PAY BACK TIME FOR MAN CONVICTED OF DECEPTION
A Liverpool man whose lavish lifestyle was funded by criminality has been ordered to pay back over £700,000.
Stephen Ingham, 39 years, was sentenced in November 2004 to 2½ years imprisonment in relation to three counts of obtaining property by deception and ten counts of obtaining services by deception contrary to the Theft Act 1968. Yesterday the judge at Liverpool Crown Court issued Ingham with a confiscation order totalling £724,122. Ingham has five months to pay up or he will face a consecutive five-year prison sentence.
Ingham was the subject of a joint investigation between the North West Regional Asset Recovery Team (RART) and Merseyside Police.
Between March and June 2003 Stephen Ingham used the false identity of David Mallet in order to purchase three new vehicles, including an ‘X’ type Jaguar and a Volvo C70. No payments were ever made to the finance companies who were subsequently unable to trace a David Mallet or the vehicles. At the time Ingham was living in an exclusive apartment overlooking Liverpool Marina in addition to owning two further properties in Liverpool.
On the 7th November 2003, officers from Merseyside Police recovered all three vehicles from an address owned by Ingham but occupied by his parents. An Audi TT Quattro, which had been reported stolen in December 2001, was also found on the driveway.
Further enquiries revealed that Stephen Ingham had also obtained numerous loans, credit cards and bank accounts by in the name of David Mallet.
Despite the fact that Stephen Ingham was claiming Benefit, investigators from the North West RART uncovered evidence of large cash payments into an account held by him and revealed Ingham’s extravagant lifestyle clearly financed from the proceeds of criminal conduct.