The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that three men were sentenced to prison at Southwark Crown Court on 9 February 2024, all of whom pleaded guilty to fraudulently laundering £12m worth of life savings. The three men tricked 350 people into investing their life savings in non-existent and worthless shares over a two and a half year period. The lead organiser, Jonathan Arafiena, was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison, Kofi Ofori-Duah to two years suspended for 18 months and Ashlee Morgan to 14 months suspended for 18 months.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported the sentencing of five individuals at Cardiff Crown Court for bribery offences, relating to waste disposal contracts. The CPS has said that four Cardiff City Council staff were paid cash bribes by Warren Roberts, the controller of a sole trading waste disposal company named A&T Waste Management, in return for their assistance in undercharging the company for waste deposited. This resulted in Cardiff City Council losing approximately £417,000 in tipping fees and A&T Waste Management benefitting by £238,000. The CPS has said an estimated £175,000 in bribes were paid to council staff. Roberts pleaded guilty to three counts of bribery offences and was sentenced to 28 months’ imprisonment. Four other individuals were sentenced for one count of bribery each, with their sentences ranging from nine months’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months to 22 months’ imprisonment.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that a former Barclays Bank manager has been sentenced for helping to launder £255,000. According to the CPS, Heather Smalley had worked for Barclays Bank for 14 years and was the bank manager at a Coventry branch. On six occasions, between February and October 2020, she arranged to take in bags of low value £10 and £20 notes from an unnamed man and replaced them with 'clean' bank-ordered £50 notes. The amounts varied between £25,000 and £65,000 in each transaction, with an overall amount of £255,000 involved in these offences. Smalley was sentenced at Warwick Crown Court on 31 May 2022 to two years' imprisonment and suspended for two years for entering an arrangement which facilitated the laundering of another person’s criminal proceeds.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that former prison officer at HMP Lincoln, Luke Thomas, has been sentenced at Lincoln Crown Court for falsifying records of welfare checks. The CPS has stated that Thomas failed to follow protocol for caring for prisoners who are in danger of self-harm or suicide. CCTV footage demonstrated that Thomas carried out only 15 of the 48 overnight checks required and falsified records, having stated that he carried out all the checks. The prisoner was found to have taken his life in the morning. Thomas pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office and has been sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and 250 hours of unpaid work.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported the sentencing of Rasib Ghaffar, a barrister and part-time immigration tribunal judge, Gazi Khan, a legal clerk, Azar Khan, a solicitor advocate, and Joseph Kyeremeh, a solicitor. All four of the individuals were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. The CPS has reported that the prosecution followed after a police investigation into four fraudulent claims for Defendant’s Costs Orders submitted to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) by those involved. A total of £469,477 was paid out by the LAA for the fraudulent claims. Ghaffar was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, Gazi Kahn to five years, Azar Khan to two years, suspended for two years and Kyeremeh was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence. The CPS has said it also intends to commence confiscation proceedings.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Ian Wynter, who paid money to sexually exploit young children in South East Asia, has been sentenced to 19 years in jail, with an extended licence of six years due to the dangerousness of his offending, and been banned from visiting countries in South East Asia for five years. The CPS has said that working closely with the National Crime Agency (NCA), it was able to present a case that illustrated the serious nature of Wynter’s offending. This follows from Wynter pleading guilty to 13 offences, which included taking an indecent photograph of a child, distributing indecent images of children through social media and being in possession of more than 15,000 indecent images of children, at Leicester Crown Court on 31 May 2022.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported the sentencing of police constable, Nadeem Patel, for causing death by dangerous driving. Patel has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and disqualified from driving for 54 months until extended retest on 24 February 2023. Police constable, Gary Thomson, has also been convicted of careless driving but was acquitted of dangerous driving on 7 August 2023. Thomson has been fined £500 and given five driving penalty points. The CPS has said that Thomson and Patel were responding to a 999 call, when Thomson’s car passed Shante Daniel-Folkes at speeds between 70–79 mph. Daniel-Folkes then started crossing the road, when three to four seconds later, Patel’s marked police car struck her at a speed of 55 mph. Daniel-Folkes' injuries were immediately fatal.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Rownock Sekar Talukdar, a take-away owner has been sentenced for submitting fraudulent tax returns and false tax credit applications. The CPS has provided that Talukdar who ran the Moortown Tandoori in Leeds between October 2004 and December 2020 submitted multiple fraudulent Value Added Tax (VAT) returns between 2012 and 2018, fraudulent Income Tax returns from 2014 to 2018 and false tax credit applications for the same period. The CPS has estimated that the amount fraudulently claimed is around £171,000. The CPS undertook investigations with delivery companies such as Just Eat and Hungry House which revealed that Talukdar was doing more business than he claimed. Talukdar pleaded guilty to all three counts in March 2021.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that Lee Hickinbottom, Tabatha Knott and David Hickinbottom were sentenced on 20 May 2022 for defrauding the taxpayer out of over £1m in a criminal scheme that exploited government systems designed to support businesses. According to the CPS, the trio used a company’s VAT registration to make fraudulent VAT repayment claims near the end of the life of the company and after it had gone into liquidation. False invoices were submitted to support fraudulent VAT returns despite there being no evidence that the companies traded legitimately.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that three people have been convicted for  defrauding taxpayers for over £1m in a criminal scheme that exploited government systems designed to support businesses. Lee Hickinbottom was found guilty of multiple counts of cheating the public revenue (HMRC and DWP). Tabatha Knott, 34, was found guilty of one count of cheating the public revenue (HMRC) and one count of money-laundering. David Hickinbottom, 36, pleaded guilty of one count of cheating the public revenue.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that two brothers, Michael Hirst and Stephen Hirst, have been sentenced for tax evasion of over £3.2m after they hid large profits from a land sale using offshore companies. Both parties were found guilty to cheating the public revenue and were jailed for two years with the sentence suspended for two years and have been disqualified from acting as a company director for eight years. Stephen Hirst has been fined £12,000 and Michael Hirst has been fined £8,000.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported that PC Jonathon Cobban and former officer Joel Borders have both been found guilty of sending grossly offensive messages on a public communications network contrary to section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (CA 2003). The CPS has provided that Cobban and Borders will be sentenced on 2 November 2022, after it was found that the messages they sent ‘were not just shocking or disturbing banter, but they amounted to criminal offences’.