Boss denies role in CDs fraud plot

Shropshire businessman Cary Evans has told a crown court jury that he was not part of a multi-million pound conspiracy to defraud the music industry.

He and three other men deny being part of a plot to sell thousands of unwanted CDs and DVDs that leading record companies expected to be destroyed.

Evans, 49, of Longfield Terrace, Minsterley, near Shrewsbury, had been working in the plastic recycling business at the time of the alleged fraud.

Giving evidence at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday Evans, also known as Gary Roberts, said he had been helping out a friend who was in the same line of work.

Also in the dock are Shaun Norton, 38, of Powell Place, Newport, Stephen Payne, 55, of Tetbury, Gloucestershire, and Michael Clent, 52, of Tenbury Wells.

All four men deny conspiring together, and with Harold James Pearce, 60, and William Cartwright, to defraud major music firms.

It is alleged an estimated £8 million was paid for thousands of CDs and DVDs sent to Newport Plastics Recycling Ltd in Audley Avenue to be destroyed, but were instead sold on.

Hundreds of pallets of discs were discovered in storage at barns on two Shropshire farms.

Evans said he had his own business at Donnington, Telford, when he first met Cartwright about 10 years ago. He attended meetings with music industry companies as Gary Roberts to 'help drum up some business' for Cartwright's recycling operation.

Evans used his birth identity so his name in the plastics industry would not be 'mudded' had Cartwright's business folded. He denied being aware that Cartwright did not intend to destroy the material.

Evans said he had found the storage facilities in barns at one of the farms and Cartwright had given him the money for the rent.

He had been involved in loading and unloading pallets at the farm and signed delivery notes for which Cartwright gave him some money and let him borrow a van. But he had never worked for Cartwright on a formal basis and 'was not on the payroll'.

The jury has been told Pearce was not in the dock and that Cartwright died in 2007.

The trial continues.

See also:

• Shropshire men deny fraud selling scrap CDs and DVDs