Disgraced martial arts expert has to pay back £160,000 after his scam was exposed
29.01.2022 - 16:43
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A martial arts expert who is serving a prison sentence for major fraud has been ordered to pay £160,749 in three months.
Bernard Giam, 52, was jailed for 40 months after a jury convicted him of three offences of fraud last September.
His accomplice, Adrian Platt, was sentenced to four years behind bars after being found guilty of the same offences, the Liverpool ECHO reports.
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Judge Stuart Driver, QC was told they both benefited from their dishonest behaviour - which involved Platt siphoning £323,420 from his employer’s funds into business accounts held by Giam.
Giam, of Navigation Wharf, Liverpool, was ruled to have assets totalling £160,749 and the judge ordered that sum be paid in compensation to the victim, Befesa Salt Slags Ltd (BSS), based in Whitchurch.
Platt, 55, of Crossthwaite Gardens, Keswick, was found to have assets of £1,290,645 - including bank accounts and rented properties - and he was ordered to pay £323,420 compensation.
After agreeing to the figures provided to Liverpool Crown Court by Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, Judge Driver ordered Platt to pay £4,000 costs.
The men, neither of whom was produced in court for the Proceeds of Crime hearing, must pay the money within three months.
During the trial, Mr Gibson told the jury that Befesa Salt Slags Ltd was involved in the processing and recovery of aluminium from a waste product in the aluminium industry.
Platt was appointed as managing director of BSS on an annual salary of just over £100,000 year in October 2002. He eventually left the company in May 2017.
His successor tasked with a review to reduce costs discovered payments