Businessman found guilty of £243,000 fraud

A businessman has been found guilty of defrauding a government agency of more than £200,000 by submitting false expenses and creating two "ghost" employees.

Andrew Rendell-Read, 61, of Weston Hills, near Spalding, Lincolnshire was convicted of both charges following a two-week trial at Lincoln Crown Court.

Prosecutors said Rendell-Read extracted £243,000 from Innovate UK in a joint fraud operated with his wife and business partner Catherine McGreggor who previously pleaded guilty to her involvement.

Rendell-Read was granted bail and will be sentenced along with his wife on 3 July.

The court heard Rendell-Read made false expenses claims between 3 December 2015 and 11 September 2018, and abused his position as a director of VBC Instrument Engineering by transferring funds from business expenses between 10 February 2016 and 18 April 2019.

The couple, who were both directors of the Wellingborough-based firm, had defrauded Innovate UK during a funding project related to the automated manufacture of aerospace blades.

As part of the project, Innovate UK reimbursed 41% of the costs incurred by VBC, jurors were told.

Matthew Moore-Taylor, prosecuting, said the fraud simply operated by VBC inflating the costs of the project in two ways through quarterly submissions.

"The first was false invoices - the second was ghost employees," he told the jury.

The court heard the ghost employees were in fact real people in the form of McGreggor's niece and daughter.

However, Moore-Taylor said they did not benefit from the funding and were instructed to pay the money into a joint account McGreggor shared with her husband.

The jury heard Rendell-Read had been assessed by a psychologist and was found to have dyslexia.

In police interviews, Rendell-Read denied he was responsible for making payments or submitting any of the invoices, claiming he had "no idea this was going on".

During a search of his home, police found a Rolex watch and four cars, including a Maserati.

Judge Catarina Sjolin-Knight ordered a pre-sentence report on Rendell-Read, but warned him a custodial sentence was likely.

He was also ordered to surrender his passport.

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