Daniel Cullen

TWO fraudsters who conned nearly a million pounds out of businesses and schools were sent to jail on Monday.

Daniel Buttle

Daniel Cullen and Daniel Buttle offered “too good to be true” deals for telephone equipment, which instead locked people into lengthy and expensive contracts which many are still fighting to get out of.

The pair, pretending they were from a branch of BT, told unsuspecting customers they needed to upgrade their phone systems from analogue to digital; they said small businesses and schools were being helped by Government grants and would receive large rebates, neither of which was true.

Prosecutor Miles Bennett told St Albans Crown Court one of those targeted was Julie Goodwin, who owns Natural Health in Wigmores North, WGC.

She was shocked to find she had been signed up to an 87-month contract, leaving her with a £45,000 bill and putting her business and home at risk.

Cullen, 29, and Buttle, 31, admitted targeting dozens of people, with Hertfordshire Trading Standards identifying 37 victims across the county.

Cullen had learned the sales patter while working for a company in Norfolk.

He was “their man in Hertfordshire” and was soon defrauding companies to feed his gambling addiction.

Along with Buttle, he set up two companies – BC Telecom and Business Telecommunication Ltd – from his former Old Hatfield home.

The conmen’s companies had a turnover of £878,000, all from fraudulent trading.

In mitigation, Richard Thomes said Cullen, a former Roche and Computacenter employee, “learned you can get rich quick by straying away from legitimacy” and he wasted most of his profits on his “out of control” gambling.

Christopher Harding, representing Buttle, said his client’s brother had recently died of drug addiction, and he had used the money to support his young family, and promised never to be standing in the dock again.

Sentencing the pair, judge Martin Griffiths said: “In Hertfordshire the two of you carried out the fraud with a great deal of gusto causing months or years of worry for your victims.”

Cullen, formerly of Park Street, Old Hatfield, was given a year in jail for conspiracy to defraud for his part in the Norfolk case, and two years on each of the two counts of fraudulent trading relating to Hertfordshire. His total sentence was three years.

Buttle, of Portland Road, Bishop’s Stortford, was sent down for 18 months for the two fraudulent trading charges.

Both were banned from being a company director for six years.