Former Leeds butcher claimed £3.1m - and lived the high life

 

former Leeds butcher who fraudulently claimed £3.1m in VAT repayments led a “lavish lifestyle” and bought a string of cars, holidays and houses, a court heard. Dad-of-six Gary Turner, 47, submitted his first fraudulent VAT claim in 1994 in a bid to keep his struggling butcher’s shop on Dewsbury Road, Beeston, afloat. But the deception spiralled out of control in 1995 when Turner, of Grange Park Drive, Churwell, set up a fake business with the “sole purpose of furthering the fraudulent activity he had begun.” As part of the fake meat wholesalers, he forged invoices from the Botswana Meat Commission and Ryder Distribution Ltd, falsified bank statements and even bought a property to use as the address of the company premises, Leeds Crown Court heard. In total, Turner fraudulently claimed £3,139,862 between 1994 and 2011, including a £90,000 claim for one quarter of 2011. His butcher’s shop closed in 1998 and for 13 years, with the exception of rent from purchased property, he lived solely off his ill-gotten gains. Prosecuting on behalf of HM Revenue and Customs, Laura Addy told the court that “the lifestyle maintained was lavish”, with Turner buying three houses, cars, watches and luxurious holidays. He spent thousands on refurbishments to his houses, including £6,925 on a solid oak bespoke staircase in 2010; £1,400 on a bespoke TV cabinet in 2010; and solar panels costing £15,000 in March 2011. Mrs Addy continued: “The family would enjoy expensive holidays. There were fishing holidays, which would cost some £2,000 a time, and a family holiday to Cyprus in September 2010 where the villas cost a total of £1,800. More recently, a holiday that was booked for June 2011 cost just over £7,000. “The defendant also developed an interest in sailing and in 2000, he chartered a boat around the Balearics and completed his skippers’ course, all funded by fraud.” Turner bought watches worth around £20,000 and, during the years of his fraud, owned cars including an Audi A6, a Subaru Impreza, an Audi 1.8 estate, a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Honda S2000 GT convertible roadster. He was arrested at home in June 2011 after a suspicious inspector alerted the authorities when VAT numbers didn’t match up. Admitting his crime, he said in police interviews: “I know it sounds crass and naive but when it’s there, you just spend it.” Mitigating, Steven Milner said Turner kept his fraudulent claims hidden from his family, who now faced losing their homes. Mr Milner added: “Once he started the cycle, he states he couldn’t think of a viable exit strategy. He is relieved his offending is over. In order to keep up appearances, he has had to lie to his wife, his family and his friends.” Turner admitted two counts of fraud. He was due to be sentenced on March 15