Dubai: "I am not running away. I'm just trying to move on," Nicholas Warner, the man best known as Dubai's homeless Briton told XPRESS on the phone minutes away from the boarding gate at the Dubai airport on August 15.
Warner hit the headlines last month when he was found roughing it out in Dubai Creek Park because of outstanding bank debts.
And while he may have spent several weeks sleeping on park benches, the days ahead could bring about a dramatic turnaround of fame and fortune.
Book deal
The 42- year-old plans to share his experience in a book. "Yes, I have got a book deal waiting for me in the UK," he says.
Warner was detained at the Dubai airport in December last year and had his passport confiscated when he was returning to the city from a holiday.
It was a Catch-22 situation. He couldn't repay the bank without a job; he couldn't get a job without a passport; and he couldn't get his passport back as long as he owed the bank money
"When I left on holiday, I had a car loan with Standard Chartered, which I was paying through NBD post-dated cheques. As soon as I was out of the country, NBD froze my account. I requested Standard Chartered not to encash the NBD cheques and instead accept monthly cash payments from me. Which they did. But they also encashed the cheques I had asked them not to [encash]."
"At that point, I had already been arrested because of a case filed by NBD," says Warner.
"I was led by NBD to believe that I owed them the unpaid loan and credit card amounts, which, along with interest, added up to Dh237,180. At one point, I had a benefactor pledging Dh150,000 to the bank against my loans and they turned it down.
"Prior to that I offered to pay the bank Dh32,000 against my credit card which they turned down, saying the amount had now reached Dh37,180, from the original amount of Dh15,000," says Warner. Since then, the Briton claims he did his best to reach an agreement with the bank. "I was told that I had to pay Dh237,180 as a lump sum."
Prayers answered
"I first made contact with Nic [Warner] when I joined an online discussion on a local website," says Johnny D. who helped Warner find his way back to the UK. Johnny says he used his contacts with the police to find out the status of Warner's case.
"What I discovered was that NBD had only filed a case on Warner against his credit card amount which had now risen to Dh41,844. The remaining Dh195,000 which was outstanding against his loan, hadn't been reported to the court.
"All Warner needed to do, in order to reclaim his passport, was bypass the bank and pay the outstanding amount of Dh41,844 to public prosecution and get his passport back," says Johnny.
Warner did as instructed and left for London on a Gulf Air flight last Sunday. However, before boarding the flight, there were further bumps along the way. Warner wasn't given an immigration clearance due to a problem with his visa status. "The authorities told me that my last employer had filed an absconding case against me," said Warner.
Fortunately, a solution presented itself in the form of a one-year immigration ban in exchange for his flight to freedom.
The big fight
Speaking exclusively to XPRESS from the immigration area at Dubai airport, Warner said he is planning to take legal action against Standard Chartered. "NBD is just a local institution without an international presence. It's not a battle I want to fight. With Standard Chartered, however, I will make sure that their methods don't go unnoticed."
To that end, Warner has a publicist, a financial advisor and even "some members of the UK parliament about whom I can't reveal more at this stage," on his side.
"I'm not doing this for revenge," he says. "I have nothing against Dubai. It's a beautiful city and many a dream have come true here. But just as many have been destroyed. Dubai has so much potential and yet everything is ruined because banks have so much free reign, and it is this lack of infrastructure that lets Dubai down.