Builder jailed for fake vodka factory
A builder who once ran a £1.5 million-a-year business was today starting a 12-month jail sentence after setting up an alcohol factory making potentially lethal fake vodka.
Michael Woodlock earned £400 a week building the illicit still in an industrial unit hired under the guise of a sham contract storage firm called CPST, a judge heard.
In fact it was producing bogus Arctic Ice vodka using potentially harmful 96 per cent pure industrial alcohol normally found in anti freeze as its base ingredient, Birmingham Crown Court was told yesterday.
Prosecutor Hal Watson said: "There was an inherent risk of harm to both those involved in this process and the public going near the plant as well as the potential health risk to anyone who drank it."
Woodlock, from Greswold Street, West Bromwich, fitted out the industrial unit and built the still.
The 52-year-old also did the stock taking and kept the accounts for the secret liquor factory in Brewery Street, Aston, that ran for just a few months before being raided by Revenue and Customs in July 2011. They found it in operation with 2,572 bottles of Arctic Ice.
The court was told at least £75,000 should have been paid in duty if the alcohol had been fit to drink.
Woodlock, who refused to name those running the plot, was arrested when investigators swooped. Alex Rollason, 19, was also seized along with driver Gavin Berrow, 42. All three admitted conspiracy to evade duty.
Miss Lynette McClement, defending, said Woodlock had run a cable distribution firm with a turn over of £1.5million before his life "fell apart" when his three-year-old daughter died.
He was jailed for a year while Rollason and Berrow each received a four-month prison terms suspended for 12 months with 200 hours unpaid work.
For full background report's, see tonight's Express & Star
