Ex-aerospace engineer dined out at high-end restaurants and skipped bills

A FORMER aerospace engineer who dined out at a series of restaurants and left without paying, shortly after the end of the first national Covid-19 lockdown, has been jailed for eight months.

Alan Rogers, of Hadleigh in Suffolk, took his partner for “lengthy dinners” at venues around East Anglia to impress her, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Richard Potts, prosecuting, said the 46-year-old would “proffer payment cards which were not going to be honoured, or honoured only in part”. He said the overall loss to hospitality venues was £2,325.66, hitting 18 businesses.

Judge Emma Peters told Rogers: “These businesses were desperate, their very survival was on the line and you took advantage.”

She said the offences happened between January and October last year, with four of them pre-dating the first lockdown and the rest afterwards.

The judge noted that Rogers and his partner were the first customers that one venue had had after re-opening.

She said he had gone to “high-end establishments”, including in Aldeburgh, and was “in some cases ordering the most expensive steak and good wine”.

“While others were eating out to help out, you were eating out to help yourself,” she said.

She went on: “You were expert at this fraud and did it over and over again.”

Prosecutor Mr Potts said that the largest individual loss was of £824.95 to Sugar Beat bed and breakfast in Swainsthorpe in Norfolk.

He said that Rogers and his partner stayed between July 10 and July 20 last year and the actual bill was almost £1,300.

“It appears they arranged to stay there overnight initially for a short period and they booked a threenight stay, paying in advance for part of it,” Mr Potts said.

He said they extended their stay, and on July 20 “the defendant’s partner indicated that the defendant’s redundancy pay hadn’t come through so they were unable to pay and the police were called”.

“There was no redundancy pay as Mr Rogers left his job voluntarily and wasn’t entitled to any,” said Mr Potts.

“He was in financial distress, if you can put it like that.”

He said Rogers agreed to pay the remaining money the next day, but did not.

Rogers admitted at an earlier hearing to three counts of fraud by false representation and asked for 15 other matters to be taken into consideration.

Mr Potts said it was not suggested that the defendant’s partner was responsible for offending “but was present at a number of incidents”.

Nicola May, mitigating, said: “There was an element of trying to impress his partner.

“There was an element of escapism.”

She said there had been a decline in his mental health at the time and that Rogers apologised for the harm he had caused to the businesses that were affected.