Estate agent boss is forced to take out £400,000 in loans to get his crooked colleague jailed

A business owner was forced to take out loans totalling £400,000 to get a crooked colleague jailed after police claimed ‘austerity’ prevented them from investigating.

Estate agent Stephen Laycock has been left £277,000 out of pocket, despite successfully funding the private prosecution of Timothy Shinners, who stole tenants’ deposits and plundered the company bank account to pay for luxury holidays and his stag weekend.

Almost three years after seeing his former co-director jailed for three years for fraud, Mr Laycock is still fighting to recover his money.

He was initially told he would see only £150,000 of the £427,909 private prosecution costs but he has now won a High Court ruling to have the sum reassessed.

The judge, Mr Justice Lane, said the failure to do so could mean that ‘private prosecutions would be in danger of becoming the preserve of those with deep pockets’.

Last night, Mr Laycock, who runs Platinum Properties in Horwich, near Bolton, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Having done everything I reasonably could to engage the state to prosecute, a private prosecution was the only option to ensure that justice was done.’

The case highlights the failure of police to tackle fraud – now the most common crime, with 3.8 million incidents in England and Wales in the past financial year. Of these, fewer than 6,000 charges were brought. 

And the case comes amid a collapse of confidence in the police, with a recent YouGov survey finding barely a fifth of people are confident officers will solve a burglary and less than a quarter believe they will catch a mugger.

Greater Manchester Police were given a mountain of evidence against Shinners – yet still refused to act. He had repeatedly received deposits from tenants but kept the cash for himself. He also pilfered £76,352 from the company and moved into one of the firm’s properties for three years, using company funds to pay the rent.

Shinners, a director at Platinum between 2009 and 2015, then forged documents to hide the crimes.

But when Mr Laycock went to Greater Manchester Police, officers complained that ‘the police service has felt the brunt of the Government’s austerity measures’ leading to ‘difficult decisions’ which may not be ‘satisfactory to the victim’.

Mr Laycock turned to private prosecution specialists Edmonds Marshall McMahon, and in 2017 Shinners was convicted at Preston Crown Court of four counts of fraud and jailed for three years.

Last night, Detective Chief Inspector Helen Critchley, of Greater Manchester Police, said: ‘Due to the volume of fraud cases reported, sadly it isn’t possible for every crime to be investigated due to the time and demand on our resources.

‘In September 2015, we received a report of fraud which was assessed by our team. Recognising that there was a limited prospect of GMP securing a successful criminal prosecution due to its limited and already stretched resources, it was decided that this investigation would not be proportionate.’

Dame Vera Baird, the Victims’ Commissioner, said: ‘It is outrageous that a victim of a serious crime is told that the police and prosecution will do nothing to try to get justice. It was obviously a strong case – since the victim took it on himself and won it at court.

‘It cost him vast amounts on top of the loss he already sustained from the offence – it’s the criminal justice system re-victimising him since he clearly won’t get it all back.’