
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


ITV News
21 hours ago
- ITV News
'She was a vulnerable child': Mother of girl groomed by Neo-Nazi believes lessons must be learned
'She should never have been charged': Rhianan's mother believes authorities should have dealt with her case differently 'She was just such a loving child. She was funny. You couldn't have wanted for better really.' Emily Carter is heartbroken at the death of her youngest daughter. Compounding her grief is the belief that if authorities had listened, Rhianan could still be alive. Through her early childhood, Emily describes a 'funny, kind and considerate' child, but her teenage years were troubled. At 15, Rhianan Rudd became the youngest person charged with terror offences in the UK. Five months after those charges were dropped, the teenager was found dead. Emily cites Covid as a trigger for Rhianan's isolation from society. She described a change, saying she spent more and more time on her computer. She had regularly checked her daughter's online activity, reassured by parental controls she'd put on her computer. She had no idea the teenager was being groomed by a far-right extremist in the US. When Rhianan finally confided in her mum and shared some of her newfound thoughts, she was horrified. Two days later, Emily referred her daughter to Prevent, a government programme aimed at stopping individuals from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. She'd hoped it would help de-radicalise her, but instead of finding help and support, her case was closed, and Rhianan was arrested by counter-terrorism officers and placed under investigation by MI5. The charges were eventually dropped, but Rhianan lived in constant fear that she would be re-arrested. She took her own life on May 19 2022. The inquest over Rhianan's death heard on Monday that the criminal investigation would have frightened the 15-year-old and left her psychologically scared. Chief Coroner Judge Alexia Durran said there were chances for the police and Derbyshire County Council to refer Rhianan Rudd earlier for consideration as a potential victim of modern slavery. But she added the failings were 'not systemic', and said she could not be sure Rhianan intended to take her own life. Nick Price, Director of Legal Services at the CPS, said: 'This is a tragic case, and I want to send my sincere condolences and sympathy to Rhianan's family. We do not prosecute young or vulnerable people lightly. Terrorism offences are extremely serious, and these are decisions our specialist prosecutors take great care over.' Emily has spoken out in the hope that other children will be supported. Rhianan was autistic, and her mum wants agencies to have a better understanding of autism and recognise children's vulnerability. She thinks about her daughter every day and remembers the happy, fun little girl who just wanted to show kindness: 'She was always there for people, and that's how I want her to be remembered."


Telegraph
2 days 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
3 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.'