A well-known business man, who stole £800k from a hotel after it was destroyed by a fire, bragged he was "totally self made".
Simon Matthews-Williams, 62, was formerly a successful hotelier who owned sites such as Liverpool city centre's waterfront Crowne Plaza, the £15million Hotel Indigo and James Street's three-star Days Inn. But he was jailed on September 12 for 28 months after he was found to transfer nearly £800,000 out of the bank account of one of his former companies and never pay the huge sum back.
A trial at Liverpool Crown Court previously heard the "experienced company director" was a minor stakeholder in the Gateway to Wales Hotel, near to the A494 in Deeside, North Wales. By early 2019 though, Matthews-Williams "no longer had any role" in the business and "had long given up any financial interest or management in the hotel".
