Lennon’s Secret Agent

By NICK LOWLES

Tucked away on an industrial estate in north Bedfordshire, behind a door with no signage or indication as to the identity of its owners, is a warehouse that is home to a highly profitable clothing company in which Stephen and Jenna Lennon have a substantial – though undisclosed – financial interest.

By the autumn of 2018 Stephen Lennon was bringing in so much money in donations from his political work that he decided to invest and diversify. One outlet for this new money was Designer Labels Direct Int. Ltd (DLDI), which operates under the street label Casual Basement, a designer clothes company specialising in brands popular with young men (and particularly with football hooligans) such as Stone Island and CP Clothing.

“I know that is his baby,” Bobs, the former partner of Lennon’s uncle Kev Carroll, told HOPE not hate. “They were all so secretive. Kev used to remind me that no-one could know it was his. He just got people to run it.”

“He bragged about it a lot,” says a former member of Lennon’s ‘Team Tommy’ inner group, speaking on the promise of anonymity. “We all knew he had some financial stake in it. He would offer us trips down there.”

Even Jenna Lennon’s father has boasted to friends that his son-in-law owned a clothing outlet with links to Italy, and which brought in thousands every month.

Casual Basement is one of the country’s biggest suppliers of Stone Island and CP Clothing menswear. The business, which operates primarily online, has used current and former professional boxers and MMA fighters, such as Carl Froch, to promote its services. Lennon has posed with many of these fighters as they admired various articles of clothing and has also featured in several videos promoting the outlet.

Designer Labels Direct Int.Ltd (DLDI) was established in October 2018 by Karen and James Benton, long-time associates of Lennon from his Luton days, and was initially registered to a business address in Shoreditch, east London. HOPE not hate has now been told that the company was in fact owned equally by James Benton and Lennon, with Lennon being a silent partner whose name does not appear on the paperwork.

“James had the background in the clothing business and could source the clothing, but Lennon had the name, audience reach and ultimately the money”, someone with knowledge of the arrangement between the two people told HOPE not hate.

Like most of Lennon’s business affairs, it operated through his now ex-wife Jenna. Three days before DLDI was incorporated, the Lennons bought thousands of pounds of stock from Avona SRL, an Italian clothing wholesaler based in Ravenna, a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. This appears to have provided the soon-to-be-formed DLDI with its initial product.

A month after the company was created, DLDI changed its registered address to Bramingham Business and Conference Centre on Enterprise Way in Luton, the same building from which six of Stephen and Jenna Lennon’s other companies operated.

The clothes were sold at greatly reduced prices to other mainstream outlets, discounts made possible because Benton bought end-of-line stock straight from the company. Benton had been in the clothing business for some time and it was not long before he moved out to Italy himself. In September 2021, he established Moda Sportswear Srl, based in Modena, also in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.

Casual Basement initially operated from Enterprise House, in Silsoe, the same Bedfordshire town where the Lennons were living at the time, but 20 miles away from the Bentons’ home base. In November 2019, Casual Basement moved to the Wilstead Industrial Park, and even further away from the Bentons’ home.

In January 2021, ownership of DLDI was taken over by Samville Ltd, a company run by Andre Samson, arguably Lennon’s oldest and closest friend. In his 2015 book Enemy of the State, Lennon writes about how he and Samson bought a Porsche when they were teenagers. In 2005, a few years before the EDL was formed, Samson and Lennon were both directors of Maximum Trading Ltd, which declared its business as “development and sell (sic) real estate”. More recently, Samson worked for Lennon at Rebel Media, where he was paid £3,000 a month, despite having no obvious role within the operation. Samson, then operating under the name Andre Major (believed to be his mother’s maiden name) left Rebel at the end of January 2018, a week before Lennon himself packed it in.

Andre Samson has denied that Lennon had any financial stake in the company. “I am 100% owner of my business and I can categorically confirm that Stephen Lennon has no financial interest in my business and never has,” he told HOPE not hate.

He also refuted any claims that Lennon receives free clothes from the warehouse or that Lennon has given free clothing to others. “With respect I would have no idea what he does with his own clothes.”

Karen and James Benton declined to comment to HOPE not hate on their ownership of DLDI and refused to discuss their possible connection to Lennon. Unsurprisingly, Lennon denied any involvement in Casual Basement.

However, we would suggest that Lennon’s disclaimers are contradicted by his own actions and boasts. In November 2018, he performed a livestream from the Casual Basement warehouse, where he claimed that he promoted the company to his supporters in return for free clothes. It was one of several videos and photos that Lennon uploaded at the time from inside the warehouse.

HOPE not hate has also obtained a video of Lennon locking up the Casual Basement warehouse after a visit from one generous customer. Having the keys to a business to which he claims to be unconnected would seem to be rather unlikely.

Bobs remembers going to the Casual Basement warehouse in Silsoe with Kev Carroll in 2019. “Kev was quite open that Lennon ran the place,” she remembers. “He picked out a new Stone Island jacket from there and of course he didn’t have to pay for it.” This was one of three Stone Island jackets, each with an apparent retail price in excess of £500, that Carroll was to be gifted from the outlet.
Most damning of all, we have also learnt that Jenna Lennon has received at least £150,000 from DLDI and a further £50,000 from James Benton directly.

There is further evidence that throws doubt on James and Karen Benton’s ownership of Casual Basement. Only a few weeks after setting up DLDI, the couple opened a pizzeria in Harpenden. If they had in fact just opened a mail-order clothing business, it seems highly unlikely that they would take on the added burden of opening a restaurant in a different town 30 miles away. Again, Karen and James Benton did not respond to questions.

In 2021, at the time of Lennon’s declared bankruptcy, DLDI had assets of £541,000 and profits of £196,000. Some of those assets and profits could/should have been made available to pay back his creditors but, instead, they remained undisclosed and hidden in his now ex-wife’s bank account. Lennon continues to deny any connection to the company. This is now demonstrably untrue.

Potential crimes committed

Evidence obtained by HOPE not hate suggests that the Lennons could have broken multiple laws in their dealings with Casual Basement. These include:

1. Bankruptcy Fraud. Lying about assets during bankruptcy proceedings, transferring assets, providing false information in bankruptcy paperwork and failing to disclose income are all deemed serious criminal offences in the UK, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment, the extension of bankruptcy restrictions, fines, or asset seizures.
2. Perjury. Lennon failed to disclose any involvement or interest in DLDI during court hearings related to his bankruptcy. If deliberate and under oath this constitutes perjury, which also carries a seven-year custodial sentence.
3. Acting unlawfully as a shadow director. Under UK law, an individual who is declared bankrupt is automatically disqualified from acting as a company director or being involved in the management of a company without the court’s permission. This disqualification includes acting as a shadow director. A shadow director is defined as a person in accordance with whose directions or instructions the directors of a company are accustomed to act.