The director of an estate agent business based in Hoxley near Bolton is facing being £277,000 out of pocket after mounting an expensive private prosecution of a former director.
The private legal action came about to secure a conviction of the fraudulent colleague who had stolen £76,352 from the company’s bank account and pilfered tenancy deposits from renters.
Three years ago estate agent Stephen Laycock, who at the time ran Platinum Properties, took co-director Timothy Shinners to court over the fraud after Greater Manchester Police declined to recommend the case to the Crown Prosecution Service, saying there wasn’t a realistic chance of a successful prosecution.
Laycock (pictured, left) subsequently decided to persevere and took out loans totalling £400,000 to fund a private prosecution. But he has now been told that he’ll recoup less than half this amount, leaving him £277,000 of out of pocket.
Prison sentence
Nevertheless, the prosecution in 2017 was successful and Shimmers was found guilty and given a three-year prison sentence for his crimes, the proceeds of which he used to fund a luxury lifestyle.
Laycock told the Daily Mail that he was determined to ensure that justice was done.
And he said he was particularly unhappy about the police decision not to bring their own prosecution, as there was a ‘mountain of evidence’ against Shinners.
The case lays bare the huge financial and resource pressures that many police forces are feeling after years of austerity. Greater Manchester Police told Laycock that part of their reason for not pursuing a prosecution was its ‘stretched resources’.
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