Verdicts have been returned this week at Southwark Crown Court following a seven week trial. Two defendants were found guilty of a variety of offences for failing to supply tickets to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and summer music events such as the V, Leeds and Reading festivals. Another defendant pleaded guilty before the trial. They operated through the Xclusive group of companies, receiving over £5 million in payment for the various events but supplied no tickets or refunds. Sentencing will be on 11 July.
Around 2,500 people, from various countries including the UK; Australia; Canada; China; Hong Kong and the USA, are believed not have received over 5,000 tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Similarly during that year approximately 2,600 people in the UK did not get their tickets for summer music events, paying approximately £1m for over 5,000 tickets.
Commenting on the verdict, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Director Richard Alderman said: "Xclusive was a sham that not only cost a lot of people their hard-earned money, but dashed their dreams. I am very pleased that justice has been done. Now we shall do our best to get the money back for the victims."
Terrence Shepherd (d.o.b 29/09/58) of London was convicted yesterday, 5 July, of money laundering and was convicted today of two counts of fraudulent trading and two counts of acting as a company director whilst disqualified.
Alan Scott (d.o.b 17/06/54) of Essex was convicted yesterday, 5 July, of two counts of fraudulent trading.
Allan Schaverien (d.o.b 04/12/43) of Surrey pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting fraudulent trading on 15 April 2011, before the start of the trial.
Margaret Canty-Shepherd (d.o.b 24/10/59) of London was acquitted of money laundering and Cyril Gold (d.o.b 26/09/42) of Middlesex was acquitted of aiding and abetting fraudulent trading today [6 July 2011] by the jury.
Gert van Meel, Terry Shepherd and Alan Scott were also charged with fraud by false representation, contrary to section 1 and 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 in relation to the unauthorised sale of football tickets. HHJ Beddoe directed acquittals on this count on 2 June 2011.
Background
During 2008 the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform ("BERR", now Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, "BIS") received complaints from members of the public about the activities of a business called Xclusive which sold tickets and hospitality packages for a variety of UK music events in and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
In September 2008 an SFO investigation began with the Metropolitan Police. It focused on the activities of Xclusive Tickets Limited, Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality Limited and four related companies ("Xclusive"). As part of the investigation the SFO made a public call through the media for victims to come forward and complete a questionnaire on the SFO website. Over 600 questionnaires contributed to the casework evidence.
Xclusive - designed to be a fraud
Xclusive [see note 2] was engaged in the secondary ticketing market where tickets are bought from suppliers and then resold to members of the public.
Xclusive also operated a number of ticketing websites [see note 3]. According to the terms and conditions on the Xclusive website, the company claimed to specialise in supplying "hard to get tickets to sold out events". But in many cases, Xclusive didn't even bother trying to source the tickets, choosing to simply withdraw the money from the company bank accounts and use it for their own means.
For many events, tickets were ordered online by members of the public many months before the event took place, but were not due to be delivered until a few weeks before the event. This meant that it was a long time before anyone realised that they would not get their tickets. Xclusive claimed to have ordered tickets from a Ricky Smith at Peters Ticketing which would then be sent by Xclusive to customers. In fact, Ricky Smith, if that was his name, was a shady character and Peters Ticketing was a vehicle used by the defendants to conceal their fraud; Xclusive had never made any efforts to source any tickets to the Olympics and festivals. Some tickets were supplied for other sporting events and concerts.
In order to attract the maximum amount of internet traffic, the defendants paid Google over £400,000 to ensure that when members of the public searched for tickets online, Xclusive would be at the top of the listings.
At the beginning of September 2008, the Xclusive companies were formally placed into liquidation, following a "demise meeting" in mid June 2008. However, Xclusive were still advertising and selling tickets for the Beijing Olympics in July 2008, knowing they were going to go into liquidation. Following the "demise meeting" in June, Xclusive went on to sell over £500,000 worth of tickets for the Beijing Olympics. The reason given for the liquidation by the director of the Xclusive Group of companies, Alan Scott, was due to the supplier, Peters Ticketing, failing to supply tickets. Scott told the liquidators that Xclusive had paid Peters Ticketing approximately £1.96 million in cash for tickets which were not supplied. Xclusive had been invoiced for over £5m by the fictitious business Peters Ticketing between November 2006 and May 2008.
This was an orchestrated collapse. When the defendants told victims that they could not source tickets, they had already known it for several months yet continued to take orders and payments. As early as March 2008 Xclusive began selling its assets to another company controlled by Terry Shepherd; The Online Ticket Exchange (TOTE). TOTE was placed into liquidation on 28 January 2010 by the Official Receiver due to persistent failure to supply tickets and refunds to customers.
Verdicts have been returned this week at Southwark Crown Court following a seven week trial. Two defendants were found guilty of a variety of offences for failing to supply tickets to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and summer music events such as the V, Leeds and Reading festivals. Another defendant pleaded guilty before the trial. They operated through the Xclusive group of companies, receiving over £5 million in payment for the various events but supplied no tickets or refunds. Sentencing will be on 11 July.
Around 2,500 people, from various countries including the UK; Australia; Canada; China; Hong Kong and the USA, are believed not have received over 5,000 tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Similarly during that year approximately 2,600 people in the UK did not get their tickets for summer music events, paying approximately £1m for over 5,000 tickets.
Commenting on the verdict, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Director Richard Alderman said: "Xclusive was a sham that not only cost a lot of people their hard-earned money, but dashed their dreams. I am very pleased that justice has been done. Now we shall do our best to get the money back for the victims."
Terrence Shepherd (d.o.b 29/09/58) of London was convicted yesterday, 5 July, of money laundering and was convicted today of two counts of fraudulent trading and two counts of acting as a company director whilst disqualified.
Alan Scott (d.o.b 17/06/54) of Essex was convicted yesterday, 5 July, of two counts of fraudulent trading.
Allan Schaverien (d.o.b 04/12/43) of Surrey pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting fraudulent trading on 15 April 2011, before the start of the trial.
Margaret Canty-Shepherd (d.o.b 24/10/59) of London was acquitted of money laundering and Cyril Gold (d.o.b 26/09/42) of Middlesex was acquitted of aiding and abetting fraudulent trading today [6 July 2011] by the jury.
Gert van Meel, Terry Shepherd and Alan Scott were also charged with fraud by false representation, contrary to section 1 and 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 in relation to the unauthorised sale of football tickets. HHJ Beddoe directed acquittals on this count on 2 June 2011.
Background
During 2008 the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform ("BERR", now Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, "BIS") received complaints from members of the public about the activities of a business called Xclusive which sold tickets and hospitality packages for a variety of UK music events in and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
In September 2008 an SFO investigation began with the Metropolitan Police. It focused on the activities of Xclusive Tickets Limited, Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality Limited and four related companies ("Xclusive"). As part of the investigation the SFO made a public call through the media for victims to come forward and complete a questionnaire on the SFO website. Over 600 questionnaires contributed to the casework evidence.
Xclusive - designed to be a fraud
Xclusive [see note 2] was engaged in the secondary ticketing market where tickets are bought from suppliers and then resold to members of the public.
Xclusive also operated a number of ticketing websites [see note 3]. According to the terms and conditions on the Xclusive website, the company claimed to specialise in supplying "hard to get tickets to sold out events". But in many cases, Xclusive didn't even bother trying to source the tickets, choosing to simply withdraw the money from the company bank accounts and use it for their own means.
For many events, tickets were ordered online by members of the public many months before the event took place, but were not due to be delivered until a few weeks before the event. This meant that it was a long time before anyone realised that they would not get their tickets. Xclusive claimed to have ordered tickets from a Ricky Smith at Peters Ticketing which would then be sent by Xclusive to customers. In fact, Ricky Smith, if that was his name, was a shady character and Peters Ticketing was a vehicle used by the defendants to conceal their fraud; Xclusive had never made any efforts to source any tickets to the Olympics and festivals. Some tickets were supplied for other sporting events and concerts.
In order to attract the maximum amount of internet traffic, the defendants paid Google over £400,000 to ensure that when members of the public searched for tickets online, Xclusive would be at the top of the listings.
At the beginning of September 2008, the Xclusive companies were formally placed into liquidation, following a "demise meeting" in mid June 2008. However, Xclusive were still advertising and selling tickets for the Beijing Olympics in July 2008, knowing they were going to go into liquidation. Following the "demise meeting" in June, Xclusive went on to sell over £500,000 worth of tickets for the Beijing Olympics. The reason given for the liquidation by the director of the Xclusive Group of companies, Alan Scott, was due to the supplier, Peters Ticketing, failing to supply tickets. Scott told the liquidators that Xclusive had paid Peters Ticketing approximately £1.96 million in cash for tickets which were not supplied. Xclusive had been invoiced for over £5m by the fictitious business Peters Ticketing between November 2006 and May 2008.
This was an orchestrated collapse. When the defendants told victims that they could not source tickets, they had already known it for several months yet continued to take orders and payments. As early as March 2008 Xclusive began selling its assets to another company controlled by Terry Shepherd; The Online Ticket Exchange (TOTE). TOTE was placed into liquidation on 28 January 2010 by the Official Receiver due to persistent failure to supply tickets and refunds to customers.
Role of the defendants
Terry Shepherd was said to be a "consultant" and then "employee" to the Xclusive companies, but in reality was the business driving force, a "shadow director", and the principal architect of the fraud. He had been disqualified in December 2007 for six years from acting as a company director or being involved in forming or managing any company due to previous company failings in his past. This was his second disqualification of this type; the previous had expired in September 2006.
Alan Scott, though listed as the sole director of the Xclusive companies, was only a director in name, taking instructions from Terry Shepherd. He was paid much less than Terry Shepherd and even Margaret Canty-Shepherd
Allan Schaverien was a certified chartered accountant and spent one day a week at the Xclusive offices acting as their accountant. He orchestrated the liquidation of the Xclusive group and, as the company accountant, was well aware that Peters Ticketing was a fake company. He was instrumental in creating the false document trail at the time of the collapse of Xclusive.
Victims
Over 600 members of the public responded to the SFO's request for information. Victims were asked to fill in an on-line questionnaire. Some of the victims went on to give evidence for the prosecution.
The families of UK Olympic contestants were among the people who had paid for tickets but did not receive them. Giving evidence in the SFO's prosecution, Kay Adlington spoke of her devastation when she realised she would not be able to see her daughter, Rebecca Adlington, compete in the 800m swimming heats and finals.
Metropolitan Police officer PS Torsten Mansson, who worked with the SFO case team said: "With the summer music festival season upon us and Olympics fast approaching it is important to highlight the need to use only official ticket sites".
Terry Shepherd was said to be a "consultant" and then "employee" to the Xclusive companies, but in reality was the business driving force, a "shadow director", and the principal architect of the fraud. He had been disqualified in December 2007 for six years from acting as a company director or being involved in forming or managing any company due to previous company failings in his past. This was his second disqualification of this type; the previous had expired in September 2006.
Alan Scott, though listed as the sole director of the Xclusive companies, was only a director in name, taking instructions from Terry Shepherd. He was paid much less than Terry Shepherd and even Margaret Canty-Shepherd
Allan Schaverien was a certified chartered accountant and spent one day a week at the Xclusive offices acting as their accountant. He orchestrated the liquidation of the Xclusive group and, as the company accountant, was well aware that Peters Ticketing was a fake company. He was instrumental in creating the false document trail at the time of the collapse of Xclusive.
Victims
Over 600 members of the public responded to the SFO's request for information. Victims were asked to fill in an on-line questionnaire. Some of the victims went on to give evidence for the prosecution.
The families of UK Olympic contestants were among the people who had paid for tickets but did not receive them. Giving evidence in the SFO's prosecution, Kay Adlington spoke of her devastation when she realised she would not be able to see her daughter, Rebecca Adlington, compete in the 800m swimming heats and finals.
Metropolitan Police officer PS Torsten Mansson, who worked with the SFO case team said: "With the summer music festival season upon us and Olympics fast approaching it is important to highlight the need to use only official ticket sites".
