The former owner of BHS who dodged a six-figure tax bill while splashing out on a luxury lifestyle has been jailed for six years.
Dominic Chappell, 53, shot into the spotlight when a consortium he headed bought the struggling high street chain from Sir Philip Green for £1 in 2015.
BHS, which was haemorrhaging £1 million a week and had a huge deficit in its pension fund, eventually collapsed under Chappell’s ownership in 2016.
The businessman was charged last year with three counts of tax evasion, after failing to pay owed money from £2.2 million of BHS income.
Chappell tried to pin the blame on his financial advisers and Sir Philip, but a jury at Southwark crown court today found him guilty of all three charges.
Sentencing him to six years in jail, Mr Justice Bryan told Chappell it was an "egregious example" of tax fraud, in a "long and consistent course of conduct designed to cheat the revenue”.
Prosecutors said Chappell, from Dorset, blew money on a yacht, a Bahamas holiday, a Bentley Continental car and expensive Beretta guns despite knowing he owed money to the taxman.
He failed to pay around £350,000 in VAT, some £164,000 in corporation tax and approximately £86,000 in income tax.
Chappell mounted his defence on the claim that he was, and still is, “utterly broke” as a result of his purchase of BHS.
He called the business deal a “life-changing catastrophe”, suggesting he should “never have touched it with a barge pole” and accusing Sir Philip of lying to him.
Chappell said he was too busy to sort out his personal financial affairs, claiming he had left it to others.
And he argued that had BHS not failed – an outcome he blamed on Sir Philip – he would have been able to pay his tax bills.
“This catastrophe has cost me my marriage, my money and my reputation”, he told the court.
However prosecutor Mark Bryant-Heron QC said Chappell had “filled your boots” on luxuries such as a yacht, and left himself penniless due to the extravagant purchases.
Chappell, of Blandford Forum, Dorset, denied but was found guilty of dishonestly evading his liability to pay more than half a million in VAT, corporation tax and income tax between January 2014 and September 2016.
The 53-year-old had denied the three charges of cheating the public revenue related to his bankrupt finance company Swiss Rock Limited, but a jury at Southwark Crown Court found him guilty after a trial which lasted almost four weeks.
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