{{Short description|English businessman (1954–2022)}} {{EngvarB|date=March 2022}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Cliff Stanford | image = | image_size = | caption = Photo of Stanford | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1954|10|12}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2022|2|24|1954|10|12}} | death_place = Estonia | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = | title = | networth = | height = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}
'''Clifford Martin Stanford''' (born '''Spiegel'''; 12 October 1954 – 24 February 2022) was a British internet entrepreneur from Southend-on-Sea, and the co-founder of Demon Internet, the first Internet service provider in the United Kingdom for individual subscribers.
==Early life== Stanford was born on 12 October 1954 and grew up in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.{{sfn|Everett|2005|p=}}{{sfn|Marks|1998|p=}}{{sfn|Rockman|2022|p=}} His father was a civil servant, but left the family when Stanford was 11; his mother was a book-keeper.{{sfn|Everett|2005|p=}}{{sfn|Cassy|2001|p=}}
By the time he was 14, Stanford was beginning to show a flair for business. He devised a marketing scheme to win a newspaper sales competition at his part-time job. He had learned book-keeping by helping his mother with her work and left school, aged 16, to join an accountancy firm.{{sfn|Marks|1998|p=}}{{sfn|Cassy|2001|p=}}
==Career== ===Demon Internet=== {{main|Demon Internet}} In the early 1990s Pipex began marketing leased line internet connections for £10,000 a year. After recruiting 200 subscribers willing to pay a "tenner a month" for dial-up internet access, in 1992 Stanford co-founded Demon Internet, the first Internet service provider in the United Kingdom for individual subscribers.{{sfn|Rockman|2022|p=}}
Based in Finchley, north London, and initially equipped with eight modems and a single leased line, the company grew quickly, particularly after the appearance of the World Wide Web in 1993. By 1996 Demon Internet had 50,000 subscribers and more than 4,000 modems.<ref name="independent-19960115">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/even-a-millionaire-has-his-demons-1324127.html |title=Even a millionaire has his demons |newspaper=The Independent |date=15 January 1996 |access-date=5 March 2016}}</ref>
===Redbus Investments=== Following the sale of Demon Internet to Scottish Telecom in 1998 for £66 million, Stanford founded Redbus Investments, a venture capital firm involved in film production and a variety of other ventures. Redbus Investments provided seed capital for a number of investments including Redbus Interhouse and Redbus Film Distribution. After a boardroom fall-out at Redbus Interhouse, he resigned in June 2002.{{sfn|Everett|2005|p=}}
In 2003, whilst attempting to gather information about possible wrongdoings by the board of Redbus Interhouse, Stanford discovered and exposed more than £34m of assets of Dame Shirley Porter.{{sfn|Telegraph|2005a|p=}} This resulted directly in her repaying £12m to Westminster Council.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3867387.stm|title=BBC NEWS – UK – Politics – Porter pays £12m to Westminster|date=5 July 2004|publisher=BBC}}</ref>
In September 2005 Stanford was convicted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 of intercepting emails belonging to John Porter, son of Dame Shirley and then chairman of Redbus.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2005/09/15/demon-founder-pleads-guilty-to-email-snooping-39152318/|title=silicon.com Demon founder pleads guilty to email snooping|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403041828/http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2005/09/15/demon-founder-pleads-guilty-to-email-snooping-39152318/|archive-date=3 April 2012}}</ref> Despite pleading guilty, Stanford claimed that what he had done was legal as "someone on the inside ... put in a redirect".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2005/09/16/cliff-stanford-to-appeal-email-snoop-verdict-39152365/|title=silicon.com Cliff Stanford to appeal email snoop verdict|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403041838/http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2005/09/16/cliff-stanford-to-appeal-email-snoop-verdict-39152365/|archive-date=3 April 2012}}</ref> He was given a suspended sentence, ordered to pay a fine of £20,000 and, in a later hearing, was denied leave to appeal.{{sfn|Smith|2005|p=}}
==Personal life== Stanford had a son, Tony, and from 2000 was in a relationship with Sylvia Spruck Wrigley.<ref name="guardian-20001219">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/dec/19/newmedia2 |title=Demon founder laughs off 'stripper' reports in Sunday newspaper |author=Amy Vickers |newspaper=The Guardian |date=19 December 2000 |access-date=5 March 2016}}</ref>
Stanford died from pancreatic cancer in Estonia, on 24 February 2022, at the age of 67.<ref>{{cite news |title=UK internet pioneer Cliff Stanford has died |url=https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/28/demon_internet_founder_dies/ |access-date=1 March 2022 |publisher=The Register |date=28 February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Cliff Stanford obituary |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/cliff-stanford-obituary-tlcsgzqf8 |access-date=4 March 2022 |publisher=The Times |date=3 March 2022}}</ref>
===Chess=== Stanford was a chess enthusiast. He sponsored a Redbus knockout Grandmaster chess event each Easter in Southend since 1999. Following the death of his uncle, Jack Spiegel, who had for many years organised the annual Southend Easter chess congress, Stanford inaugurated a Jack Spiegel Memorial Invitational Tournament, also at Easter and in Southend. The first Redbus event and the first Spiegel Memorial event were each won by James Plaskett.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/chess/malcolmpein/3639483/In-memory-of-jovial-Jack.html| title=In memory of jovial Jack| work=The Telegraph| date=29 March 2005| access-date=7 July 2017}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
===Reference bibliography=== {{refbegin}} * {{cite news|last=Cassy|first=John|title=I'll be bigger than Branson|date=22 December 2001|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/dec/22/internetnews.business|newspaper=The Guardian}} * {{cite news|last=Everett|first=Cath|title=Cliff Stanford: The maverick Internet pioneer|date=16 September 2005|url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/cliff-stanford-the-maverick-internet-pioneer/|newspaper=ZDNet UK}} * {{cite news|last=Marks|first=Kathy|title=Cliff Stanford – Demon of the Internet cashes in his chips to make a fortune|date=1 May 1998|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/in-the-news-cliff-stanford-demon-of-the-internet-cashes-in-his-chips-to-make-a-fortune-1161941.html|newspaper=The Independent}} * {{cite news|ref={{harvid|Telegraph|2005a}}|title=Sir Leslie Porter|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=23 March 2005|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1486217/Sir-Leslie-Porter.html}} * {{cite web| last=Rockman| first=Simon| url=https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/28/demon_internet_founder_dies/| title=UK internet pioneer Cliff Stanford has died| date=28 February 2022| work=The Register}} * {{cite news|last=Smith|first=Lewis|title=Tycoon fined for e-mail spying|date=16 September 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604005917/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article567117.ece|archive-date=4 June 2011|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article567117.ece|newspaper=The Times}} {{refend}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanford, Cliff}} Category:1954 births Category:2022 deaths Category:English company founders Category:People from Southend-on-Sea