Ox Tools Global Holdings Ltd is the UK holding company owned by Dean Hales, second son of PBCC leader Bruce Hales. Companies House filings show the company's shareholders, its share classes, and the dividends paid on those shares annually. What those filings revealed was, on first reading, surprising.
The largest single holder of preference shares in the company is Lee Hazell — a former member of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church who has been ex-communicated, is not employed by Ox Tools, and owns no ordinary shares in the business. He receives £448,350 per year.
Understanding the Share Structure
Ox Tools Global Holdings has three types of shares, each with very different characteristics:
The Preference Share Payments
The three classes of preference shares and their annual payments are as follows:
14,945,030 shares · £14.9m value Lee Hazell
Ex-communicated 3% £448,350
per year
9,510,474 shares Jim & Penny Hazell
Lee's parents 3% £285,314
per year
24,455,504 shares · Added 25 Jan 2025 Not yet disclosed 7% £1.7m+
Holders TBC
"A former member who has been ex-communicated, is not employed by Ox Tools and owns no ordinary shares, receiving £448,000 per year. This is somewhat unusual."
Brethren Exposed Investigation — January 2025The Hazell Family
The Hazell family are described as having by far the closest links to the Hales family of any UK Brethren household. Understanding their connections helps explain why these payments are significant beyond the figures themselves.
The Community Question
The PBCC's doctrine of separation is applied with considerable rigour when an ordinary member leaves — or is ex-communicated. Family members who remain in fellowship are expected to cut contact entirely. The consequences for most ex-members are severe: family relationships severed, community support removed, careers disrupted.
For the vast majority of PBCC members who leave or are asked to leave, ex-communication means total separation. They lose contact with family members still in fellowship, may lose employment in Brethren-connected businesses, and are cut off from the community network they have known throughout their lives. The payments described in this investigation represent a significantly different experience of departure — one apparently available to those closest to the Hales family.
Against this backdrop, the discovery that Lee Hazell — an ex-communicated member — is receiving £448,350 per year from a company owned by Dean Hales, while reportedly still living in a £4 million family home alongside his still-in-fellowship family, raises questions that go beyond corporate structure. They go to how the rules of the PBCC apply — or do not apply — depending on your proximity to its leadership.
The Preference C Mystery
On 25 January 2025, the day before this investigation was published, Ox Tools Global Holdings added a new class of preference shares — Preference C — consisting of 24,455,504 shares at a dividend rate of 7% per annum. The annual payment this creates is over £1.7 million per year. The identity of the Preference C holders had not been filed at Companies House at the time of publication. This investigation will be updated when that information becomes available.
Update: Lee Hazell Back in Fellowship
Following the publication of this investigation on Brethren Exposed, information was received stating that Lee Hazell had returned to the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church as of that week. Whether this is connected to the publication of these findings, or was a pre-existing development, is not known.