One of the most high-profile and longest running fraud cases in the property sector, which polarised the community, has finally reached it's legal conclusion.
Property Tribes has received an official statement from Thames Valley Police:
"Earlier today, at Amersham Crown Court, Phillip Henry Martin was found guilty of all six counts on the indictment by the Jury after several hours of careful deliberation.
Philip Martin has been remanded into custody and will be sentenced tomorrow at Amersham by the trial Judge.
The Judge warned Mr Martin that he can expect to receive a substantial prison sentence".
Back story
Phil Martin enjoyed a period as a high profile property guru, speaking at the Berkshire Property Meet and other events on the wealth educator circuit, where he sold people expensive mentoring programmes and portfolio building services, some involving lease options. He was lauded as an expert and dominated much of the wealth educator scene.
However, things were not all as rosy as they seemed, and his Rapid Group, which had several companies, went bankrupt in 2009 along with PM himself. Investors lost substantial sums - believed to be somewhere in the region of £2.4 million.
Despite this, some time later, Phil Martin re-emerged as a property expert, speaking at property events, and running his "Millionaires Together" mentoring programme and other money making ventures, all related to property.
Phil Martin returns to property
Many people felt that he should be disbarred from community groups, others felt he should be given a second chance.
Some allowed him a platform to speak despite the cloud hanging over him. (He spoke at the Peterborough Property Investors Group (PIG) the day before he appeared in court for the BIS case sentencing - see below).
What was clear was that PM managed to attract a very loyal following who would not believe anything bad of him. He also managed to convince a lot of people that he was innocent of any wrong-doing.
PM himself showed very little remorse for his victims and carried on as normal with his property activities.
Following a lengthy police investigation that Phil Martin did not co-operate with, in November 2014 PM was charged with with 12 separate counts concerning two different companies he was in control of:
9 counts contrary to sections 1 and 2 of the Fraud Act 2006. (In relation to Rapid Property Buyers and Premiere Building and Construction)
1 count contrary to sections 1 and 6 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1984
2 counts contrary to section 993 of the Companies Act 2006.
This case took a long time to reach the court room and is the case he will be sentenced on tomorrow.
See - Phil Martin charged on 9 counts of fraud
In the meantime, a separate court action was brought against him and his accountant by the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS).
In October 2015, In total he received 20 months imprisonment which commenced immediately.
He also received an exclusion from running a business for 7 years.
He was released from prison with a tag and few weeks ago and was photographed on Facebook with his mentees saying he was looking forward to re-starting his mentorship programme. Prior to commencement of the second trial, all his social media profiles and websites were removed from the web. (No one knows why).
We will up-date this thread with the jail sentence tomorrow.
Thank you to Thames Valley Police for keeping the property community informed.
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