Jonathan King used the money to fund their lifestyle, the court heard
An auctioneer who defrauded customers out of thousands of pounds to fund a lavish lifestyle, including a trip to Dubai with his wife, has been jailed.
Cameo Auctioneers in Berkshire collapsed in 2012 after customers complained it failed to pay them.
Auctioneer Jonathan King, 66, was found guilty of a number of charges and jailed for five years.
His wife Beverley King, 62, received a suspended sentence. Her brother Glenn Norcliffe was jailed for four years.
During a trial at Reading Crown Court, jurors heard almost £250,000 was taken between January 2008 and May 2012 at the struggling auctioneers in Midgham.
Glenn Norcliffe, Beverley King's brother, was found guilty of three offences
It included £7,000 which paid for a holiday to Dubai for the married couple.
Gordon Menzies QC, prosecuting, said: "It's not just that clients had difficulty getting their money... they never got paid at all."
Jonathan King, of Mattock Way in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, was found guilty of all seven charges he faced - four counts of fraud by abuse of position, one of dishonestly making false representation to make gain for self or loss to another, one of engaging in commercial practice which is a misleading omission by abuse, and one of making false statutory declarations.
Beverley King, of the same address, was found guilty of one count of entering into of acquisition, retention, use or control of criminal property, but cleared of a second.
Norcliffe, of Marcuse Road in Caterham, Surrey, was convicted of two counts of fraud by abuse of position, one of false accounting and one count of dishonestly making false representation to make gain for self or loss to another.
- Published20 December 2014
