They had the shiny new BMWs in the car park and a generous bank overdraft at their disposal. With investors’ cash about to flow in, they could pay themselves salaries of £200,000 a year.

Like thousands of other modern entrepreneurs, they hoped to turn a quick profit from trading in wind power and other forms of green energy.

Labour’s push to generate 10% of Britain’s energy from green sources by the end of the decade has created a boom time likened by one expert last week to the South Sea Bubble.

Nathan and Rees hoped that their new company, Pure Energy & Power, would take advantage of generous government subsidies, European grants and an eagerness by the City and banks to invest without doing proper due diligence.

For they had a dirty secret. Nathan was not the respectable lawyer with a PhD in economics that he made himself out to be. Fellow inmates at Wandsworth prison had known him as Ronnie, a serial fraudster who could not resist a con. It was in prison that he met Rees, a disgraced private detective, who was serving a seven-year sentence for attempting to plant drugs on a client’s wife.

Given their dubious backgrounds, they needed someone who could give them credibility and open the door to the corridors of power. Enter Professor Ian Fells.

The emeritus professor at Newcastle University is one of Britain’s foremost experts on green energy. He is from an elite band of academics — alongside Susan Greenfield and Colin Blakemore — who have won the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday prize for scientific work.

His expertise is much sought after. He was the science adviser to the World Energy Council for 11 years until 1998 and is also an energy adviser to the European Union.

He is particularly close to senior British government officials after acting as an adviser for cabinet and select committees. This week he will be in London to advise officials engaged in rewriting the energy white paper.

Despite his many commitments, he is still available for hire. He runs Fells Associates which advises the nuclear lobby and a series of high- profile corporations. One of its services is “high quality and informed intelligence” for clients.

Fells was first approached by Nathan in autumn last year. At the time Pure Energy was seeking £250,000 in grants from government. According to board minutes, the company was seeking to lobby “MPs, MEPs and other influential people such as Professor Fells”.

It was very persuasive. Within weeks Fells had agreed to become head of Pure Energy’s advisory board. His name appeared on its prospectus for investors alongside the words “government adviser”.

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