A Co Tyrone couple were jailed today after admitting a £4.6 million sterling tax fraud.
Patrick Small (56) and his wife Mary (50) stashed millions of pounds in offshore bank accounts and failed to declare tax worth £4.6 million over a period dating back to 1995.
Belfast Crown Court Judge Anthony Hart jailed Small for three and a half years and Mary Small for two and a half years.
The judge said of Small: “He was prepared in a dishonest and unedifying fashion to shift as much of the blame onto his wife as he could.”
The judge said the couple built at least 20 new houses with the money - originally gained from their builders’ merchants in Dungannon, Co Tyrone - and lived in a sprawling 12,000 square foot mansion.
Northern Ireland customs officers who raided the premises discovered £492,238 in cash at the property, stuffed into a concealed safe.
Mr Justice Hart added: “Such was the scale of the defendants’ tax evasion that the prosecution have confirmed that this is by far the largest case of its kind to come before the Crown Court in Northern Ireland.”
The judge said the defendants pleaded guilty to counts of cheating Revenue and Customs and, in the case of Mrs Small, to charges of false accounting between November 2000 and March 2004.
They carried on business under the name of Greystone Builders’ Merchants at their Cullenramer Road home.
From the tax year 1988/89, Mrs Small had money on deposit in the Isle of Man on which she did not pay tax because she did not declare the interest to the tax authorities in this jurisdiction. In the five years from 1988/89, both Mr and Mrs Small had money in the Isle of Man and evaded tax.
The builders’ merchants generated substantial profits. Bank deposits were generated by transactions which never went through the company’s books. Over the decade from August 1995 these undeclared sums amounted to £2.7 million.
They also cashed cheques which were never put through the company’s books. Over four and a half years from February 2001, cheques worth £1.2 million were cashed but not recorded in the company’s books.
Records seized showed they amassed a property portfolio of 23 separate buildings, land or sites as well as some uncompleted houses. In late 2005 their value was £6.6 million although that has fallen.
PA