JAILED FOR BUS FRAUD
EXPRESS MOTORS BOSSES ‘FLEECED’ TAXPAYERS IN CONCESSIONARY PASS SCAM WORTH THOUSANDS
Express Motors boss, three sons and an ex-driver locked up for ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ scam:
FIVE men are beginning a total of 29 years behind bars for a scam in which hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash was claimed for bus journeys that never took place.
Family members were in tears as Express Motors bosses Eric, Ian, Kevin and Keith Jones were jailed for fraud by false representation.
A fifth man, former bus driver Rheinallt Williams, was also jailed.
Eric Wyn Jones, of Bontnewydd, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years, as was his son Ian Wyn Jones.
Brothers Kevin Wyn Jones and Keith Jones were given seven and six year terms.
Rheinallt Williams must serve 12 months in prison.
The Wyn Jones’ family were described as ‘ breathtakingly arrogant’ by judge Timothy Petts.
Eric Wyn Jones, 77, of Ger- allt, Bontnewydd, near Caernarfon, was described in Mold Crown Court as an “elderly man in poor health which affects his mobility”.
Lawyers for Jones said custody was going to be difficult for him.
His sons Kevin, Ian and Keith, were also found guilty of the charges by a jury after a four-week trial at Caernarfon Crown Court last month.
Ian Wyn Jones, 53, of Carmel Road, Penygroes was jailed for seven and a half years and Kevin Wyn Jones, 55, of Llwyn Beuno, Bontnewydd was jailed for seven years.
During last week’s hearing Ian Jones also admitted possessing £840 in fake bank notes.
Dealing with the fake cash, prosecutor Mathew Dunford said police found what appeared to be cash in Jones’s home during a search of the property on July 30, 2014.
On closer inspection they were found to be counterfeit.
Mr Dunford said Jones made admissions they were fake during a police interview.
A third son, Keith Jones, 51, of Caer Berllan, Llanddaniel, Anglesey was handed a six year prison sentence.
Rheinallt Williams, 44, of Rhyd Fadog Estate, Deiniolen was a driver at Express Motors.
He admitted a charge of conspiring with others to commit fraud by making false representations to make a financial gain before the trial began.
Sentencing, the judge said someone at the firm realised a fraud was possible and each fraudulent swipe was “quite literally money in the bank for Express Motors.
“The fraud was one of breathtaking arrogance,” the judge said.
The judge praised the officers who carried out the investigation and for the smooth running of the trial.
The Joneses were said to have instructed others to increase the number of con- cessionary passes swiped; excessively swiping concessionary cards and submitted false concessionary payments scheme claim forms to Gwynedd council.
The scam involved using lost or stolen concessionary bus passes to tot up bogus trips and then claiming the cash from the council.
In all 88,000 bogus journeys were made using 32 such cards. One of the cards belonged to a man who had died.
The jury heard the card continued to be used fraudulently for some months after his death.
Eric Jones’ own pass was used to make bogus claims although he claimed he had mislaid it for a few weeks and didn’t know it was being used fraudulently.