Exclusive: Yorkshire ringleader of scam netted over £10m

A former racing driver and an accountant were among others drawn into the long-running conspiracy which ripped off taxpayers, suppliers and utilities firms.

The professionals worked for ringleader John Elam, a property developer who is believed to have made at least £10m from the scam and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in luxury properties in Leeds, Harrogate and London. Elam, 52, has been given jail sentences totalling nine years after being convicted of conspiring to defraud, assault and perverting the court of justice.

But his own barrister suggested in court that police suspected him of being not only a fraudster, but “an international criminal, drug trafficker, money launderer, involved with guns”.

Detectives uncovered the crimes after undercover officers bugged Elam’s apartment and office in the heart of Leeds’s legal quarter.

Elam was described as a “£1m-a-year man” in one recorded conversation, and checks of his financial records showed that he was once able to clear a credit card bill of more than £360,000 despite having no declared income.

Details of the police operation, involving the seizure of more than 120 computers and almost 5,000 documents, can be revealed by the Yorkshire Post for the first time today after a judge at Leeds Crown Court lifted reporting restrictions.

More than five years and six separate criminal proceedings have elapsed since the first charges brought against Elam in 2006. Court hearings were told Elam stole creditors’ money through a series of “phoenix” frauds at a restaurant he owned – the Medina in Leeds – and a chain of nine car washes in Leeds and Bradford.

The sites would be run by operating companies which each ran up debts, only to be dissolved and replaced by new firms.

The business transactions were rarely, if ever, done in Elam’s name as he enlisted the help of associates including Philip Brown, a Bradford solicitor; Mark Nelson, a self-employed financial adviser and former bank manager; and Stephen Farman, who worked as Elam’s accountant.

Another conspirator was Russell Spence, a former Formula 3000 racing driver who lived in a mansion once valued at £3.5m.

At a confiscation hearing last month, Elam, 52, formerly of York Place, Leeds, was ordered to repay £2m within six months or face a further six years in prison.

He was also made the subject of a four-year serious crime prevention order which bans him from becoming involved in the running of companies and requires him to give police two weeks’ notice before travelling abroad.

Brown, 53, of Wells Road, Ilkley, who was jailed for three-and-a -half years after he admitted conspiracy to defraud and perverting the course of justice, was estimated to have made £5.2m from the crime but ordered to repay less than £140,000.

Nelson, 45, of The Lilacs, Guiseley, and Farman, 50, of Tall Trees, Hessle, were each jailed for two years for their part in the Medina fraud and are due to be sentenced next week for their involvement in the car wash scam.

Spence, 51, of Kildwick Hall, near Skipton, and Elam’s son Craig Bower, 34, of Waterside Court, Rodley, Leeds, have admitted conspiring to defraud but are yet to be sentenced.

Three other men have been sentenced for perverting the course of justice. Howard Fowler, of Bradford, was jailed for 18 months; Paul Mooney, 68, of Manscombe Road, Bradford got six months; and Paul Bane, 56, of Banklands Avenue, Silsden, was given a 10-month suspended sentence.