Boss fined for false accounting

Elwyn Vaughan said he was looking forward to getting back to work

The managing director of a Gwynedd business agency has been found guilty of false accounting.

A jury found Elwyn Graham Vaughan, 41, MD of Cymad, guilty after six hours of deliberation at Mold Crown Court.

The offences - which he had denied - were committed when he paid an employee for overtime, but filled the cheque stubs with different names.

Vaughan, from Penrhyndeudraeth, was fined £500 with £1,841 in costs. Cymad confirmed he still worked for them.

Judge Merfyn Hughes QC said that Vaughan, who earns £43,000 a year as managing director, had behaved unprofessionally, unethically and as the jury had now found, dishonestly.

He told Vaughan he had consistently trivialised his wrongdoing, and had heard no evidence of remorse, or an appreciation of the effect his fraudulent behaviour was having on junior staff.

'Technical charge'

Vaughan had, the judge said, shown a lack of accountability and a failure to acknowledge proper procedures.

However, they were not the most serious offences of their kind the judge said.

Despite the fact that public money was involved he had, said the judge, decided not to impose a custodial or community penalty but rather to impose a financial penalty.

The jury heard how he wrote out two cheques, one for £500 and another for £180, and gave them to an employee for overtime worked.

He accepted that he filled the cheque stubs in wrongly, to say £180 was for food for a launch event and the £500 was to sort out a phone problem.

Vaughan claimed he had made the payment because the then finance director Euron Jones had refused to authorise the overtime.

Immediately after the verdict, Cymad said their MD had been guilty "on a technical charge of false accounting" and would go back to work and continue to run the company.

"The company had not been caused any loss, nor did anyone gain," the company said in a statement.

Vaughan said there was never a question of him resigning and that he looked forward to going back to work.