CPS News Brief

Dragon's Den fraudster sentenced

Mark James-Dawson, Crown Advocate for the CPS said:

“This was a particularly brazen and audacious fraud, carried out on national television. Jean-Claude Baumgartner claimed to own software vital to the business opportunity he pitched on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, and went on to fabricate evidence of advance orders for his product from overseas retailers and the world famous department store, Harrods.

“It was clear that Baumgartner had come to rely on fraud as his only way of surviving in business, but when the Dragons asked for repayment of an agreed loan, his web of deceit began to unravel as it became clear that he had begun to live the life of a successful businessman before the business was a success.

 “Faced with the strength of the prosecution case, Baumgartner has today decided to plead guilty ahead of the start of his trial and was sentenced to two years and eight months.”

Background information:

Baumgartner secured investments and loans from Dragons Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis totalling £230,000. On June 18 2009, Baumgartner appeared on the BBC TV program Dragons’ Den to ask for an investment in his company Satsport which produced a GPS device for sporting activities such as skiing. His pitch impressed Dragons Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis who chose to invest £65,000 for 24 per cent equity each.

Despite the regular and careful checks carried out by the businessmen, Baumgartner’s fraudulent claims of ownership of the software for a GPS Satellite Navigation system were not brought to light. Baumgartner did not in fact complete payments for ownership of the system until March 2010.

In November 2009, he set out to secure a further £100,000 from the investors by claiming that the product had suddenly taken off with several large orders. He provided the investors with a raft of false and doctored emails supposedly showing orders for thousands of units from markets in Europe and North America. This included an entirely fake order from Harrods. He even falsified paperwork from his own accountants, fabricating figures for turnover, net profit and cash in the bank.

When the loan was not repaid as agreed, Baumgartner’s web of deceit began to unravel. He claimed to have repaid the agreed amount by cheque. When asked why he had not ordered an electronic payment as is normal, he explained that a power cut in London had prevented him from doing so. The cheques subsequently bounced.

CPS recovers all assets from Darwin fraud case

The Crown Prosecution Service has recovered more than half a million pounds from Anne Darwin in connection with the insurance fraud over her husband’s faked death.

John Darwin was reported missing in a canoe in the sea off Seaton Carew in March 2002. While his wife collected hundreds of thousands of pounds in life insurance payouts, John Darwin hid in the marital home, allowing the couple’s two sons to think their father was dead.

Both John and Anne Darwin were found guilty of the deception in 2008, after which the CPS applied for and was granted a confiscation order to retrieve the money Anne Darwin received from her insurance companies and pension funds.

Head of the North East CPS Complex Casework Unit, Kingsley Hyland said:

“After a painstaking operation over the past two and a half years, the CPS has now successfully recovered all the assets which Anne Darwin held as a result of the fraud, amounting to £501,641.39.”

The assets included a fourth floor apartment in a leafy suburb of Panama City and an overgrown plot of land near the artificial Lake Gatun, which forms part of the Panama Canal. Both have now been sold.

The CPS obtained a freezing order under the Proceeds of Crime Act in December 2007, which prevented Mrs Darwin from accessing her assets. All the money held in accounts in both countries, which comes to nearly £9000 more than initially thought, has now also been seized.

This money will now be returned to the insurance companies and pension funds involved.

Mr Hyland said:

“It has taken some time to sell the property in Panama but we are extremely pleased to have got through the very complex process of recovering this money from overseas. It is important that fraudsters see that not only will we prosecute them wherever possible, but we will also make every effort to retrieve their ill-gotten gains to return them to those they have defrauded.”

The Panama properties were initially valued before the global financial crisis, which subsequently affected the value of the Panama property market. This resulted in the overall value of the assets recovered being lower than the value of the confiscation order. The receiver made every effort to sell the property at the highest price while being mindful of not prolonging the process unnecessarily

For more details and a breakdown of the assets recovered, please see the full press release on the CPS Website.

Stronger CPS cases in hate crime lead to increase in guilty pleas

The CPS is prosecuting more hate crimes, more successfully and with more defendants pleading guilty than ever before.

As the CPS publishes its Hate crimes and crimes against older people report 2010-11, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, said:

“All crime is unacceptable but offences that are driven by hostility or hatred based on personal characteristics are particularly damaging to any civilised society.

“I am particularly pleased that the number of guilty pleas is increasing as this demonstrates that our prosecutors are building stronger cases. The increase in guilty pleas benefits the victims of these crimes, many of whom would find giving evidence a stressful ordeal.

“Outcomes in cases of hate crime are continuing to improve. We should be proud of the work we have done to secure this increase but I am determined that we build on this success.”

In 2008-09, there were 9,035 guilty pleas out of a total of 10, 690 convictions and 13,030 prosecutions overall relating to hate crime. In 2009-10 this went up to 9,700 guilty pleas, 11,405 convictions and 13,921 prosecutions. In 2010-11 there were 10,823 guilty pleas out of 12,651 convictions and 15,284 prosecutions overall.

Read the full press release here.

Ali Dizaei guilty of misconduct and perverting the course of justice

Gaon Hart, Senior Crown Advocate for the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division said:

“The jury agreed today that Ali Dizaei, a Commander in the Metropolitan Police Service, abused his position as a senior police officer when he threatened and arrested an innocent man with whom he had a personal dispute.

“Dizaei had no proper reason for making this arrest and there was no real evidence that this young man had committed any crime on that day. Dizaei’s corruption, which would be deplorable in any police officer, was all the more so given his position as a highly ranked Commander.

“The public entrust the police with considerable powers and with that comes considerable responsibility. Dizaei abused that power and ignored that responsibility.

“Almost two years ago today, the Crown Prosecution Service made a similar announcement and the decision today vindicates the decision to take the matter before a jury. The public should have confidence that we will prosecute anyone, regardless of their position or the difficulties encountered along the way, where there is evidence that they’ve committed serious offences of corruption.

“We would like to thank the jury for the careful way in which they followed the evidence and also the witnesses who gave evidence in two trials. We believe that justice has been served for the victim and for the public in this case.”

Statement on Sentencing of Dangerous Dog Owner

Following his guilty plea to one count of person in charge of a dog allowing it to be dangerously out of control in public place and cause injury, Gary Hindley has today been sentenced to twelve weeks imprisonment suspended for two years.

CPS London Borough Crown Prosecutor Josephine Tang said:

“The terrible injuries suffered by the young victim in this case show how devastating the actions of a dangerous dog can be. As the owner of the dog Gary Hindley should have been aware of the potential for aggression and he should have acted in a more responsible way.

“The Crown Prosecution Service take cases of this type very seriously and we will do all we can to ensure that not only is the owner robustly prosecuted but that the public at large are safe.

“In this case we have successfully applied to the court for an order of destruction for the dog and for an order banning Hindley from owning any animals for ten years.

“As the young victim continues her recovery following this incident I hope today’s sentencing offers some comfort to her and her family.”

Hindley has also been ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and pay £450 in compensation.

Nine men sentenced today for terrorism offences

Piers Arnold, reviewing lawyer of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division said:

“This was a case about nine young men who in October 2010 formed a group for the purpose of carrying out acts of terrorism.

“They are all aged between twenty and thirty years old and are all residents of the United Kingdom. Four of the men are from Stoke, three are from Cardiff and two from London. What they had in common was that they all held extreme fundamentalist religious beliefs and were committed to converting those beliefs into terrorist action. They met during November and December 2010 to discuss their plans.

“Four of the men, Mohammed Chowdhury and Shah Rahman from London, and Gurukanth Desai and Abdul Miah, two brothers from Cardiff, formed a plan to create and detonate a bomb in the London Stock Exchange.

“Three others, Mohammed Shahjahan, Usman Khan and Nazam Hussain, all from Stoke, decided on a longer term plan to fund and take part in terrorist training abroad with a view to carrying out terrorist acts in the future.

“Two other men, Omar Latif and Mohibur Rahman, were also involved in discussions with the group during the period in question. Latif accepted his part in preparing for acts of terrorism, though was not involved in either of the specific plots referred to. Rahman also played no part in these plots but accepted that he was in possession of documents for terrorist purposes.

“These men were motivated to act as they did in large part by extreme Jihadist propaganda circulated on the internet by organisations like Al-Qaeda in the hope that impressionable young men in the West will be inspired to carry out attacks in the places where they live.

“These nine men were not members of Al-Qaeda but they were clearly influenced by the message of that organisation and in particular by the teachings of the American born ideologue, Anwar Al-Awlaki, who died in a drone attack in the Yemen last year.

“Six of these men were found to be in possession of an Al-Qaeda publication called Inspire magazine. That magazine, to which Al-Awlaki was a key contributor, urged its readers to attack the Western countries by any means possible to cause death, fear and economic damage. It also contained practical instructions on how to make a bomb. This bomb recipe formed a central part of the defendants’ discussions.

“All nine men were arrested in late December 2010. The CPS worked very closely with the police and by Boxing Day 2010, we were satisfied there was enough evidence to charge all nine with terrorist offences.

“The CPS and West Midlands Police worked hard together to present a strong prosecution case. Last week, shortly before their trial was about to begin, all nine pleaded guilty to these offences. They have today been sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

“I would like to thank the West Midlands Police for all their hard work and for an outstanding investigation. I would also like to thank all those who have assisted the prosecution team over the last year in bringing these men to justice.”

Statement by Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC on the case of Mr C Huhne and Ms V Pryce

"This statement is made by the Crown Prosecution Service in the interests of transparency and accountability to explain the decisions reached in the cases of Mr Christopher Huhne and Ms Vasiliki Pryce and to explain the time taken in arriving at these decisions.

"A criminal complaint was made to Essex Police in May 2011, alleging that Ms Pryce had accepted responsibility for a speeding offence committed by Mr Huhne in 2003. That complaint was investigated by Essex Police and a file was passed to the CPS in late July 2011. The CPS advised that further investigations should be made, including obtaining certain material from a national newspaper. Those further investigations were made and, in October 2011, an order was made for the newspaper to produce material to the police. The newspaper appealed that order, as it was entitled to do, but subsequently consented to producing the material in question just before the appeal was due to be heard, on 20 January this year.

"All the available evidence, including the new material, has now been carefully considered by the CPS and we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce for perverting the course of justice.

"The essence of the charges is that between March and May 2003, Mr Huhne, having allegedly committed a speeding offence, falsely informed the investigating authorities that Ms Pryce had been the driver of the vehicle in question, and she falsely accepted that she was the driver.

"Accordingly, summonses against both Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce have been obtained from Westminster Magistrates’ Court and those summonses will now be served on them. They are due to appear in court on 16 February this year.

"The decision in this case was taken by Mr Rene Barclay, a senior and very experienced prosecutor, in consultation with Sue Hemming, the Head of Special Crime Division and in consultation with me as DPP.

"Can I remind all concerned that Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce now stand charged with criminal offences and that they each have a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said, or reported, which could prejudice their trial."

Correction on census convictions printed in the Guardian

The following was printed in the Guardian on Tuesday 31 January 2012.

• A story reported that the Office for National Statistics had, to date, passed to the Crown Prosecution Service 369 cases where people failed to fill out the 2011 census form; of the 157 resulting prosecutions to reach court, 120 ended in convictions. The story added: "While some may have forgotten [to fill in the form] others see themselves as conscientious objectors." The CPS has asked us to make clear that conviction of a person who forgot to complete the form is improbable, because at least three further chances to complete are offered to those facing a possible charge – first during the investigation by the ONS, again when a summons is issued, and finally at court before their case goes ahead (120 convicted for failing to fill in census, 28 January, page 16).