Film con man ordered to pay £100K

Alex Swan faces two years in jail if he does not pay

The man behind a project to build a film studio at St Agnes in Cornwall has been ordered to forfeit £100,000 at a court hearing.

Alex Swan, 46, was jailed in 2007 for fraudulently obtaining almost £2m from the Objective One fund which disperses EU money to businesses.

A judge at Truro Crown Court made the confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime act.

Swan faces a two-year sentence if he does not pay the £100,000 as ordered.

Swan, of Kensington Mall, London, was jailed in 2007 for four and a half years, later halved on appeal.

At his trial at Truro Crown Court, Swan admitted four charges of forgery and seven of obtaining money by deception.

He was also banned from being a company director for 13 years.

The studios went into administration less than two years after forming.

The closure of the half-built St Agnes studios in 2004 was the European Objective One funding programme's most high-profile failure in Cornwall.

The court heard that the forgery charges were in connection with share documents used to convince the Government Office for the South West that the project should receive grant funding.