Andrew Allen admitted his role in a £145,375 VAT fraud whereby he produced false invoices showing non-existent sales between an insolvent company he owned and another he had set up. 

HMRC investigations found that Allen had set up new printing business, the Cardiff Printing Company (CPC), after the failure of his former company South Wales Media Ltd (SWM) which went into liquidation in April 2010.

Allen had previously changed the name of this company from Allprint Ltd, a family run company that had been in existence for almost 50 years.

He then created six fake invoices in the name of Allprint Ltd which supposedly showed sales to CPC, and reclaimed the VAT on them. He also created a further invoice in the name of Allprint Ltd to another company, Pink Panther Digital Ltd, of which he was chairman.  

At Cardiff Crown Court, Allen was sentenced to 32 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, for furnishing false statements to HMRC. He must pay compensation of £134,875 to HMRC by 31 March 2014, plus prosecution costs of £2,800, and is subject to a three-month, electronically-monitored curfew between 19:00 and 07:00.