Ostrich 'con' woman walks from court

Esther Marie Evans leaves court with a suspended sentence

A woman found guilty of stealing more than £850,000 from investors in an ostrich meat scheme has walked free from court.

Mother-of-three Esther Marie Evans, 36, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence at Swansea Crown Court.

Evans was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court

During her trial, the jury heard that investors poured money into the Ostrich Centre Ltd when Esther Evans and her husband Martin evans, of Dunvant, near Swansea, promised them 70% profit per year.

Evans, whose husband fled the country after the company collapsed, was found guilty of fraudulent trading and four charges of theft.

Last month she was cleared of three theft charges.

The court heard the couple pocketed almost £330,000 in cash and promptly declared the business insolvent.

'Massive fraud'

Prosecutor Christopher Llewellyn Jones told the jury how the BSE crisis in the mid 1990s led to the idea for a "massive fraud".

Ostriches and ostrich meat were put forward as an alternative to beef and lamb.

The couple set up the Ostrich Breeding Company - which later became the Ostrich Centre Ltd - and then placed advertisements in national newspapers under the slogan of an Ostrich Nest Egg.

Between February and July, 1996, 115 investors sent the couple £852,370.

The prosecution claimed they spent about £350,000 buying ostriches, chicks and eggs and a further £64,000 on land at Bevexe Fawr Farm in Dunvant.

But on 29 July 1996, the business was declared insolvent.

A liquidator found the company bank account to be £440 overdrawn, the court was told.

All the £850,000 had gone, said Mr Llewellyn Jones.

'Laundered'

The couple had withdrawn between £300,000 and £400,000 and then "laundered" it through various accounts, including one in the Bahamas, before finally removing the money in cash.

Evans told the court that although she was a director and company secretary of the business she knew nothing of what was going on and only did what her husband told her to do.

But, Mr Llewellyn Jones told the jury, Evans was a director and the company secretary and had responsibilities towards the investors.