Ex-worker: I played no role in £8m CD fraud plot

A 38-year-old man has told a jury he had nothing to do with a multi-million pound plot to defraud music industry companies.

Shaun Norton, of Powell Place, Newport, said he was no more than an employee at Newport Plastics Recycling Ltd – a business run by his former father-in-law, Bill Cartwright.

The company in Audley Avenue is said to have been at the centre of an alleged £8 million conspiracy to sell on thousands of CDs and DVDs which should have been destroyed.

Giving evidence at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday, Norton said he had 'never been part of any agreement to con people out of money' and had never been in trouble with the police.

"I did not question what I was asked to do by Bill Cartwright. He was the boss," he told the jury.

Norton said this included stripping down CDs and DVDs, driving goods to farms in Shropshire and loading and unloading lorries.

The court has heard barns at farms near Shrewsbury and Telford were used as warehouses where police found pallets stacked with CDs and DVDs which it is alleged were to be sold on instead of being recycled.

Norton is on trial with Cary Evans, 49, of Longfield Terrace, Minsterley, near Shrewsbury, Stephen Payne, 55, of Tetbury, Gloucestershire, and Michael Clent, 52, of Tenbury Wells.

All four men deny conspiring together, and with Harold James Pearce and Cartwright, to defraud major music companies between January, 2001, and December, 2006.

The jury heard that Norton, who is now divorced from Cartwright's daughter and has remarried, was currently unemployed.

He said he had known Cartwright since he was 15 and had later worked as a mechanic for several years at a garage run by Cartwright in Newport.

When he later worked at Newport Plastics Recycling for Cartwright he said he only ever had weekly wages.

Norton said he was never a manager at Newport Plastics Recycling and only took orders from Cartwright.

The jury has been told 60-year-old Pearce is not in the dock and that Cartwright died in 2007, during the police investigation.

The trial continues.

See also:

• Boss denies role in CDs fraud plot

• Shropshire pair deny part in alleged £8m CD fraud conspiracy