Jail for holiday conman who duped pensioners

And a judge at Warwick Crown Court ordered all of Alan Steel’s £191,000 share from the sale of his Leamington home to be confiscated or used to pay prosecution costs and compensation.

Steel, aged 43, whose home in Willes Road, Leamington, has just been sold, had pleaded guilty to five charges of fraud and one of breaching package holiday regulations.

Quinton Newcomb, prosecuting for Warwickshire Trading Standards, said Steel operated a package holiday company called Russian Gateway (UK) Ltd.

His ex-wife was a director but Steel produced the advertising material and dealt with phone and online customers.

Mr Newcomb said: “He induced a considerable number of people to book package holidays to Russia with him by pretending the company was something it was not.

“Through advertising and brochures the impression was given that his was a high-quality sophisticated company that enjoyed an ATOL licence and was a member of ABTA.

“While he was able to provide a number of people with holidays with which they were happy, over a period of time Steel found the company was in financial difficulty.

“Rather than correcting the situation, he continued to offer holidays and to take money from people in the hope that he could then honour previously-booked holidays.”

The court heard that after things started going wrong in 2010 Steel came up with excuses to try to persuade customers to postpone holidays, including fog hampering cruises, that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had advised against travel to Moscow and that he had been duped out of a large sum of money.

Nick Devine, defending, said: “Once it became apparent the business had gone badly wrong, but before he was apprehended, he had put his house on the market with the intention of repaying those who had lost out.”

Jailing Steel, and disqualifying him from acting as a director for 15 years, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano said: “You were effectively defrauding customers.

“Among those were pensioners giving you money they had saved over many years of work to pay for what was a once-in-a-lifetime holiday.”