Leamington man caught out after coming up with a scam to defraud Boots stores by printing fake receipts and claiming more than £17,000 in refunds

A man who came up with a scam to defraud Boots stores by printing fake receipts to claim more than £17,000 in refunds has escaped being jailed - for the sake of his wife and children.

Matthew Twigg had initially denied a charge of fraud – but at a further hearing at Warwick Crown Court he changed his plea to guilty.

Twigg (42) of Marlborough Road, Sydenham, Leamington, was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for 18 months and was ordered to do 180 hours of unpaid work.

Two further charges of possessing articles for use in fraud, Tesco and Asda till rolls which were found at his home, which he continued to deny, were left to lie on the court file.

Prosecutor Ian Ball said that the police raided Twigg’s home in January last year after evidence of frauds at Boots stores in Leamington and other towns had come to light.

Officers found large numbers of items, mainly expensive electric toothbrushes from Boots as well as electric razors, stacked up in the house.

There was a box of 20 blank Boots till rolls and further printed receipts, as well as the Tesco and Asda till rolls – which he said he had been given for his son, who had a fascination with shops, to play with.

It was discovered that Twigg had made purchases amounting to £4,867 – but had obtained £17,756 in refunds, resulting in a loss to Boots of £12,889 over a period of 14-15 months.

Twigg made no comment when he was interviewed, and in a further search of his home officers seized a thermal printer, and when it was switched on it automatically printed a receipt.

When he was interviewed again, Twigg maintained that the refunds were legitimate, claiming he had bought the toothbrushes intending to sell them to market traders – then returned them when he was unable to do so.

But some of the receipts were found to be clearly fakes because they had out-of-date bar codes on them and the wrong toner density in the printing.

Mr Ball said that, having bought some of the items at a discount price, Twigg had produced fake receipts to get refunds at the full price.

“But it is very likely that he has printed fake receipts, taken the items from the shelf to the till and obtained a refund,” he added.

Referring to a pre-sentence report, Twigg’s barrister Tariq Shakoor, said the impact of a prison sentence would be ‘genuine and significant for all the members of his family, not just his children, but his wife, who is in need of care.’

“We don’t dispute the amount of the fraud, but what Mr Twigg says he did was he would buy discounted items, expensive ones, and had intended to sell them on, but that didn’t work.

“He was put in contact with someone on Gumtree who would conjure up these fake receipts, and he would take them back and get a full refund. It was not a case of him going into a store and picking up a box and taking it for a refund,” said Mr Shakoor.

But rejecting that claim, Judge Peter Cooke commented: “I suspect he’s trying too hard to row back from the deviousness that was at work.”

He told Twigg: “Through a combination of dishonesty and greed you thought you had hit on a very clever scheme.

“I don’t buy this role of a third party on Gumtree. You had the complete wherewithal at your house, and I form the view this was your operation.

“You helped yourself to not far off £1,000 a month of Boots’ money. You had spotted a lacuna in the system which you set out cynically to exploit.

“It has a level of sophistication which elevates it to a high level of culpability.

“You have come perilously close to immediate custody, but you are not quite there. There is strong personal mitigation, but more significantly it is the harmful impact which would follow for other people if you were to receive an immediate custodial sentence now.

“You have put your family at risk by your dishonesty. I want you to reflect on that. You know what the outcome will be if you do something like this again.”