Ex-Sock Shop boss in £4,000 benefits fraud
New disgrace for former tycoon
A DISGRACED tycoon who served jail sentences for corruption and defrauding his high street empire has now admitted fiddling his benefits.
Stephen Hinchliffe – whose previous company owned stores including Sock Shop, Freeman Hardy and Willis, and Red or Dead – fraudulently claimed £4,000 of taxpayers’ money.
But the former Sheffield United director, who lied to welfare officials about a change of circumstances affecting his entitlement to pension credits, was spared jail this time.
His Facia group was once worth £150million and employed 8,000 staff, but when it crashed with huge debts, investigators discovered Hinchliffe, 65, had helped build the ‘ramshackle empire’ by bribing a financier to loan him £10million.
He was jailed for five years – reduced to four on appeal – for paying officials to sidestep official lending procedures. He served part of his sentence but was released on licence.
Later, he was jailed for 18 months for defrauding his empire to the tune of £1.75million.
In his latest run-in with the law, the former tycoon pleaded guilty to four charges in relation to the overpayment of pension credits worth £4,228.89.
He was charged with dishonestly failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions and Sheffield Council about changes to his circumstances affecting his entitlement to benefits.
The offences, which took place from 2012 to 2013, involved another charge of making a false statement to welfare officials.
Hinchliffe, from Sheffield, represented himself at the city’s magistrates’ court and said he had made arrangements to pay back the money. He was ordered to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £15, as well as being given a conditional discharge for 12 months. Hinch- liffe entered the grocery trade after dropping out of Oxford University to train as an accountant, then started Facia by taking out a £3million loan to buy the leather goods chain Salisburys in 1994.
He built his high street empire in the Nineties, and at one stage the Facia group consisted of 850 shops. At the height of his suc-
‘Grand homes and classic cars’
cess, he owned grand homes in Sheffield and London, more than 50 classic cars and a helicopter. He also held a 15 per cent stake in Sheffield United football club and sat on its board of directors.
But his empire began to unravel in 1996 when Facia went into receivership with huge debts. After a £6million, seven-month trial, Hinchliffe was found guilty at the Old Bailey in 2001 of ten corruption charges and one of conspiracy to defraud.
After another Serious Fraud Office investigation, Hinchliffe pleaded guilty in 2003 to conspiracy to defraud the company out of £1.75million when he was its executive chairman.
He had claimed huge sums from the group in consultancy fees.
The case caused controversy when he was allowed to walk free after a plea bargain when a judge said a trial would be too costly.
The decision was overturned at the Court of Appeal, however, and he was jailed for 18 months.
In 2012, when Hinchliffe’s assets were seized after another legal wrangle, he and his wife had to move out of their £1.5million mansion in the Peak District.