Blackburn man set up bogus charity to con more than £22,000 from Inland Revenue

Zunaid Patel, 31, founded Help Africa in October 2011 under the guise of raising funds to help relieve poverty on the continent.

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Instead he used the charity’s status to claim £22,151 in Gift Aid he was not entitled to, using the charity as a front for his deception.

Between January and September 2012, Patel made four claims to the revenue, resulting in the sums being paid into his bank account — and promptly withdrawn.

Patel, of Burnley Road, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation after he was caught out trying to make a further £15,268 Gift Aid claim.

Officers from HMRC asked to see proof of funds Patel claimed to have raised for the charity. But when he was unable to provide documentation, an investigation was lodged and Patel’s con was uncovered.

Recorder William Waldon, sentencing at Preston Crown Court, said: “You were a trustee in this enterprise of dishonesty. There is direct harm to the revenue directly through the sums obtained and indirectly to the general public.

“When money is dishonestly obtained from the public purse there is less money to fund projects for the general public.

“People who give to charity do so with a genuine heart. The fact that a charity is used as a vehicle for fraud — albeit in this case I accept no monies were collected from members of the public and the fraud was on the revenue — the fact you used a charity as a vehicle to dishonestly gain is genuinely repugnant to people.

“It erodes public confidence and it erodes it in a very considerable way.”

However, after reading 18 references the judge said Patel was a man of positively good character.

The judge handed Patel a eight-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to undertake two years’ supervision and 200 hours of unpaid work, telling him: “For every minute you complete this work you should think long and hard about what you did and how you came to be doing it.”