BRITISH tax investigator Michael Allcock, accused of taking "breathtaking" bribes from wealthy businessmen, was found guilty on six out of II charges of corruption in the Old Bailey yesterday. He will be sentenced today.
The most senior taxman ever to be charged with corruption in Britain had "abused his position with the Inland Revenue and betrayed its integrity for his own personal enrichment", according to Mr John Black, prosecuting.
Allcock was in charge of an investigation team - dubbed the ghostbusters - which targeted rich foreign businessman liable to pay tax in Britain.
A number of people being investigated by his group had never declared themselves to the tax authorities in Britain and were known as "ghosts".
Allcock was convicted of accepting the services of a prostitute, Ms Michelle Corrigan, as a bribe. Iraqi oil consultant Hisham Alwan had paid Ms Corrigan £200 to have sex with Allcock in return for not having to settle a tax bill. He was convicted on one charge of corruption and will face sentence today.
In his capacity as leader of an investigative team, Allcock claimed it was necessary to his work to travel abroad and accept the sometimes lavish hospitality of those who were being targeted for tax. To refuse such hospitality would have been understood as an insult in the culture of the businessmen in question, many of them of Middle Eastern origin Allcock said.
The essence of his job, he said, was to get a satisfactory settlement from the people investigated and to obtain spin-off information.
Allcock was found guilty of corruptly accepting from Hisham Alwan the services of a prostitute and the payment of a £213 hotel bill. He was found not guilty of accepting payment of two other hotel bills from Alwan.
He was also found guilty of corruptly accepting air tickets to New York, accommodation, the cost and expenses of a cruise from New York to Bermuda and back, the payment of a hotel bill for $2,417 and three Concorde air tickets from New York to London from Mr Ara Oztemel, and of corruptly accepting £2,500 in cash.
He was found not guilty of corruptly accepting air tickets to France and the payment of hotel bills as well as accommodation and general expenses on a holiday to Majorca from Mr Marwan Kalo.
Allcock said he turned to prostitute Michelle Corrigan after his wife, Sally, discovered she had cancer. They had become "kindred spirits", he claimed.
Later however, he took a holiday with his wife in the US, combined with a cruise to Bermuda, from Mr Oztemel, whom he had investigated. It was the biggest bribe of all - totalling half his annual salary, according to the prosecution.