A box office flop!

Wednesday 21 January 2015

The “Crystal Island” film that received £200,000 worth of taxpayers’ money looks unlikely to ever get made, according to the minister in charge.

Senator Lyndon Farnham – who took over as Economic Development Minister a few weeks ago, long after the row about the grant blew up – says that although he’s waiting for a report from his staff, he doesn’t think the movie will be making it to the big screen.

And he says that he’s probably going to have to write-off the £200,000 worth of taxpayers money that was handed over to the film-makers.

“I am waiting for an update from officers on the latest position, but my feeling is that I should be surprised if the project goes much further,” said Senator Farnham.

“While I would be reluctant to write-off taxpayers money, I think that we have got to be realistic and use our energies to focus on things that may well bear fruit in the future.”

Last January, it emerged that background reports by the department and a Scrutiny panel had failed to uncover that the man behind the scheme had convictions for theft dating back to 1993 – for defrauding investors who thought their money was going into film projects - and that he had been disqualified from being a company director.

And in June, then-Economic Development Minister Alan Maclean told politicians that the production of “The Crystal Island”– which was said, after several delays, to be due to shoot in Jersey over the summer - had been suspended because the producers had run out of money.