John Keeping Ref. 73145-46THE victim of a massive fraud that left him financially ruined faces jail for not being able to pay his council tax.

John Keeping, who used to run a Swindon haulage business, with a £2.5m turnover, had £164,000 embezzled from his business by trusted employee Margaret Lesley Cross.

Although, Cross was jailed for the fraud, it directly led to the collapse of his business, Keeping Transport Limited, and the loss of 27 jobs.

Now, he is being prosecuted for not paying £778 in council tax by Swindon Borough Council, which could see him sent to jail.

Mr Keeping will appear before magistrates on November 26, the hearing having been adjourned on Friday.

Cross was sentenced to two years in prison last year after admitting the fraud, but was released within four months.

As a result of the fraud Mr Keeping was unable to pay creditors, VAT and the Inland Revenue. His business was eventually forced to close, after not getting planning permission to move to a cheaper site. Now Mr Keeping, 61, is unemployed and living on a £105 a week pension credit.

He is in danger of losing his house in Swindon Road, Stratton, because he is not able to keep up the interest payments on a remortgage he took out to keep the company afloat before the deception by Cross was discovered.

"It is ridiculous. I'm the victim of a crime, but I'm being treated like a criminal," he said. "It's so hard to keep it together as all I can think is that she is now living in her five-bedroomed house while I have been reduced to nothing.

"The whole system is totally wrong. I'm having psychiatric treatment and have had two suicide attempts. This whole thing has made me totally depressed."

To try and stave off bankruptcy, he is lobbying the Government through North Swindon MP Michael Wills to force the banks through which fraudulent cheques were paid to give the money back so he can pay the creditors.

He already owes more than £40,000 in legal fees to his solicitors, who were looking for more than £100,000 to take the banks to court. He cannot declare bankruptcy as that would mean he would not be able to pursue his claim from the banks.

He said: "I have just got to try to keep pursuing it, keep my head together and stay alive.

"They are chucking so much at me. It is as if I defrauded the creditors."

A tragic story

Margaret Lesely Cross worked as an administrative assistant in 1995, and John Keeping said her activities of signing false cheques and pocketing the money herself did not come to light until 2001.

She had carried out the fraud while Mr Keeping's wife, Sally, was in the final stages of the cancer that was eventually to kill her in 1997 and carried on until she was arrested in May 2001.

It all came to light, when Cross, 63, formerly of Queensfield, Swindon, went on holiday and a part-time clerk discovered cheque stubs to fictional suppliers. She was also prosecuted for applying for a false mortgage from Abbey National, Alliance and Leicester and Nat West banks for £115,595.

Cross was given a two-year prison sentence but only served four months. She then moved back in to her five-bedroomed house in Scunthorpe. When Mr Keeping went to Cross's house ask for his money back he received a letter from her solicitors warning him not to return or she could take legal action.

Jamie Hill