Five jailed for emptying pension pot of £2.9m

Jun 20 2008 By Nick McCarthy

FIVE men were jailed for a total of 26 years in 2004 for emptying the Cheney fund of £2.9 million in less than four weeks.

More than £1.1 million of the fund was turned into cash, some of which has still not been accounted for.

Sykes and others bought Cheney for £175,000 in 1999. The court heard this week that he never paid a penny of his own money to “buy” the firm and before stealing from the fund he had used the money to buy the equipment and to pay off the mortgage on the building.

The firm was then passed through a series of “shell” companies, all owned and controlled by Sykes, who systematically emptied the pension fund account in just four weeks.

An estimated £1 million was removed in cash, while the remainder was used to pay off underworld contacts of the group. The once family-run firm was finally wound-up in 2001 when all of the staff were made redundant.

There were around 230 members of the fund and all of them had been due to receive lump sums of between £10,000 and £40,000 on retirement.

Forty-three members of staff never received the lump sums and the pensions compensations board have made reduced payments ever since.

Sykes, Maya, Altaf Sayed and Ian David Selby were all convicted of conspiracy to steal. Maya was jailed for seven years, Sayed was sent to prison for three-and-a-half years and Selby received a four-and-a-half year jail sentence.

Trevor Hamilton Farrell pleaded guilty to the same charge and was jailed for three years. Another man, Cassius Augustus Powell, 39, was also charged with conspiracy to steal but was acquitted following a trial.