Scrap metal pair cost firm £25k

TWO workers in a metal-recycling plant cooked the books on deliver- ies and cost their employer almost £26,000 in over-payments, a court has heard.

Ceri Moses and Lee Prothero were in charge of logging the weight of scrap arriving by lorry at the firm’s facility in Swansea Docks, readings which were used to calculate payments.

But the pair regularly overrecorded the weights of lorries coming through the gates – and in return cash was left in the yard office by delivery drivers.

Swansea Crown Court heard that, despite police having records of the times and dates of all the dodgy deliveries and details of the vehicles involved, it seemed their investigation had gone no further than the two men in the dock.

The barrister for one of the defendants said the men were “fall guys”.

Brian Simpson, prosecuting, said Moses and Prothero worked for metal-recycling firm Celsa UK at its base in Swansea Docks, jobs they had held since joining in the summer of 2019.

He said that as part of their duties the pair were responsible for weighing the lorries carrying scrap as they entered the yard, and then weighing them as they left after emptying their loads. The difference in the weights was used to calculate the payments due.

The barrister said that as well as the manual logging of weights, there was an automated system running in the background, and it was a discrepancy between these two sets of readings during July, August and September 2020 which set alarm bells ringing.

He said an examination of the data showed 164 occasions when the wrong figures had been entered into the log, an over-recording of delivered scrap weight which cost Celsa UK £25,970.40 in overpayments.

The court heard that many of the lorries involved with the wronglyrecorded weights were making deliveries of scrap from the firm Ammanford Recycling.

Following the discovery of the discrepancies, the defendants were suspended and the police contacted.

In his police interview, Moses said he had agreed with delivery drivers to “add a little weight here and there” but things had got out of hand and he was relieved it was now over.

He said that on four occasions payments of £50 had been left in the yard office by drivers.

In his interview, Prothero gave a prepared statement to officers in which he admitted that small amounts of weight had been added to the readings of some lorries, but he denied taking “backhanders” – though he said he was aware some drivers would leave money in the yard office.

Ceri James Moses, 40, of Woodland Road, Crynant, Neath, and 41-year-old

Lee Paul Prothero, of Cemetery Road, Garth, Maesteg, had both previously pleaded guilty to a joint count of fraud when they appeared in the dock for sentencing.

Neither man has any previous convictions.

Dean Pulling, for Prothero, said his client was a dad-of-two who had worked all his life and, prior to his conviction, was a man of positive good character.

He said it would be “stretching credibility” to think the adjustments to the weights weren’t going on before the defendants started working at the site, and it may be that “a degree of pressure was involved – not coercion but perhaps ‘work practices’”.

He said the men in the dock were “fall guys”.

The barrister added that the defendant had since found work at the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station construction site in Somerset.

Owen Williams, for Moses, said many of the points of mitigation made on behalf of Prothero also applied to his client

Judge Geraint Walters told the defendants that appearing in the dock of a crown court was a “fall from grace” for them.

He said he could not claim to fully understand what had been going on at the Celsa site, and he noted police had seemingly “not asked a single question” of anybody else involved in the overpayment fraud.

The judge said it may be that there was an “element of familiarity” between those making the deliveries and those working in the recycling yard.

With a one-quarter discount for their guilty pleas, the men were each sentenced to 15 months in prison suspended for 18 months, and were ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Each defendant must also pay £200 towards prosecution costs.