Shropshire TV shows boss is jailed over scam
A Shropshire businessmen who made false claims about his background and financial status to dupe people to invest in his animated film company has been jailed for three years.
David Murray Griffiths had said he was a multi-millionaire, had offshore investments and had worked for British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair.
He was convicted of four charges - one of fraud and three of deception involving £840,000 lost by the victims - following a four-month trial.
At Birmingham Crown Court yesterday 50-year-old Griffiths, of Oreton, near Cleobury Mortimer, was said to have told "significant lies" to potential investors in his children's TV show business.
Judge Roderick Henderson said Griffiths' key untruths were about his own personal wealth - that he was a multi-millionaire.
"In that context it would have been a re-assuring factor to a potential investor that the man in charge was wealthy and able to take up the slack in funding and preserve the enterprise," he said.
He said the business had not been a complete sham and investors had lost their money because Griffiths had tried to develop more and more programmes in a reckless way.
"These people lost their money primarily because you are not a very good businessman," said the judge.
The jury had cleared Griffiths of 27 other similar charges of fraud and deception. They were unable to reach verdicts on three other counts which the judge ordered to lie on the file.
Griffiths' co-accused, 49-year-old former financial advisor Simon Drew, who had worked for Inspire GLG Ltd as a fundraiser, was cleared of all 34 charges.
Griffiths, of New Road, Oreton, and Drew, formerly of Larches Lane, Oreton, and now living in Rye, East Sussex, had denied 16 charges of fraud by false representation and 18 allegations of deception between 2004 and 2009.
The jury had heard that cash, cheques or bank guarantees were acquired totalling around £14 million.
Investors pumped money into Inspire GLG Ltd and six satellite companies set up to produce a series of children's animated TV shows under titles such as Boblins and Odd-Jobbers.
By 2009 all the companies had gone into liquidation or administration and more than 150 people had lost their money.
The court heard that Griffiths may have initially intended making the animated TV programmes, but his description of his own history and abilities were said to have been exaggerated or false and misled some investors.
A confiscation application has been made against Griffiths under the Proceeds of Crime Act and will be heard at a later date.
