Guilty Ronnie facing lengthy jail term
TOUGH sentencing guidelines for white collar crimes such as corporate fraud introduced this year could see Chris Ronnie, the shamed former boss of collapsed retailer JJB Sports, jailed for up to 10 years.
Although he was bailed until sentencing on December 12 after being found guilty of taking £1m in backhanders from suppliers to JJB, the 52-year-old from Wilmslow, was given a heavy hint by Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith that a jail term is on the cards, as he said: “I’m granting you bail to give you an opportunity to get your affairs in order.”
He was convicted at Southward Crown Court in London on Thursday after an eight week trial. He was found to have taken three cash payments from suppliers to the Wigan company, which was once the country’s largest sportswear chain, but collapsed in 2012.
Despite earning more than £500,000 a year as chief executive of the business – he also had use of company helicopters – he spent some of the cash he received from suppliers to buy a luxury second home in Sarasota Bay, Florida for $880,000 in cash.
Ronnie was found guilty on three counts of fraud and two of furnishing false information after the trial. He refused to give evidence, which followed an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
The SFO began to look into Ronnie’s affairs after the Office of Fair Trading (now called the Competition and Markets Authority) unearthed apparently suspicious activities in relation to the businessman during an investigation into possible price fixing of replica football shirts by retailers.
The case heard that Ronnie was found to have worked with David Ball, owner of the JJB supplier Fashion & Sport, and with an old friend, David Barrington, who with Ball was involved in a sports goods supplier called Performance Brands, to create false loan deals.
Ronnie’s company Seacroft received a payment of £650,000 in February 2008 from Performance Brands and then $380,000 (about £197,000) from Fashion & Sport in June of that year. A third payment, again from Fashion and Sport, was made to Ronnie later that year, this time of $250,000 (about £134,000).
He failed to notify JJB’s board of these payments.
Evidence of the loans emerged in emails to Ball and Barrington. They were both found guilty of perverting the course of justice.
As SFO investigators circled, Barrington and Ball asked a computer technician to wipe any trace of emails crucial to the investigation, but crucially the engineer kept a copy of all the emails and later handed them to the SFO.
The jury cleared Ball of two counts of supplying false information and were discharged from considering a further count of the same charge after failing to reach a verdict.
