A seaside hotelier scammed 50 employees out of £470,000 in a callous tax fraud Michael Stainer, 74, gave staff at The Grand doctored and "misleading" payslips showing income tax and national insurance deductions.
But a court heard he actually pocketed the cash and used it to pay the mortgages for apartments within the imposing Grade-II listed building, in Folkestone, Kent, which was once frequented by the Royal Family. Stainer was jailed for three years at Southwark Crown Court today for two counts of cheating the public revenue and one count of fraud by false representation between 2011 and 2015.
During the trial Stainer, a qualified accountant, accepted the money was not paid to HMRC but told jurors he kept the money as he did not want his employees to lose their jobs. But Judge Gregory Perrins said: "It’s clear to me you did not think about the impact this was having on your employees at all.
