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Shropshire fraudsters ordered to pay back £140,000 of ill-gotten gains 10 years after conviction

Document Cited authorities 2 Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date30 August 2021
Publication titleBirmingham Mail: Web Edition Articles (England)
Silinder Singh Sidhu and Paul Kent were convicted in 2010 for corruptly awarding contracts worth over £1.3 million to local training providers, receiving almost half a million pounds in corrupt payments and financially benefiting between them to the tune of over £467,000.

The fraudsters used this money to fund lavish lifestyles, buying expensive cars, watches and taking luxurious holidays at the taxpayers’ expense.

The men conducted their fraud through positions they held with the Shropshire Learning Skills Council SLSC, established by Parliament in April 2001 to improve the skills of young people and adults not in university education by planning and funding high-quality education and training.

Kent began his fraud in 2003 after securing a position on the SLSC with a fraudulent CV, recruiting Sidhu to his fraud a year later.

As a Director of SLSC, Kent would solicit bribes for the award of contracts. Sidhu, once an employee of SLSC, later became a services provider through his company SLK Marketing Ltd. In this capacity, he received over £266,000 from the SLSC and paid Paul Kent just over £80,000 in corrupt payments.

In April 2010, Kent admitted to 11 counts of receiving corrupt payments and to gain a monetary advantage by deception. He was jailed for four and half years and paid £3240 in confiscation.

Sidhu pleaded guilty in May 2010 to two counts of corruption. He was found guilty of two further counts of corruption after a two-week trial later that month and received a three-year jail sentence and paid more than £31,500 in confiscation.

A Serious Fraud Office SFO review into the proceeds of their crimes has since identified substantial additional assets to be recovered from Sidhu and Kent. The SFO has secured more than £111,000 from Kent and over £27,000 from Sidhu. Sidhu has fully paid the increased available amount of his confiscation order.

This year, SFO has secured increased confiscation orders against the pair. The increases come after the SFO identified an...

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