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Travel boss jailed after breaching ATOL regulations
The owner of a Leamington Spa-based travel company that went bust last year has been handed a two-and-a-half year prison sentence for fraud.
Alan Steel of the holiday firm Russian Gateway was also ordered to pay his victims £41,000 and costs of £11,000 following a successful prosecution by Warwickshire County Council trading standards.
A confiscation order was also made for £180,562 criminal benefit and Steel was disqualified from being a company director for 15 years.
The court heard that Steel, the owner of Russian Gateway, had claimed his holidays were ATOL and ABTA protected and that money paid by customers was placed in a trustee account.
However, the ATOL logos on his brochures and websites were fake and when his business failed his customers – many of whom were pensioners – were left thousands of pounds out of pocket.
One customer who asked for the company’s ABTA number was given the number of a different company with no links to Russian Gateway.
He was fined £2,000 last year and ordered to pay nearly £13,000 compensation to three customers following one of the first successful prosecutions by the CAA for breaches of ATOL regulations, but they never received their money as the business went bust.
However, Steel continued trading and took more money from customers for bogus holidays, causing Warwickshire trading standards to prosecute Steel for fraud.
At an earlier hearing at Warwickshire Justice Centre in June, Steel pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud and one of breaching the Package Travel Regulations.
Warwickshire County Councillor Les Caborn, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety said: "Consumers should be able to buy their package holidays confident in the knowledge that their money is protected if things go wrong.
"We will continue to take action against the very small number of irresponsible businesses who seek to defraud their customers, helping to protect consumers and safeguard the integrity of the travel industry and the legitimate businesses that operate within it."
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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