A FORMER Jersey doctor who is behind bars for a long history of financial crimes has been given extra prison time after trying to block authorities from recovering stolen money and spending thousands on expensive dinners and holidays while owing the taxpayer millions.
Gerald Martin Smith, who was jailed earlier this year for obtaining a Covid loan with a fake name and using part of it to help pay off a £72m court order, has had 13 months added to his sentence.
Smith, who was previously jailed for stealing millions from a software company, deliberately “obstructed” investigators from taking control of his properties in central London to help repay the millions he owes to taxpayers.
The Serious Fraud Office, which oversees financial crime cases in the UK, uncovered Smith’s orchestration of a plan to conceal the ownership of a Bloomsbury property containing three apartments to avoid paying an £80m court order.
The former doctor persuaded an old friend from medical school to transfer ownership of the property to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands that Smith secretly controlled.
Smith also changed the locks and arranged for two tenants to occupy the flat to further obstruct the selling of the property that was required to recover stolen funds.
Investigators also discovered that Smith continued to breach court-imposed spending restrictions by receiving regular financial support from his brother.
Over a 19-month period, he spent over £53,000 dining at luxury London restaurants and enjoying holidays in Mallorca.
Smith was jailed for eight years in 2006 for stealing £35m from a software company called Izodia. The theft caused the collapse of the stock market-listed company and shareholders lost all their investments.
In 2007, the former doctor was ordered to pay a confiscation order of £41m – the largest order made in criminal proceedings at the time.
Smith did not pay any of the stolen money back following his release, and he told the court in 2019 that he was too poor to pay back what he owed – despite visiting numerous luxury destinations and using a private jet for more than 100 trips in a single year.
In 2022, Mr Smith avoided jail after what was described as “lavish” spending of frozen assets at bars, restaurants and wine merchants. He was instead handed an eight-month suspended sentence.
Mr Smith’s criminal record dates back to 1993, when he was jailed for two years for taking £2m from the pension fund of Farr Group, a construction company.
Serious Fraud Office director Nick Ephgrave said: “We are determined to prevent criminals benefiting from their crime, and wherever assets are hidden or obstructed, we will go after them.
“This sentence should serve as a warning to Mr Smith and those assisting him that we won’t stop in our recovery and enforcement of court orders against him.”
