Legal News

A businessman had been given an order to pay £140,000 by a court for telling lies and committing fraud in an attempt to save his £1 million home had won a discount in the bill.

The judge said that some of the items that 69 year old John Michael Ludlam had to sell to pay his bill were not as fashionable as before and was not worth as much as previously believed.

When Ludlam had fallen short of money he tried to transfer his home near Uttoxeter to his wife’s name when he came into trouble.

He was jailed in 2007 after he was convicted of perjury, perversion of justice being a bankrupt when making a fraudulent disposal of property and making false statement.

In 2009 judge Christopher Plunkett said Ludlum had benefitted to the tune of £358,333 from his crimes and ordered him to pay back £140,903 of the value of his assets which could be identified.

But Ludlum took the case to High Court in London where last week Mr Justice Wilkie issued a Certificate of Inadequacy, slashing the confiscation order to £103,142.

.In a hearing earlier this month, bankruptcy lawyers for Ludlam argued that some of the cash realised by sale of his assets had been used to pay off his wife’s confiscation order and so were not available to him.

Caroline Ludlam had also been convicted of offences of dishonesty and was given a confiscation order of £105,417, which has since been paid in full.

His lawyers also argued that some of the property to be sold, including works of art and antique furniture, were no longer as fashionable hence has reduced in value as they once were.

Mr Justice Wilkie said that in his judgment the defendant had demonstrated that the sums, thought by the judge to be realisable, have turned out, as events have developed, not to be.” The fact that some of his property was now less desirable and would have to be sold in a limited time frame meant the chance of getting a good sale price at auction was reduced, he said.

In summary therefore, he said that, in the events which have occurred, there was an inadequacy totaling £37,761, the judge concluded.