Shropshire Star

Jailed: Telford fraudster cooked up scam to con £20,000 from Aga

A Telford fraudster who cooked up a scheme to con his employers out of about £20,000 has been jailed for ten months.

Published

Dave Griffiths, 55, had worked at Aga Cookers in Ketley for 30 years when he got into financial difficulties and racked up gambling debts in 2013.

His role at the company involved hiring and paying sub-contractors to do repair work on cookers. He used his position to get workers to write false invoices, which he would then pay from company funds, before receiving the cash back from them for his personal use.

But the conspiracy ran out of gas when Griffiths tried to get another sub-contractor involved, who notified Aga.

One of Griffiths' co-conspirators, 66-year-old Ian Smart, also faced the music at Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday.

Prosecutor Sati Ruck said: "Timothy Drummond, who was also a sub-contractor, was contacted by Griffiths in February 2015. He received a voicemail inviting him to do false invoices.

"Mr Drummond reported this to the Aga HR department. Griffiths was arrested and an investigation was carried out.

"Smart had forged large invoices and received a bonus payment of £500 for the commission of a Rayburn cooker."

Confessed

The con was carried out between January 2014 and February 2015.

Griffiths confessed to police that he was the main person responsible, and it was indeed him that kept all the money from the scheme.

It was accepted by Smart's barrister Adrian Roberts that he had been responsible for Aga losing out on around £9,000.

Griffiths, of Glebe Street, Wellington, and Smart, of Verena Terrace, Perthshire, Scotland, both pleaded guilty to fraud at an earlier hearing at Telford Magistrates Court.

Debra White, defending Griffiths, said that he had got into financial difficulties after his wife became ill following an accident, and that he had built up even more debt by gambling to try to recoup cash.

She said: "It is a sorry state to Mr Griffiths that he finds himself in this position. He was extremely candid in his interview with police.

"His own health had deteriorated. He is extremely remorseful and ashamed of his behaviour."

On behalf of Smart, Mr Roberts added that Griffiths had been his boss at Aga for around 20 years before Smart later became a sub-contractor, and that he "wasn't motivated by personal gain", just by helping Griffiths.

Judge Peter Barrie said to Griffiths: "You were in a responsible position. You broke the trust of your employer."

He sentenced Griffiths to 10 months in prison, and handed Smart a 12-week jail sentence, suspended for 12 months. Smart was also ordered to pay £1,000 compensation.

A third man involved in the case, Thomas George Booth, 63, from Louth, Lincolnshire, has pleaded not guilty to fraud and will face trial in April next year.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.