Tom Hartley: The Dealmaker

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Another grave belongs to John Creery Ferguson who was the first doctor in Ireland to access a stethoscope –"he would have been the first doctor here to hear the beating heart of a child in the womb"– and there are many others. By his own admission, Hartley isn’t a petrolhead, even though his knowledge is certainly prodigious. For a chat with a proper enthusiast, you need to buttonhole Carl. I have often asked myself why in my youth did I not have that curiosity, the determination to find out and to understand. I don't know," he confesses.

They’ve started taking the piss out of customers,” he rails, “with cars like the 488 Pista, which it charges a fortune for but which isn’t really that different [from the regular 488 GTB]. I love Lamborghinis and the straight-forward people who tend to buy them. Like that most famous of Lambo owners, Rod Stewart. That was probably Drumbo Church of Ireland and I don't know who it was they were burying," Hartley, who represented the Falls area on Belfast City Council for many years, says. Tom Hartley in Balmoral Cemetery –'You will always find what you are not looking for'. Picture by Mal McCannEven as a child growing up on the Falls I wondered to myself what was the difference between subscribing and non-subscribing Presbyterianism and so on. Then when I started my research I found out that basically they represented different tensions within Presbyterianism that had to do with interpretations around the central idea of the Reformation, the right of the individual to interpret scripture, and the idea of an organised church. It was an Eureka moment," Hartley tells me. "All these years I had been wondering why I was so contrary and argumentative and then I discover I have Presbyterianism in my DNA!" A spokeswoman for the SFO told Car Dealer today: ‘On November 9, 2023, the SFO confirmed it would no longer be proceeding with its prosecution of Mr Hartley for failure to comply with an SFO investigation. Hartley is a keen cyclist and still conducts regular tours of Belfast's old cemeteries. Although this is book number three in his graveyard series, there may yet be more, he hints. There was a tremendous emphasis on the importance of education," he says. The fact chimes deeply with Hartley, who left school at 15 without qualifications to take up a job as a messenger and who for a long time felt a gap in his own education.

Nelson (1873- 1961) who joined the Royal Artillery regiment of the British army in 1894, is buried in Milltown Cemetery in Belfast, which Hartley researched for his last book, published five years ago. Now the best part of all of this is when you just cannot find a certain piece of information and then suddenly you come across it and it makes everything else fall into place. That is so gratifying." But what impressed Hartley most from his studies was the realisation that Presbyterians opened around 80 schools and colleges across Belfast. Now the sheet of glass is covered by the P1. There’s a Bugatti Veyron next to it, several more Lamborghinis and, on the other side of the showroom, a Porsche 918 Spyder and Carrera GT. It took me a long time to get my head around the church as an organisation against the individual conscience."TOM Hartley has a core "law of history" he always refers to: "You will always find what you are not looking for." I don’t doubt it. Hartley’s combination of self-belief, experience and sound business acumen should get him through even this steadily tumultuous economic storm. As a responsible prosecutor, we must ensure all our cases meet the evidential and public interest tests set by the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and information submitted by Mr Hartley on September 25, 2023 means that the evidential test is no longer satisfied.’