City Link manager conned 100k from parcel firm before it collapsed

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Doomed parcel delivery company City Link was conned out of over £100,000 by its own fleet manager, a judge heard.

Double-dealing Paul Hehir was also secretly running the firm through which it hired land for parking, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

Part of his job was to find secure sites where City Link trailers could be left and it was an obvious conflict of interest for him to do business with Peel Auctions, the company he ran on the side, said Miss Saleema Mahmood, prosecuting.

So the 47-year-old father of two hoodwinked his employer by recruiting a third party to issue invoices under its name for the cost of the parking in exchange for around 10 per cent of the bill. The rest of the money went to Hehir, the court heard.

“He was in a trusted position, there was not much scrutiny of the agreements and he concealed his involvement in a complex way,” said Miss Mahmood.

The racket continued for 16 months from November 2011 to March 2013 until being uncovered by accident during a police investigation into an unrelated matter. By then it had cost City Link £116,000, £102,000 of which went to the defendant.

Peel Auctions was set up by him as an alternative source of income because of fears – later realised – that his employer was in danger of folding.

Hehir ran it but named his wife and other relatives rather than himself as directors in a tax ruse, the court was told.

The firm that owned the land in Bilston Lane, Willenhall, where the parking took place was not on the City Link-approved list and so was paid ‘in kind’ by Hehir with stock, it was alleged.

Mr Stephen Cadwaladr, defending, said: “He undoubtedly did wrong and was dishonest but this came about as a means of coping with a business going down the pan.”

City Link collapsed over Christmas 2014. More than 300 staff across the West Midlands lost their jobs in the collapse – including 47 at the Wednesbury depot.

Hehir, of Oval Drive, Fordhouses, and of previous good character, admitted furnishing false information and was given an 18-month jail sentence suspended for two years with 160 hours unpaid work. Recorder William Edis QC said: “You kept your fingerprints off everything but somebody has lost a six-figure sum and you have had it.

“I have had to balance the requirement for punishment and deterrence against the needs of your family and the fact you have attempted to turn your life around since an offence committed a long time ago.”