Studios boss admits £1.8m fraud

Alex Swan admitted 11 offences

A former director of the failed South West Film Studios in Cornwall has pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining £1.8m of EU grant money.

Alex Swan, 44, of Kensington Mall, Notting Hill, London, admitted four charges of forgery to obtain Objective One funding for the St Agnes studios.

He also admitted seven charges of obtaining money by deception at Truro Crown Court.

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

The closure of the half-built studios in 2004 was the European 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.

Prosecutors called it a "substantial and sophisticated fraud on the taxpayer".

Swan was bailed and is due to be sentenced on 27 April.