Exclusive:Banned Leeds butcher jailed for £134,000 VAT swindle
A butcher who spent three years submitting false tax claims managed to dupe more than £134,000 from the government before being caught.
Devious Nigel Gifford was jailed after admitting several offences, including cheating the public revenue.
His wife, Deborah Gifford, was handed a community order for assisting him in setting up the company.
The shamed pair appeared side-by-side at Leeds Crown Court this week.
Nigel Gifford was already banned from running companies due to his alarming conduct with a previous business he had run, Ham Solutions Ltd.
He was given the eight-year ban in 2017 after being deemed unfit to be a director of a business.
The court was told that that in February 2019, N Gifford Butchers Ltd was set up in his wife’s name, Deborah Gifford, in order to get around his ban. It later transpired he ran the company “in all but name”.
Within months, he began to make false or misleading VAT claims for various amounts which were not detected until 2022, when HMRC launched an investigation.
By that time, he had received £134,839. It was estimated that he was legally entitled to claim around £14,000 in that time.
HMRC officers found that the invoices he had created were “not genuine”, prosecutor Denise Fitzpatrick said.
Among those documents examined were invoices to a refrigeration company - totalling more than £233,000 - that appeared to look genuine, but on closer inspection were found to be false.
The Giffords, of High Ash Mount, Moortown, were arrested on March 19, 2023.
Nigel Gifford, 65, largely gave a no-comment interview, while 66-year-old Deborah told officers that she “did not know what was going on”.
Liquidation of N Gifford Butchers Ltd began that month.
Nigel Gifford later admitted charges of cheating the public revenue, attempting to commit fraud by false representation, supplying articles for the use in fraud and acting in contravention of a ban preventing him from working as a director of a company.
Deborah Gifford admitted a single charge of assisting a disqualified director.
Mitigating for Nigel Gifford, Matthew Harding said his client had offered to pay back the money and had sold their home to ensure repayment.
He said Gifford was “anxious to put right what he did”.
For Deborah Gifford, Ian Hudson said she was willing to carry out community service for her role in the scam.
Judge Howard Crowson set a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) timetable in a bid to formally recoup the money owed.
He told Nigel Gifford he had “little regard” to the banning order he had received and his deception took a “high level of planning”.
He jailed him for two years and four months and gave him a new 10-year order banning him from becoming the director of a company.