by Hill to maintain this facade of fraud and lies. These appalling results fully justify my actions after I was illegally removed from the company and that I was acting within my fiduciary duties as a director in the best interests of the company and the shareholders as a whole.
101. To summarise: Jason hill is the most dishonest and untrustworthy individual I have ever had the displeasure to meet who has no regard for the law, police, courts or shareholders (as evidenced not only by this statement but also by his lying on multiple signed statements of truth). He will lie about anything to anyone to increase his own financial status regardless of cost to any other party. He is a serious danger to any company he manages to get himself involved in, as attested to the 27 businesses he has been involved in 23 of which have folded, many shortly after he joined them.
102. Eliza Davenport has assisted Hill in his fraud and in doing so breached her fiduciary duties as a director. Davenport could have been honest and exposed Hill’s behaviour at anytime, thus preventing serious financial and reputational damage to the company as well as myself. Instead, she took company money in unauthorised extraordinary pay rises, extravagant presents and phenomenal trips away, in any other language; bribes, to look the other way, paid for by my company and our shareholders funds.
103. Whilst I may have been naive in hiring Hill, it is clear to me now that he is a con man who looks to take advantage of small businesses. I see now that Hill’s actions were months in the planning, if not from our very first meeting. The ordeal of Hill stealing my company which I invested 10 years in building, getting me arrested, destroying my personal reputation and the reputation of my company has been almost unbearable at times. My physical and mental health is at an all-time low and I can in all honesty say I now understand why so many people do not survive such things.
104. I’ve received two call from funding circle, one 27th February ’25 at 12:09pm and 3rd March at 16:23 asking why the company has stopped making payments to a company loan taken out and used to fund the construction of the new website launched in 2023. I am the sole guarantor for that loan and I believe the directors of the company were (or are) attempting to default on the loan with the intent to force funding circle to pursue me for the outstanding funds. Some circa £50k. He attempted the same with the company credit card (capital on tap) in March of 2024.
105. Given the methodology of my removal, the planned removal of my access to all company communications, and the accusations made after this access removal, plus the presentation of the fabricated evidence to the police, HMRC and associated bodies, it is my firm belief that the directors (Hill/Davenport and Kotecha) planned to blackmail me for my shareholding. ‘Hand over your shareholding or, given you can’t prove the claims are false, spend time in jail for theft’ after all, who wouldn’t want 77% of a £30 million pound company if you could get away with it.
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