A company director who defrauded investors in his firm out of just under £3 million is “penniless” and unable to repay any of the money, a court heard.
Alan Chandler, 46, of Torrance Drive, Melton Mowbray, was jailed for seven years in July after he pleaded guilty to three charges of fraud.
Lincoln Crown Court heard Chandler persuaded a venture capital company to invest in his Stamford-based green energy company Soleil Holdings Ltd using a forged document to support his story that he was a multi-millionaire.
Following Chandler’s conviction a financial investigation was carried out to determine if he could pay any of the money back.
A Proceeds of Crime Hearing at Lincoln Crown Court on Monday, October 2, heard that only a “nominal” confiscation order could be made against Chandler.
Jon Dee, prosecuting, told the court: “He is penniless and in considerable debt, the Crown accept that.”
Recorder Helen Malcolm QC adjourned the hearing until October 23 for the prosecution to decide if they wanted to contest a sum of just under £3 million as the criminal benefit made by Chandler.
The sentencing hearing was told previously that Chandler falsely claimed his company was thriving when it was actually struggling.
The men behind the venture capital company were persuaded to invest more and more money on the promise that the firm was about to become a success.
But instead they lost every penny of their money when the company finally collapsed owing debts including staff wages.
Recorder Paul Mann QC, passing sentence in July, told Chandler: “If the investors had known the truth they would have cut their losses. As it was they became sucked into making more payments as a result of your assurances. They have lost every penny they invested with you. You just fed them lies.
“You created a fictional lifestyle. In every sense of the word you have lived your life as a professional conman.”
The judge said he accepted that Soleil Holdings had the potential to become a successful business but added: “Your desire to get rich quick is one of the reasons why the business failed.”
Mr Dee said that Chandler, whom the investors knew under his original name of Mark Lamb, told people his business, which grew straw and converted it into electricity, was thriving.
He obtained investment from Fredrik Werner and Agne Svensson who operated through a Monaco-based venture capital company Marine Life. The two men had checked out Soleil and found no issues with the company.
They were then given a series of presentations by Chandler in which he made out he was a wealthy man who was backed by millions of pounds of personal wealth.
To support his story he produced documents showing that he had received 150,000 shares worth £5 million following his departure from a previous company.
Greg Johnson, in mitigation, previously told the court: “This was a company that was viable. It could have succeeded. He was trying to make the company succeed.
“The investment did not go to him. It went primarily into the company.”
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Cross Keys Bridge in Sutton Bridge, a key connection between Lincolnshire and Norfolk, will close overnight this week for emergency repair works.
The bridge, which carries the A17 road between Lincolnshire and Norfolk, will close from 7pm on Thursday, April 22 to 6am the following day.
This is so that one of the bridge’s hydraulic jacks, which allow it to open and close, can be repaired, and it will have to swing open to allow engineers to access it.
There will be very limited temporary pedestrian access across the bridge while shift changeover takes place from 9.45pm to 10.15pm on the Thursday of the closure.
This is so that workers can park on the opposite bank and walk over to or from work, as there will be no vehicle or pedestrian access over the bridge during the night.
The diversion route overnight will be via the A1101 to Wisbech, then back along the A47 to rejoin the A17, and vice versa.
Karen Cassar, assistant director for highways at Lincolnshire County Council, said: “After noting the fault with the bridge mechanism, it’s really important that we get it repaired as soon as possible to maintain both the A17, and shipping access on the river.
“We’ve tried to minimise disruption by carrying out the works overnight and allowing pedestrian access for those workers finishing their shifts or heading into work around 10pm. However, I appreciate this will still cause delays for some drivers so thank you for bearing with us.”
A man on trial accused of murdering two female sex workers 21 years apart told an undercover officer he had killed a woman.
Gary Allen, 47, is currently on trial at Sheffield Crown Court and is accused of strangling Samantha Class, 29, whose beaten body was found by three schoolchildren on the banks of the Humber at North Ferriby in October 1997.
However, Allen, who previously lived in Grimsby, has denied killing Ms Class and the murder of 38-year-old Slovakian woman Alena Grlakova in 2018.
Grlakova’s naked body was found in a stream in Rotherham in April 2019 after she was last seen on Boxing Day the year before, which she spent with Allen. They had been “casual acquaintances” with Allen paying her for sex.
She was strangled “either by direct pressure or the use of a ligature” and her “body was weighed down in order to impede detection”. A murder inquiry was later launched by South Yorkshire Police in relation to Alena’s death.
Jurors heard how Mr Allen had a “strong dislike of sex workers”. Both women had worked in the sex industry at the time of their deaths.
Mr Allen was first arrested in July 1998 after he was stopped on suspicion of drink driving. During police interviews he told officers he drove to the red light area of Hull on October 25, 1997, according to BBC.
He paid Ms Class £30 for sex, but also told police she “got angry” and he last saw her walking away from his car some time between 12.30am and 1am.
Allen was eventually charged with murder, but found not guilty by a jury in 2000. The court was told he was previously acquitted of Ms Class’ murder in February of that year, but “significantly more evidence” had since come to light.
The court heard that months after his acquittal, the defendant had attacked two sex workers in Plymouth, for which he was convicted.
Two years later, he reportedly told probation officers of his fantasies about hurting sex workers, desiring them as “scum” and the “the lowest of the low”, according to Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC.
He also said that a pathologist found Ms Class had been stamped on, strangled with a ligature and run over with a car before her body went int the water. He added that semen found inside her body matched Mr Allen’s DNA.
Humberside Police launched an undercover operation in 2010 and an officer referred to as “Ian” befriended Mr Allen. During their conversations, he told him that he had strangled a sex worker who got angry with him and “dumped her in the Humber”.
Allen also previously admitted to liking blood and enjoying causing pain to his victims, the court heard on Monday, April 19.
Mr Allen, of no fixed address, denies two counts of murder and the trial is expected to last for around eight weeks.
Fantasy Island Skegness has crawled into the ongoing caterpillar cat fight between Marks & Spencer and Aldi by ‘cocooning’ the Crazy Caterpillar ride in solidarity with Aldi.
Supermarket chains M&S and Aldi are currently involved in a legal battle after M&S claimed that Aldi’s ‘Cuthbert the Caterpillar’ cake infringes the trademarks of its own ‘Colin the Caterpillar’.
M&S filed a claim against Aldi in the High Court on April 14, and is suing the budget supermarket as well as demanding that Cuthbert is removed from Aldi shelves.
The company claim Cuthbert shares “substantial similarity” with Colin, and they are pledging to “protect” their Caterpillar cake from plagiarism.
Aldi, which introduced their caterpillar confectionary almost thirty years after M&S did theirs, has been posting a series of memes in response to the lawsuit, demanding that we #FreeCuthbert.
Fantasy Island, the theme park in Ingoldmells, joined in the debate with a tongue-in-cheek move, saying they will close the Crazy Caterpillar ride in solidarity with Aldi and to not offend Marks & Spencer.
The resort created a cheeky post on Facebook with #FreeCuthbert on it, truly showing which side of history it wants to be on.
It’s proved a valuable publicity move for the attraction’s social media page, with more than 4,000 ‘reactions’ to the post.
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