Jason Perry’s reputation for non-delivery took another huge leap forward today with the news that a senior figure involved with the Chinese property company that owns the landmark Nestlé Tower in the town centre is wanted in the United States over allegations of paying back-handers to local government officials to obtain permits for a construction project.

Towering embarrassment: Mayor Perry claimed he is going to hold talks with the Chinese developers

Only last week, Croydon’s part-time but very self-important Mayor was briefing that he was going to Get! Something! Done! about the stalled £500million development of the Nestlé Tower and the surrounding “Queen’s Quarter”.

“I very much want to get that moving,” Perry said, self-importantly.

“I am hopeful that they are coming in for a meeting soon to find out what they are doing.”

“They” are the Chinese developer Guangzhou R&F Properties Co Ltd, but the chances of anyone from R&F coming in to Croydon Town Hall for a friendly little chat over a cup of tea in the Mayor’s Parlour with Perry seems diminishingly small.

Zhang Li, the billionaire chief exec of R&F, is effectively under house arrest after paying a £15million bail bond following a court session in London yesterday, where it was heard that a provisional warrant issued in the Northern District of California accuses him of participating in a scheme to bribe public officials in San Francisco.

R&F issued a statement overnight saying that the company would be fighting this “false accusation”.

A lawyer for US prosecutors told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the scheme involved the payment of bribes to officials for the benefit of an R&F-associated company, Z&L Properties Inc, which is based in the US and owned by Zhang.

The news of Zhang’s court case saw 13per cent of the value wiped off R&F’s share price on the Hong Kong stockmarket overnight.

Bailed out: R&F CEO Zhang Li

Until around three years ago, Zhang’s company was one of a handful of acquisitive “Chinese Tiger” developers with multi-billion property interests around the globe. But with the crash in the Chinese economy in 2020, linked to the covid pandemic, their various schemes – including in Croydon – all came to a grinding halt.

R&F, based near Hong Kong, acquired its Croydon properties – the Nestlé Tower, St George’s Walk beneath it and the neighbouring Grade II-listed Segas House – in a £60million deal in March 2017.

The Nestlé Tower has been standing vacant since the eponymous confectionary company quit Croydon (in a huff with the Tory-run council) in 2012.

R&F’s plans, all approved by officials in Croydon Council’s planning department, proposed three tower blocks across the site. Work on a £500million Queen’s Square project got underway in 2019, with the beginning of the repurposing of the 22-storey Nestlé office block into 288 private flats. But that all stopped in 2020, with the scaffolding erected remaining in place around the block ever since.

In 2021, R&F was reported in China as struggling to meet the Beijing government’s rules to reduce developers’ debt. Twelve months ago, a statement from the company said, “We remain committed to the borough, and are reviewing timelines for construction as our well-established vision for creating world-class regeneration and long-lasting investment opportunity in the area gets underway.”

Since when, nothing has happened.

Zhang, 69, is reported by Forbes magazine as being worth $2.3billion.

In court yesterday, Judge John Zani granted bail and imposed a 24-hour curfew on Zhang. The judge also said Zhang must be handcuffed to a member of his court-appointed private security team when he left his house for the purposes of attending court.

Presumably, the same conditions might be required if Zhang is ever to come to Croydon for tea with Mayor Perry…

The Croydon Sadvertiser last week reported cheerily that the project was to get right back on track. It quoted unnamed sources as saying that R&F was about to have talks with the Mayor over the Queen’s Quarter project.

Scandal: How Al Jazeera was reporting the story today

It all turns out to be Chinese whispers, with the only person named in the article in the little-read organ being the £81,000 per year Mayor himself.

He said: “I don’t like that we have that site stalled – I very much want to get that moving and get some investment in that site. We have heard that R&F have had difficulties elsewhere, I am hopeful that they are coming in for a meeting soon to find out what they are doing.”

Zhang’s extradition case and the lack of progress over the prestigious town centre site is just the latest example of Tory Perry’s impotency. Election promises to re-open Purley Pool and the announcement that he was bringing an interactive arts experience into the old Allders building have both so far failed to deliver, while the town centre continues to fester thanks to the inaction over the Westfield project that was instigated by Perry’s Tory chums Gavin Barwell and Boris Johnson.

Perry has proved more successful, however, in getting a healthy school street stopped from being implemented on a road parallel to his £1.3million house close to Lloyd Park.

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By dr Bill Lipsky-

Perry Watkins knew from an early age that he was gay. His family knew. His friends at school in Tacoma, where he grew up, knew. Even the United States Army knew. Always open and truthful about himself, he told them when he filled out the paperwork for his required Selective Service physical in 1967, marking yes to the question, “Do you have homosexual tendencies?” He told them again at the induction center when he was called up for service in 1968. The Army did not seem to care.

Although the military did not have a policy that specifically forbade gay men and lesbians from serving until 1982, the mere possibility of same-sex intimacy disqualified them from joining its ranks. According to a Pentagon statement in 1966, “The presence of homosexuals would seriously impair discipline, good order, morals, and the security of our armed forces.” Even the rapidly escalating need to conscript troops for the war in Vietnam did not change this official position, although it encouraged some recruiters to look the other way.

During his induction examination, Watkins was evident about his sexuality. Asked by an Army psychiatrist why he had checked “homosexual tendencies” on his questionnaire, he specified the intimacies he enjoyed with other men. That led to a second interview with another psychiatrist, who verified he “has had homosexual tendencies in the past,” but was now “qualified for induction.” Watkins, a self-acknowledged sexually active, openly gay Black man, became a duly recruited, openly gay member of the United States Armed Forces.

When he completed basic training, Watkins joined a program to become a chaplain’s assistant. He had attended classes for less than two days when the school’s commandant told him, “You can’t complete this course because you’re an admitted homosexual.” Watkins then demanded his release from the service, but he never received it. “Too queer to be a chaplain’s assistance, but … not too queer to be in the Army,” Watkins found that his superiors apparently could not determine “that he was indeed homosexual … enough to warrant a discharge.”

The year after he completed his first term of service, Watkins decided to enlist for a second term of service. Except as a female impersonator on weekends, he had been unable to find a good job. Besides, he wanted the educational opportunities the military could provide him. Once again, he told the Army’s recruiters he was gay. Once again, they reviewed his service record, which confirmed that he was “a practicing homosexual,” and accepted him as “eligible for reentry on active duty” for three more years.

This time, however, he brought company: his drag persona Simone. As with everything in his life, Watkins made no secret of Simone, who was to perform in Army clubs across Europe. She was not the first female impersonator to entertain the troops, but she certainly became the most famous and most successful of her era. Stars and Stripes, the military’s daily newspaper, gave her a rave review, writing, “She Makes the 56th Artillery Brigade Flip.” Simone even won an Oktoberfest beauty pageant, the only contestant born male.

During his second tour of duty, Watkins continued to live as an openly gay man and he continued to tell his superiors the truth about himself. In 1972, however, his sexuality became an issue twice for the Army. First, he was denied a security clearance because, as a known homosexual, he could be blackmailed by enemy agents. It took time, but Watkins eventually convinced the higher-ups that nobody could threaten to “out” someone who was “out” already. He got his clearance.

Not long afterwards, Watkins was investigated because a “confidential informant” had told the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) that he was gay, something the Army had known for five years. The CID found lots of evidence of Watkins’ homosexuality, but finally ended its inquiry because he refused “to furnish any investigative leads,” meaning he declined to “name names.” At the end of his second tour in 1974, Watkins was reenlisted for another six years.

The Army discovered yet again in 1975 and 1977 that Watkins had “homosexual tendencies,” but allowed his “favorite drag queen” to enlist for a fourth tour of duty in 1979. “There is no evidence,” one review board concluded, “suggesting that his behavior has had either a degrading effect upon unit performance, morale, or discipline, or upon his own job performance.” Soon after, it revoked his security clearance once again, primarily because he did “not deny that he is a homosexual,” a truth he had confirmed repeatedly.

Once again, Watkins appealed the decision. When he heard nothing back for many months, he filed a lawsuit in federal district court to have his clearance reinstated. The military was not pleased. It responded with a notification that it had initiated action to recommend its discharge. In October 1982, the Federal District Court found in Watkins’ favor, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision the next year. Watkins was separated from the service at the end of his enlistment period in 1984, 16 years after his induction.

Watkins challenged his discharge in court, arguing that the military’s policy of excluding gays and lesbians was unconstitutional. In 1989, the Ninth Circuit Court finally agreed with him in Watkins v. United States Army, stating that “the exclusion of homosexuals from military service violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” a decision the Supreme Court declined to review. For the first time, the Army was ordered to return an openly gay man to active military duty after dismissing him for homosexuality.

After the decision, Watkins initially planned to reenlist, but instead accepted a retroactive promotion to sergeant first class, $135,000 in back pay, full retirement benefits, and an honorable discharge. Dying of complications from AIDS on March 17, 1996, he did not live to see the transformations that now allow openly gay men, lesbians, bisexual and transgender men and women to serve in the military. Because of his frankness, courage, and perseverance against hypocrisy and homophobia, he helped to make the changes happen, moving equality forward for us all.

Bill Lipsky, Ph.D., author of “Gay and Lesbian San Francisco” (2006), is a member of the Rainbow Honor Walk board of directors.

Published on February 24, 2022

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