SHEPHERD: MILLIONAIRE BUSINESMAN FACING JAIL FOR OLYMPICS TICKET CON

A millionaire conman who ripped off thousands of sports fans including the parents of double Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington faces jail today (weds).

Terence Shepherd, 52, masterminded a scam which saw victims lured into paying for seats at high profile sport and music events via apparently legitimate online ticket shops.

The websites generated more that £3million by promising customers seats at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as well as places at summer rock festivals and concerts by stars including Take That and Bon Jovi.

But victims were left with no tickets and no refunds after the companies that operated the sites went bust.

Shepherd now faces years in prison after a Southwark Crown Court jury found the whole business was a sham following a seven week trial.

His conviction comes seven years after one of his old companies, Sports Mondial, went bust after failing to deliver tickets for Rugby World Cup matches in 2003.

He ran his latest scam at arms length after he was barred from acting as a company director for involvement in firms including one which let down football fans buying tickets for 1998 world cup.

It is feared his ‘Xclusive’ group of companies have acquired at least one internet domain site that could be used to sell tickets to the London Olympics.

Alan Scott, 57, was found guilty of helping to run the scam. He and Shepherd will be sentenced on Monday alongside accountant Allan Schaverein, 67, who earlier admitted his role in the offending.

Shepherd’s wife Margaret Canty-Shepherd, 51, was acquitted of money laundering charges while Cyril Gold, 68, was also cleared of aiding and abetting the fraud, after both insisted they had no involvement in any wrongdoing.

The bogus websites, which had names including beijingticketing.com, were run by Xclusive and The Online Ticket Exchange.

Among the thousands of fans who bought Olympics tickets through the sites were Kay and Steve Adlington, the parents of the then little known swimmer Rebecca.
 
In January 2008 Mrs Adlington paid Xclusive £1,100 for tickets to the events in which her daughter was competing.

But when the promised tickets never arrived, the Adlingtons were forced to buy reduced view seats through another agency and by the time they arrived in the Chinese capital, Rebecca had already won the 400m freestyle.

Mrs Adlington said she was left ‘absolutely devastated’ when she was cheated her out of her chance to see her daughter compete.

Fortunately, thanks to the resulting press interest, they were able to get front row seats to see her win the 800 final.

The court heard that another disappointed victim bought tickets ‘for all of the events’ at the Games through Xclusive.

Prosecutor Miranda Moore, QC, said although credit card companies bore the brunt of these losses by compensating their clients, victims that used debit cards had no such legal protection, and lost large sums of money.

‘The losers were not only the credit card companies, who had to pay millions of pounds, but also the individual people who thought they had got something,’ she said.

Two credit card companies confirmed losses of £3m, but it has not been possible to quantify money lost by individual debit card holders.

In total, more than £11m passed through the businesses involved, but much of this may have come from genuine supply of tickets to football matches.

The fraudsters planned to tell the clients they had defrauded that Xclusive itself had been ripped off by a supplier called Peter’s Ticketing.

Customers were to be told that Xclusive had paid over their money to Peter’s Ticketing but that ‘regrettably’, the promised seats had not been produced.

Peter’s Ticketing was a shell company with nothing more to its name than ‘a cupboard in Finchley’.

Instead of using it to source tickets, the fraudsters used it to fund tax frauds under which Xclusive claimed back VAT apparently paid to its supplier on sales to foreign customers.

Scott was brought in towards the end of the fraud to act as a director of Xclusive as it was being closed down, while Schaverein, a long-term associate of Shepherd, provide false documentation such as invoices to make the company’s accounts appear legitimate.

Shepherd used money from the Xclusive businesses to fund a lavish lifestyle for his family.

Before it went into receivership Xclusive bought at least eight internet domain names connected to the Vancouver Games and at least one that could be used to sell tickets to the London Olympics.

Giving evidence Shepherd insisted that he had not been behind the companies which ran the websites, but was employed by them as a consultant to source and sell second-hand tickets.

His defence team argued that the business had been run legitimately but had run into trouble.

Shepherd, of (14) Liskeard Gardens, Blackheath, southeast London, denied two counts of fraudulent trading, as did Scott, of (Flat 6) Manor View, (172) Manor Road, Chigwell, Essex.

Gold, of (44A) West Drive, Harrow, Middlesex, denied aiding and abetting fraudulent trading on the same dates.

Shepherd further denied two counts of acting as a company director whilst disqualified and one of money laundering, an offence also denied by Canty-Shepherd.

Scott was convicted of both the charges he faced by unanimous verdicts, while Shepherd was convicted of fraudulent trading and acting while disqualified by majorities of 11 to one. He was convicted unanimously of money laundering.

Schaverein, of (3) Warren Close, Esher, Surrey, admitted aiding and abetting fraudulent trading.
 
Judge Beddoe earlier threw out charges of fraud by false representation against Shepherd, Scott and Geert Van Meel, 53, alleging that they had falsely claimed they were licensed to sell football tickets.
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