Former MD of Welsh operator Padarn Bus to be jailed

[knutstransport]

Former MD of Welsh operator Padarn Bus to be jailed

Route One Wrote:John David Hulme, 55, the former Managing Director of Llanberis-based Padarn Bus, has been found guilty of making inflated claims about concessionary fare passenger numbers to Gwynedd County Council as part of a fiddle, and falsifying documents to back them up.

He has been told that a prison sentence is “inevitable.”

In total, £1.3m was fraudulently claimed by the company over three years.

Mr Hulme pleaded not guilty at Caernarfon Crown Court to fraud by making false representations between 1 July 2011 and 31 December 2012 about the number of concessionary fare passengers carried by the company; and to false accounting by falsifying claim forms submitted for accounting purposes.

The Court heard that between July 2011 and March 2014 the false claims totalled £814,655.

The prosecution said that until he was suspended by the company in December 2012, Mr Hulme was responsible for making the false claims and for generating the false documents supporting the claims.

Operations Director Darren Price had pleaded guilty to similar charges of fraud covering the period after Mr Hulme was suspended. False claims were made for £495,877.08 in the period until Mr Hulme was suspended.

Following the verdict, Judge Mervyn Hughes QC warned Mr Hulme that a custodial sentence was inevitable. He told him: “It became clearer and clearer during the course of this trial that you were the author and perpetrator of this fraud right up to December 2012 and you gave instructions to Darren Price so he was able to continue it.

“Although you are not charged with that, he wouldn’t have been able to do so if you hadn’t given those instructions.”

Mr Hulme and Mr Price are bailed until sentencing on Thursday (24 March).

http://www.route-one.net/legal/padarn-md-to-be-jailed/

Presumably this type of fraud will be harder once all operators have readers for ENCTS passes but even then it won't stop operators claiming all pass holders travelled to the final destination of the bus regardless of where they travelled to.