Godley, R v

Facts

William Godley was one of the senior figures in the Imperial Consolidated Group, a Lincolnshire-based network of companies which from 1997 promoted offshore investment funds worldwide on the promise of guaranteed high returns and no risk to capital. In reality the schemes were a Ponzi scheme: less than half of investors' money was lent out, the underlying businesses ran at a loss, and funds were dissipated on running costs, commissions and management salaries. The scheme collapsed in June 2002 with over £150 million owing to investors. Mr Godley, a director of the principal Bahamian fund-raising companies and Head of International Sales, later chief executive officer, pleaded guilty on 27 June 2007 before Gloster LJ at Blackfriars Crown Court to conspiracy to defraud at common law. Sentencing was twice adjourned at his request pending the trial and re-trial of his co-accused; on 5 August 2010 he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment and disqualified from acting as a company director for six years. Confiscation proceedings under section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 were issued shortly after conviction but repeatedly adjourned, first for an unsuccessful abuse of process application concerning an alleged agreement with the Serious Fraud Office to spare the family home in Portugal, then pending a refused application for permission to appeal against conviction. The confiscation hearing was heard in April 2014.