Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BARS FOR METAL GANG
Receiving legal threats goes with my territory, so the letter from law firm Philip Ross Solicitors was par for the course. “The suggestion that our client is involved in a fraud or scam of some description is highly offensive and libellous,” they wrote. Their client was an investment sham called Denver Trading Limited and last week, five years after I got that letter, four crooks behind it were jailed for fraud. Its sales reps cold-called members of the public, raking in £7.7million selling so-called rare earth metals. These are used in goods such as mobile phones but are worthless as investments because it is impossible to re-sell them. I exposed the company after posing as a potential investor and being given the hard-sell by two lying reps who told me: “It’s a low-risk, high return investment.” Ringleaders Christopher Sabin, 44, of Shoreham, Kent, and Tobias Ridpath, 52, of Hastings, East Sussex, have now been jailed for nine years each. Prolific salesman Nicholas Start, 35, of Tadley, Hants, got seven years and William Berkeley, 52, of Horsham, West Sussex, got four years. The prosecution at Blackfriars Crown Court, London, was brought by Devon and Cornwall Police after an officer became concerned about the investments being made by an elderly resident she had visited. Judge Rajeev Shetty told the defendants: “When the Daily Mirror exposed the scam you hired a public relations firm and lied about the true picture.” The threat to sue from their solicitors came to nothing.