8.02PM, Fri Apr 15 2005
ITV.Comi
Six people have been jailed for using the names of celebrities and the dead to fleece the public out of £1 million.
The scam involved creating fictitious students to obtain cash from the Government's Individual Learning Account scheme which had to be scrapped following widespread fraudulent claims across the country.
The defendants exploited flaws in the scheme that meant anyone, even those without previous experience, could become a Learning Provider without being checked.
Names submitted by Learning Provider companies, set up to distribute the grants, included the entire England football team, most of the EastEnders' cast, former US president Bill Clinton and Harry Potter.
Living and dead former colleagues of two of the defendants, both firemen, were also used, Birmingham Crown Court was told.
The six were jailed for between three and nine months. Nine others were given a combination of community punishment orders, fines and costs. They all denied conspiracy to defraud between June 2000 and January 2002.
Those who set up Learning Provider companies and persuaded others to sign up for accounts - Brendan Pearson, 42, from Tamworth, Staffordshire; fireman Paul Cadman, 38, from Ward End, Birmingham; and Lee Hodnett, 37, also from Tamworth - were jailed for six, five and two years respectively.
Each was disqualified as acting as a director for 12, 10 and five years.
Donna Nightingale, 37, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was jailed for six months; Albert Chapman, 57, from Barnt Green, Worcestershire, received a four month sentence; and fireman Timothy Woodfield, 43, from Olton, Solihull, West Midlands, was jailed for three months.
One of the nine given lesser sentences was Gloucester rugby union prop Terry Sigley, 26, from Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands. He received a 150 hour community punishment order and was ordered to pay £2,700 compensation and £500 costs.
