Man cons Leeds City Council out of £710,000 in 'Greggs' swindle
A man pretending to be a property manager for bakery chain Greggs conned a city council out of £710,000, a court has heard.Aftab Baig, 47, made fraudulent small business grant claims from Leeds City Council against 32 properties which were branches of the firm during the coronavirus pandemic in May 2020.Baig, who had no links to Greggs and was not employed by the company, was eventually caught out and all but £90,000 was later returned to the council.At Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday, Baig, of Paisley Road West, Glasgow, was found guilty of three counts of fraud and is due to be sentenced at the same court on 31 March.
Account frozen
According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Baig contacted Leeds City Council pretending to be a group property manager at the bakery chain's head office.He asked for business rates numbers for the firm's Leeds branches, details of which he claimed he could not access himself due to the Covid lockdown.Baig then used the details to apply to the Small Business Grant Fund, money from which was paid into a bank account associated with his catering business.The grant was one of several government schemes aimed at helping small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic.That same month, when the council realised the claims were fraudulent, the account was frozen and Baig was arrested in Glasgow two months later by Police Scotland officers.A total of about £16,000 in cash was found at his house, as well as forged remittance slips which officers believed he was planning to use to try and persuade the bank to return the frozen money, the CPS said.
'Stealing funds'
Following the guilty verdict, Kelly Ward, from the CPS, said: "Baig took advantage of the difficult circumstances of the pandemic in 2020 to defraud the council out of taxpayers' money."Those who cheat the public purse are stealing funds which should rightly go towards services and the community or, in this case, towards supporting small businesses through an extremely challenging time."Ms Ward said proceedings would be started to recover any assets resulting from Baig's criminality.Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Grandmother prosecuted after breaking neighbour's gnome
A grandmother was prosecuted for damaging her neighbour's garden gnome during a dispute over rights of access. Lorraine Hutton, 66, accidentally broke one of the legs off the 18in-ornament when she moved it from a communal pathway outside her flat in Springbourne, Bournemouth. Ms Hutton said she had apologised to owner Lilijana Cekauskiene and posted £20 through her letter box to cover the damage. But her neighbour insisted on calling the police. Ms Hutton was asked to attend a formal interview at a police station before being charged with criminal damage. She appeared in court three times, including for a three hour trial over the matter. The 15-month saga, which began in March 2024, concluded with Ms Hutton being found not guilty of criminal damage. She has now criticised both the police and CPS for allowing the matter to go to court and for wasting taxpayer money. Ms Hutton said: 'This has just been an enormous waste of time and public money. 'I have never been in trouble with the police in my life and for people of my generation to have to go to court is embarrassing. 'I wrote a letter of apology and gave her money to cover the damage. I could have been dealt with without all this expense to the taxpayer.' It is believed the case cost several thousands of pounds as Ms Hutton says she received legal aid and required a psychiatric assessment before going to court. A Lithuanian interpreter costing £55 an hour was required for Ms Cekauskiene. The CPS has insisted the case was in the public interest. Ms Hutton added: 'I am 66 and disabled. I have no previous convictions, not even a parking ticket. I don't see how it was in the public interest to take it to court. 'I was happy to sort it out of court and would have paid up front but I was not going to lie under oath and said I did it on purpose when I did not.' After proceedings finished, a spokesman for Wessex CPS said: 'It is not the Crown Prosecution Service's function to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence, but to make fair, independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for a court to consider. 'In this case, we decided that there was sufficient evidence and that it was in the public interest to proceed. 'We previously sought to join this case with another involving the complainant and defendant but, ultimately, this was rejected by the court.' A spokesman for Dorset Police said: 'We will always carry out an investigation into reported criminal damage incidents irrespective of the type of damage alleged to have been caused. 'As part of an investigation, we will speak to all parties involved to gather the full circumstances of an incident. 'A case is then submitted to the CPS, who will then decide whether or not to bring a case before the courts.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Taxpayer foots huge bill to prosecute 66-year-old grandmother for accidentally smashing the leg off a neighbour's garden gnome... that she'd already tried to pay for
A neighbourly feud involving a damaged garden gnome resulted in a 15-month legal ordeal for a law-abiding grandmother. Lorraine Hutton branded the draconian saga 'an enormous waste of time and public money', after being accused of deliberately damaging the 18-inch ceramic ornament. Mrs Hutton, 66, admitted she had accidentally broken off one of the gnome's legs while moving it from a communal pathway outside her flat in Bournemouth, and said she had already apologised to its owner, Lilijana Cekauskiene. She also said she posted £20 through her neighbour's letterbox to cover the damage. But Mrs Hutton was horrified when Mrs Cekauskiene reported the damage to Dorset Police and accused her of breaking the gnome 'provocatively'. The 66-year-old was then ordered to attend a police station for interview and formally charged with criminal damage. A convoluted court saga followed, which is thought to have cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds – including £4,000 to pay for Mrs Hutton's legal aid, £1,000 for her psychiatric evaluation, a £55-per-hour Lithuanian interpreter for Mrs Cekauskiene and magistrates' court costs, which can be upwards of £1,000 a day. Fifteen months and three court dates later, and Mrs Hutton has been formally exonerated of any crime – and she criticised the police and the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) for wasting taxpayers' cash by allowing the case to go to court. 'This has just been an enormous waste of time and public money,' she said. 'We have been to court three or four times for this case. I have never been in trouble with the police in my life, not even a parking ticket, and for people of my generation to have to go to court is embarrassing. 'I'm 66 and disabled. I don't see how it was in the public interest to take it to court.' Official statistics show that Bournemouth had the worst crime rate in the south-west of England in 2024. Crimes involving possessing an offensive weapon were up 22.9 per cent and shoplifting offences rose by 5.5 per cent. Meanwhile, in 2022/23, 77 per cent of burglaries went unresolved. But Wessex CPS, which brought the case against Mrs Hutton, insisted it was in the public interest. A spokesman said: 'In this case, we decided that there was sufficient evidence and that it was in the public interest to proceed.' A spokesman for Dorset Police added: 'We will always carry out an investigation into reported criminal damage incidents irrespective of the type of damage alleged to have been caused. A case is then submitted to the CPS, who will then decide whether or not to bring a case before the courts.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Pro-Palestinian activist who avoided prosecution after chanting 'I love the 7th of October' is Islamist refugee granted asylum in Britain
A pro-Palestine activist who avoided prosecution after he chanted 'I love the 7th of October' is a Muslim refugee granted asylum in the UK, it emerged today. Mohammad al-Mail, a 27-year-old Kuwaiti national granted refugee status in the UK in 2017, also shouted 'I like an organisation that starts with H' through a megaphone at an anti-Israel protest in Swiss Cottage, north-west London, last September. Mr Al-Mail was arrested by police after the chants over alleged terrorism offences, but after eight months a decision was taken by the CPS not to charge him. He is said to have avoided prosecution by telling officers that the organisation he claimed to love was actually the Home Office, and not terror group Hamas. This is despite him operating a campaign group which states its aim is to achieve 'Islamic supremity' and which has criticised terror groups such as Al-Qaeda for failing to advance global jihad. Meanwhile at the same rally, a Jewish counter-protester was also arrested for holding a placard mocking deaths during attacks involving explosive pagers in Lebanon. The attack targeted Hezbollah members and leaders, and the placard depicted the leader of the proscribed terror group holding a pager, with the word 'beep' repeated three times. The man was charged over the incident in May, but the case has since been dropped. Earlier this year, Mr Al-Mail appeared to make light of the accusations against him, telling an Arabic language podcast the case 'fell apart', the Telegraph reports. He described his answer to police when asked what he meant by the letter H: 'Immediately, I answered, 'It could be the Home Office', you know, the ministry of the interior. 'I love the ministry of the interior', and so on. 'Truly, as the saying goes, 'The worst calamity is the one that makes you laugh'. The Met referred the case twice to the CPS, but both times it decided not to press charges - reportedly due to the issue of it relying on 'speculation' to infer support for a proscribed terror organisation. During the podcast, Mr Al-Mail told listeners to 'take advantage' of October 7, which saw 1,200 people killed by an Hamas incursion into Israel. The resulting war has resulted in almost 57,000 Gazans being killed, many of whom civilians. 'Not every day is like October 7,' Mr Al-Mail added. 'If an opportunity arises, we must fully exploit it. If you strike, make it hurt.' The refugee's views are reiterated by his campaign group Upper Hand Organization, which lists its 'pillars' as 'rightism' and 'Islamic Supremacy'. The English version of his site reveals the group was founded in 2016 in Kuwait, before being banned. It states: 'The Upper Hand Organization is a global movement dedicated to working with and for Muslims worldwide through all means and fields - committed to channeling resources toward strategic projects to achieve Islamic dominance.' It adds that the group 'operates as an entity that asserts its responsibilities extend beyond national borders, with a revolutionary agenda grounded in Islam.' In November, some two months after the march, Mr Al-Mail told his supporters he would surrender to police over the chants but told his followers to 'continue the path of Jihad', claiming peaceful followers of Islam are 'slaves and dwarves'. He added: 'What is coming to you is terrifying – either our annihilation or yours.' After leaving Kuwait, Mr Al-Mail was convicted of 13 offences including defaming the Emir and sentenced in his absence to 53 years in prison. Claiming asylum, he said these were politically and religiously motivated and was granted allowed to remain in the UK on May 5 2017. He later received a partial pardon. Shadow Policing Minister and Conservative MP Chris Philp told the Telegraph: 'The police must urgently re-investigate the incident with a view to re-arresting the man concerned'. He added: 'I am deeply worried that someone came here, was granted asylum and then abused the UK's generosity by expressing extremist views. This is why our human rights and asylum laws need to be changed.' Lord Walney, the Government's former extremism tsar, said the revelations are 'disturbing and raises serious questions for the Metropolitan Police'. 'The fact officers were apparently unaware of this open source material when they submitted the case to the Crown Prosecution Service suggests an alarming lack of rigour in their initial investigation,' he said. 'In light of this, it is vital that the police reopen the case to ensure national security can be protected.' It is understood the CPS is 'urgently' reviewing the decision not to charge Mr Al-Mail.
