Magistrate-designate Ian Christmas and co-defendants John Lewis, Russell Foot and James Cameron are together accused of fraud worth almost £1.5 million. They deny a total of 27 charges of conspiring to induce or fraudulently inducing investments or loans between 2004 and 2008.
Crown Advocate Matthew Jowitt, prosecuting, told the Royal Court yesterday, which was sitting in the Magistrate’s Court, that the retired Jersey vicar and his wife lost £50,000 after investing in Benessia Global, a company set up in 2006 by Mr Christmas and Mr Lewis as a front for their failing property investment firm De Lec, which was ‘crippled by debt’.
Advocate Jowitt said that ‘glossy and misleading’ brochures lured Islanders – including a retired farmer, a nightclub doorman and a signwriter – into believing that they were investing in property in the United States and the Caribbean and to hand over their life savings to the men.
• See today’s JEP for full report
