Two fraudsters conned more than £1.5million from a council for fake lift repairs - including work in a building due to be demolished. Stephen Johnson, 62, and Stuart Wickham, 40, swindled Greenwich Council for work that never took place and even for a job in an abandoned building scheduled for imminent demolition.
Over six years the authority in south east London was charged for a string of phoney repairs, with Johnson passing fictitious jobs to a contractor, who was in turn paying him backhanders. Investigators found six lifts, which had only recently been refurbished, had been referred for unnecessary repairs at a cost of almost £9,000.
Johnson, who had worked for the council for 25 years, had the power to order repairs on almost 400 lifts in buildings owned by the authority. When investigators examined his work email account, they found a secret folder filled with messages about a particular external contractor being used for lift repairs.
Greenwich Council said this contractor invoiced the council for jobs sent by Johnson and his co-conspirator Wickham. A spokesman added: “The contractor then made personal payments to the pair as a reward for raising the unnecessary repairs.”
An email thread involving Johnson and the contractor contained incriminating boasts about how much money they could make, with the contractor writing “we could clean up”. When the council investigated the alleged repairs referred to the contractor, it found no evidence of many of them having ever been carried out.
Some of the fraudulent jobs were brazen, including one in August 2011, when an order was placed for the lift pit floors on the Kidbrooke estate to be concreted and painted. But the block had already been emptied of residents ahead of a redevelopment and nobody had lived there for months as it was awaiting demolition.
Some lifts in other areas had the same alleged repairs, which should last more than a decade, between two and four times in only six years. Fake jobs were continually ordered from 2011 until 2017, when the council’s investigation corroborated an anonymous whistleblower's letter sent in 2016.
Johnson was arrested in August 2017 at the Birchmere Business Centre in Thamesmead, south east London, where his council office was located. The contractor, who was cleared at trial, was arrested the same day.
Investigators found the contractor made monthly “wage” payments for almost five years to the wife of one of Johnson’s colleagues, Stuart Wickham. The council investigated Wickham’s activity on its computer systems and found he too had commissioned suspicious repairs.
Wickham was questioned at Plumstead police station in late 2017 and both men were sacked in 2018. At Woolwich Crown Court on March 30, Johnson, of Sidcup, south east London, was jailed for five years for conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position.
Stuart Wickham, of Bexley, south east London, was jailed for three-and-a-half-years for the same offence. The council will now take legal action to try to recoup the money through a proceeds of crime hearing.
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
The contractor pleaded not guilty and was acquitted by a jury. Following last month’s hearing, the council said the sentences were the conclusion of “a long and complex investigation” that saw the pair “defraud taxpayers out of £1,545,184.52.
Greenwich Council said that following an internal review of its lift maintenance service, it had “strengthened” its internal controls “to prevent this from ever happening again”. A spokeswoman for the authority said on Friday (April 21): "Stephen Johnson and Stuart Wickham defrauded taxpayers in the Royal Borough of Greenwich of £1,545,184.52 by raising unnecessary lift repairs that were completed by an external contractor who invoiced the council for the repairs.
"The contractor then made personal payments to the pair as a reward for raising the unnecessary repairs. The council is pleased with the outcome of the trial and steps are already being taken under the Proceeds of Crime Act to pursue them for all the money that they gained as a result of the fraud. This conviction concludes a long and complex investigation.
"The pair had been dismissed from council service in August 2018 after our own internal investigation suspected them of fraud. Since then, the council has concluded its own internal review of its lift maintenance service which has resulted in a strengthening of internal controls to prevent this from ever happening again."
