CPS News Brief

Liverpool’s ‘Pencil Man’ convicted of five counts of fraud

John Bailey has today been convicted of five counts of fraud at Liverpool Crown Court. Known as the ‘Pencil Man’, Mr Bailey has 24 previous convictions from 55 separate offences, which includes 28 fraud offences. He has also previously been banned from entering, contacting or causing harassment alarm or distress in a number of licenced betting offices.

Andrew West, prosecutor at the CPS said: 

“John Bailey used his powers of persuasion to encourage people to ‘invest’ in him and his alleged businesses. However, instead he used these sums of money to fund his prolific, and disastrous, gambling habit.

“This was entirely dishonest. Not only did he lie to investors in order to gamble with their money, he also then demanded further betting money from them, in order to regain their original savings that he had lost. This cycle of debt continued with some victims losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. One victim lost just over £2m.

“Far from appreciating the damage he had wrought, John Bailey continued to gamble and deceive investors, breaching a previous ban of holding a specific betting account. Known as the ‘Pencil Man’ because he always carried a pencil when visiting betting shops, he has now been held to account for the substantial losses and distress he caused his victims.”

Man guilty of Iraq bombings

Anis Abid Sardar, 38, of north west London, has today been convicted at Woolwich Crown Court for his involvement in the making of bombs used against coalition forces in Iraq in 2007. He was convicted on two counts: murder and conspiracy to murder.

A number of pressure-plate activated bombs, or Improvised Explosive Devices, were found buried under the roads leading west out of Baghdad and in an area close to the US Army’s Camp Liberty. One of those bombs detonated fully on 27 September 2007 as a US military vehicle passed over it, killing Sergeant First Class Randy Johnson.

During the course of the trial, Anis Sardar admitted taking up arms against Shia militia north-west of Baghdad, the same area where the bombs were discovered.

Sue Hemming, Head of Special Crime and Counter Terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service, said:

“This was a landmark prosecution that shows we will do everything in our power to ensure that international borders are no barrier to terrorists in the UK being brought to justice for murder committed anywhere in the world.

“Anis Sardar is a highly dangerous man who created bombs so large that not only did they tragically kill Sgt Randy Johnson, but they put other lives in danger and caused significant damage to heavily armoured US military vehicles.

“Although Anis Sardar’s fingerprints were found only on two of the bombs, it is beyond doubt that he was part of a joint enterprise to make four such devices, and potentially many others, given their similarity and location.

“He knew precisely what he was doing and was working with murderous intent against coalition forces.”