Jetsetting fraudster ‘too poor’ to pay £66m debt

Wednesday 09 January 2019

A Jersey fraudster, who owes UK taxpayers more than £66million, is readying himself to argue in court that he is too poor to pay back the money he owes – despite making hundreds of “extravagant” trips around the world.

Dr Gerald Smith, the ex-chief executive of Jersey-registered company ORB, is facing calls for his imprisonment for his allegedly “wilful” refusal not to pay back the substantial sum.

Smith was found guilty of a fraud worth £35million in London Crown Court more than 10 years ago.

He was jailed for eight years and handed a confiscation order totalling £44million – the value of which has since risen to £66million due to interest charges now around £8,000 per day.

But Smith is still yet to repay the sum, instead opting to travel around the world.

Pictured: Smith was reported to have taken over 100 private jet trips in a single year.

Over the years, he has visited the luxury destinations of Buenos Aires, Dubai, Hong Kong, the Maldives and Vancouver and made use of equally luxurious transport, having apparently made 105 trips on a private jet in just one year.

There have since been calls for Smith to be imprisoned for a “wilful” refusal to pay back the tens of millions he owes, but he has vowed to fight any attempt to jail him.

In new documents submitted to Folkestone Magistrate’s Court, the jetsetter is now claiming that he is too poor to pay the money back, the Evening Standard reported.

He justified his luxury travel by stating that all bills were paid for by generous members of his family and friends, who set up a litigation fund for him worth £12million to assist him in another legal battle over assets totalling £40million.

According to Smith, that battle will not end until 2020 at the earliest, which he said explained his non-payment.

Pictured: Folkestone Magistrate's Court.

However, the Serious Fraud Office – led by barrister Kennedy Talbot QC – said that even if he won that case, he would only gain around £38million, with £5million legal fees also outstanding.

This would still leave him with a significant shortfall, the barrister said, adding that Smith had not shown how he would make up this gap.

Arguing that Smith’s repayment time for the confiscation order expired as many as 10 years ago, the barrister is now arguing that the court should order a “default” sentence of eight years’ imprisonment.

He further accused the fraudster of using only “vague and unparticularised assertions” about how his luxury lifestyle is funded, adding that he believed Smith to be concealing a home worth £700,000 in Ascot.

Previous court documents put forward by the Serious Fraud Office suggested that Smith had used criminal money to pay for a £12million home in Jersey, as well as a Canadian ski lodge, land by Italy’s Lake Como, and 14 flats in a mansion block worth £14million in London.

Smith’s representative, Charles Bott QC, argued that Smith should not be jailed again, adding that there was “no basis” for arguing that he had wilfully refused to pay.

The case has now been adjourned, with the court having ordered Smith to explain his spending patterns more fully to help decide whether he should be imprisoned.

The news comes two years after Smith’s wife, Dr Gail Cochrane, was declared ‘en desastre’ in Jersey’s Royal Court.

The GP was said to have owed more than £1.25billion. Despite having previously told the Royal Court she was “a very wealthy woman, with holdings in dozens of companies worldwide”, she later claimed she owned next to nothing.