Haulier jailed for conspiracy
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• One man was sent to prison and another fined at the Old Bailey last Friday for conspiring to defraud a transport firm. One of the defendants was also said to have defrauded the Inland Revenue of £30,000 in tax.
Ronald William Tree, 47, transport company director, of Gerrard Road, Harrow, was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and ordered to pay £300 prosecution costs.
Lionel Robert Owen Smith, 59. of Wellington Street, Luton, was fined £2,000 with £50 costs. He was given 12 months to pay the fine with six months' imprisonment in default.
Both men had pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud 20th Century Transport Ltd., by falsely representing this company was indebted to the extent of £2,000 to Luton Transport Service.
Tree also pleaded guilty to six counts of making false returns to the Inspector of Taxes in connection with the profits made by 20th Century Transport Ltd., and two counts of forging documents with intent to defraud.
Mr. John Ryman, prosecuting, said that Tree was the principal shareholder and director of 20th Century Transport and the offences in the case covered a period ranging from 1958 to 1965.
He said Tree had engaged in a very large-scale fraud upon the Revenue, the principal object being to pretend that profits earned by that company were far less than in fact, they were.
The amount involved in understated profits was in the neighbourhood of £55,000 and in consequence the total tax unpaid was about £30,000.
Mr. Ryman said that one of Tree's methods in his financial manipulations was to forge a large number of invoices and pretend that the company had paid monies to other companies or concerns for work done, whereas that work was never done.
Tree helped himself to cash from his company and pretended it had been paid out to other concerns in pursuance of those invoices. Alternatively, he paid cheques to a company and then was repaid in cash.
Mr. Ryman said that in the conspiracy count involving Smith, the allegation was that in order to extract cash from the company, Tree obtained invoices in blank from Smith's firm, Luton Transport Services, and then forged on the invoices details of supposed services that the Luton company was rendering to 20th Century. Smith received a small discount for cashing Tree's cheques.
After being interviewed Tree had made a full disclosure of what he had done and had since paid the whole of the tax arrears.
Both defendants were married and men of hitherto good character.
Det.-Sgt. John Bruce said Smith formed Luton Transport in 1944 and the company closed down in 1967: he was now a director of a firm of insurance brokers.
Mr. Basil Wigoder QC, defending Tree, said that his client was in an industry which became a shuttlecock of successive governments. 'Free built up his hidden reserve to protect himself from a rainy day.