TL;DR:

• A central London property CEO pleaded guilty to submitting fake objection letters aimed at blocking the reopening of the LGBTQ+ nightclub Heaven.
• AI-detection software flagged the letters as almost certainly machine-written; the purported authors either did not exist or did not live at the stated addresses.
• The Metropolitan Police say two further live cases involve suspected AI-generated false representations, suggesting the licensing and planning systems face a wider abuse pattern.

Aldo d’Aponte, 47, CEO of Arbitrage Group Properties, pleaded guilty to making false statements over two letters submitted to Westminster council during the 2024 hearing that followed Heaven’s licence suspension. He was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £111 in costs and surcharges. The use of AI was not relied on by the CPS in court, but a Met source has confirmed AI-generated complaints are “a growing issue”.

How the letters were unmasked

Planning KC Philip Kolvin, who acted pro bono for the club during the original licensing dispute, investigated the complaints after their uniform style and tone raised his suspicions. AI-detection tools rated them as almost certainly generated, and the addresses given for several “authors” could not be verified. IP addresses linked two of the letters directly to d’Aponte. Kolvin’s comment is telling: “This whole situation is open to abuse if councils are not alert to this problem.”

The UK regulatory gap

Westminster is not alone. Planning committees, licensing hearings, parish councils and public consultations across the UK rely on written submissions that carry little identity verification. Generative AI makes it trivial to produce dozens of individually worded objection letters with fabricated local detail — a scale of interference that was previously rare because writing each letter by hand was costly. Kolvin’s investigation was driven by unpaid professional curiosity; most councils do not have the capacity to run AI-detection passes on consultation responses, let alone trace IP addresses.

Looking forward

Expect this case to be cited in emerging UK guidance on consultation integrity. The Met’s confirmation of two further live investigations suggests enforcement will follow the evidence, but the deeper policy question is whether local authorities need authenticated-identity submission systems for licensing and planning decisions. If they do, the compliance burden on legitimate objectors and the cost of deploying verification at every council will become the next argument — and the UK has no clear lead department to resolve it.