Council nets £575k confiscation orders after its largest timeshare fraud case

The Trading Standards Service at Warwickshire County Council has this month secured confiscation orders worth more than £575,000 against a company and one of its directors following a timeshare fraud.

Following a hearing at Warwick Crown Court, Andrew Stephen Harris, director and sole owner of Shakespeare Classic Line Ltd, was ordered to pay £350,000 within three months. A further £225,988.27 is to be confiscated from the company (its available assets).

Harris had been sentenced in November 2013 to four-and-a-half years in prison after being found guilty of defrauding his customers. If he fails to pay the £350,000, he faces a further 30 months custodial sentence.

When sentencing Harris in 2013, His Honour Judge Alan Parker said the defendant had run a “fraud factory” from offices in Hatton near Warwick, “where victims were processed in industrial quantities.” 

The company was also convicted of consumer protection offences.

The court heard on 8 February that Harris and the company had each benefited from the crimes to the tune of £550,000 (£1.1m in total).

Warwickshire County Councillor John Horner, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety, said: “I am delighted that Warwickshire Trading Standards has taken this action. Criminals should not be allowed to profit from their crimes and should be deprived of the money and property they have accumulated through their illegal activities.”

A second director who had been found guilty of fraudulent trading and consumer protection offences, David Keith Evans, was ordered to pay £25,000 at a hearing in May 2015.

In order to successfully bring the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) action, Warwickshire Trading Standards employed the services of a specialist financial investigator employed by Central Bedfordshire Council, Philip Richards.

Tony Watkin, newly appointed head of the regulatory team at St Ives Chambers, appeared for the council in the proceedings.