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Walsall conman jailed for £25k tax fiddle to fund cocaine habit

A conman who pocketed almost £25,000 making false claims on the tax returns of friends to fund his cocaine habit has been jailed.

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Alan Jones, whose only qualification was that of a book keeper, was paid for the services by friends who believed he was honest.

The 39-year-old repaid that trust by changing their bank details to his own so unjustified rebates from bogus claims made in their name flowed into his bank account.

The cash funded his £1,000-a-week cocaine habit, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The scam started with the junkie making false claims on behalf of himself and his partner but soon spread to include several other people who were either friends or had been recommended to him by word of mouth.

This allowed him to fraudulently collect a total of £24,509 in unwarranted rebates during the three years of the scam before it was uncovered.

"It was a sophisticated, planned and sustained course of dishonest after he led people to believe he was both qualified and honest, " said Miss Blondelle Thompson, prosecuting.

He said:"He altered details of their bank accounts to those of his own and the false income tax returns were refunded to him."

He was arrested on August 29 2013, interviewed the following November and finally appeared in court for the first time in August last year.

Mr Jonathan Challinor, defending, declared: "He logged on to the HM Revenue and Customs and submitted information on line that had the effect of generating a tax rebate.

"The simplicity of this led him to expand the operation.

"The money was spent on cocaine, a habit that was costing him £1,000-a-week.

"He is not an accountant.

"He had book keeping qualifications and did the tax returns of friends and family quite legitimately for four or five years but in 2010 the cocaine addiction took hold.

"He fell into the temptation of making false payments.

"With the exception of his partner, those he acted on behalf of were unaware that they had refunds."

Jones, of Stafford Road, Walsall pleaded guilty to seven counts of false accounting and was jailed for 16 months .

Recorder Nicholas Cartwright said: "At one stage during this you were benefitting from psychological services paid by the tax payer while cheating those same tax payers."

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