Friday 21st November, 2014

The former Chief Executive of JJB sports, Christopher Ronnie, has been found guilty of falsely pocketing a series of six figure payments from suppliers, despite having previously denied the accusations of fraud.

Two of his business partners who helped him to cover his tracks - Accountant, David Ball and David Barrington - were also convicted of perverting the course of justice.

The fraud trial centred on payments received by Ronnie in late 2007 and 2008, from sports goods suppliers run by Ball and Barrington, which had not been declared to the JJB board of directors.

Jurors heard that Ronnie's company Seacroft received a payment of £650,000 in February 2008 from Performance Brands.

In June that year he received £197,000 from Fashion and Sport, and a third payment from the same company was made to Ronnie later that year, this time for £134,000.

In an attempt to hide the fraudulent activity from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the trio hired a specialist engineer to destroy email evidence.

However, concerned at what he found, the engineer handed over his finding to the SFO.