10 IN VIEW
PLUG IS PULLED ON PILLEY’S POWER SURGE
Special report by Ged Henderson
Andrew Pilley once revealed his greatest achievement was walking around at Wembley stadium showing the play-off trophy his football club had just won to its ecstatic fans.
The year was 2014. Pilley was the owner and chairman of Fleetwood Town and to the delight of the ‘Cod Army’ had plotted its rise from non-league obscurity to the third-tier of the English game.
He also boasted about being Fleetwood’s biggest employer and developing BES Utilities, the company he founded after finding himself jobless, into an operation that he was predicting would grow into a £100m-plus turnover operation.
As he spoke about the “remarkable rise” of football club and business, it seemed the Blackpool born entrepreneur could do no wrong.
The former Montgomery High School pupil was even invited to Downing Street by George
Osborne for the unveiling of the Northern Powerhouse initiative.
Legitimate businesses
in the energy market have also lost out by missing out on energy contracts which were diverted to the BES companies
Today Pilley’s surroundings are very different. The 52-year-old has been jailed for 13 years after being found guilty of a multi-million pound fraud involving mis-sold energy contracts.
At the heart of the fraud was a web of interconnected companies that misled small businesses across the UK. A trading standards
investigation found customers had lost ‘vast sums of money’.
Pilley, who lives in Thornton-Cleveleys, was found guilty of fraudulent trading, fraud by false representation and being involved in the acquisition, retention, use or control of the proceeds of fraudulently mis-sold energy contracts.
Through sham company structures associated with Business Energy Solutions Ltd, BES Commercial Electricity Ltd and Commercial Power Ltd, Pilley and his associates were responsible for targeting small business owners and deceiving them into signing long-term energy contracts between 2014 and 2016.
Following a complex and lengthy investigation the jury delivered its verdict at Preston Crown Court in May.
Part of the fraud involved posted messages on websites
MondaySavingExpert.com and
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