Three Jailed For £9m Sainsbury's Overcharging Scam

Three men have been jailed for a £9m overcharging scam against Sainsbury's.

Andrew Behagg and David Baxter, former directors at the potato supplier Greenvale, showered Sainsbury's potato buyer John Maylam with gifts and hospitality in return for lucrative contracts.

Maylam, 45, of Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent, admitted corruption and acquiring criminal property and was jailed for four years at Croydon crown court, in south London. Baxter, 50, of Hinstock, near Market Drayton in Shropshire, admitted the same charges and was jailed for 30 months.

Behagg, 60, from Chatteris in Cambridgeshire, was found guilty of corruption by authorising payments to Maylam, and jailed for three years. The judge, Nicholas Ainley, said it was "very nearly as serious a case of corruption as I can imagine".

A four-year police investigation revealed that £4.9m was paid to Maylam out of a fund created by the overcharging of Sainsbury's. The total amount the supermarket says it was overcharged by was £8.7m.

Jurors in Behagg's trial heard that Maylam, a senior buyer, incurred expenses of £20,000 a month, spending the money at expensive restaurants and hotels including Claridge's and the Dorchester. He received lump sum payments via an account in Luxembourg to the tune of £1.5m.

Judge Ainley said: "There will be many who find the details of frankly outrageous extravagance this case offers fascinating. But what must be remembered is that this is a case of bribery and corruption. But not just that. This is a case of corruption involving theft on a huge scale.

"Corruption because Greenvale wanted to keep the Sainsbury's contract – a contract for 45% of Sainsbury's potato contract, worth about £40m – and they offered Maylam, the Sainsbury's buyer, all the lavish entertainment he wanted, over £1m of it."

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