Dalton Walusimbi appeared via video link from Nairobi, Kenya, during the trial of Michelle Yuksel, director of Parisma and Logistics2Go, who denies nine counts of fraudulent conversion totalling around £200,000.
The businessman told the court he paid second-hand clothes exporter Parisma £27,000 for a container load of used shoes which he then planned to sell on in Uganda. Parisma, he said, was to source the shoes and forward-ship them on to him in Uganda.
However, it is the prosecution’s case that Ms Yuksel used the money to pay her wages, rent and other expenses instead of using it to fulfil orders. One of the nine counts relates to Mr Walusimbi’s claims about his unfulfilled order.
Mr Walusimbi told the jury at the Royal Court how after flying to Jersey on 15 October 2012 to meet Parisma staff and being pleased with the quality of items that he was shown he placed an order for 18 tonnes of ‘grade A and B’ shoes and transferred the money days later.
He said that this was on the condition that the shoes were sourced from the UK and that he would be able to oversee the sorting and arrangement of his goods in the container.
However, it is the prosecution’s case that Mr Walusimbi returned to Jersey on 29 October to inspect his goods and a week later a tonne of shoes arrived – 17 less than what had been ordered.
Mr Walusimbi told the court he returned to Jersey around a month later to check on the rest of his delivery but it had not arrived in the Island. A few days later some of the goods arrived, however Mr Walusimbi said they were of ‘poor quality’ and not the type that he had ordered.
‘They were terrible,’ he said, ‘It was more grade C or even grade D.’
Crown Advocate Simon Thomas, prosecuting, asked Mr Walusimbi if Ms Yuksel had been around when he was at the warehouse.
Mr Walusimbi told the jury: ‘When the container [of shoes] arrived she was there but when I was sorting out the shoes she had already left.’ He also claimed that she was never available when he wanted to speak to her.
Later, Advocate Thomas read the jury an email written by Mr Walusimbi in which he told Parisma that the shoes they had ordered had come from Alicante in Spain not the UK as arranged.
It is also the prosecution’s case that in total Mr Walusimbi only received around half of what he had ordered and despite asking for a £15,014 refund he was only paid £650.
The trial continues.
