Four year jail term given for £885,000 Gift Aid fraud
Howard Lake | 4 November 2013 | News
A series of 13 fraudulent Gift Aid claims to HM Revenues and Customs (HMRC) has resulted in a man from South Wales being sent to prison for four years.
Mark Lewis, CEO of the Welsh Independent School of Climbing and Mountaineering Trust (WISCM), and later the MSL Mountaineering Trust Ltd, was found guilty of using fictitious charity donations to commit an £885,000 Gift Aid fraud.
A south Wales man has been jailed for four years after using fictitious charity donations to commit an £885,000 Gift Aid fraud. His wife, Elizabeth Lewis, was found guilty of laundering the proceeds of the fraud. She was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
At the time of the offences she was a fraud investigator for the Department for Work and Pensions.
The fraudulent claims were made between June 2007 and July 2010. The couple used some of the proceeds to buy a house in Stoke, which they renovated and converted into flats for rent. They also paid a £53,000 deposit on a second house in Stoke, and used the equity to help buy their current home in Porth.
The case first came to the attention of the Charities Commission, which undertook its own enquiries and referred its findings to HMRC.
Michelle Russell, Head of Investigations and Enforcement at the Charity Commission, said: “This is an excellent example of two government bodies working together to bring those who abuse both charities and the tax system to justice. The Commission provided evidence to HMRC based on its own extensive investigations, which has helped to secure these convictions.”
Colin Spinks, Assistant Director, Criminal Investigation, HMRC, said: “Over a three year period Mark Lewis submitted false claims knowing full well that it was an abuse of a scheme designed to help genuine charities in need. When arrested, both he and his wife blamed everyone but themselves. Our investigations proved, however, that the orchestrator was Mark Lewis, and the couple were the only beneficiaries.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.