Heating engineer charged £193,000 in VAT – and kept it for himself
A heating engineer who charged his customers VAT although he was not registered and kept the money for himself made £193,000 out of it, a court heard.
David John Mees received a suspended prison sentence in October last year and was back at Mold Crown Court yesterday for a financial hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
An agreed order was made under which his criminal benefit was put at £193,666.
Judge Rhys Rowlands ordered that he should pay a nominal £1 – in order to keep the order alive.
The judge told Mees that if he came into assets in the future then the prosecution could seek to recover the outstanding monies. Last year, the court heard how he told investigators that he believed that regular payments were being made to the HMRC.
But checks revealed that the payments were to HMCTS – the courts service – and were to pay his fines, explained prosecuting barrister Paulinus Barnes.
Mees, 52, of Ael y Bryn in Llandinam, near Newtown, was due to go on trial for VAT evasion and charges of unfair commercial and misleading practises between 2011 and 2014.
But some charges were dropped when he pleaded guilty to a reduced number of charges and yesterday he received a 14-month prison sentence suspended for two years and must carry out 200 hours unpaid work.
