Council worker jailed after diverting £80,000 of public money to help friends pay for drugs and sex

Detectives have described an ex-council worker, who used £80,000 of public money to help friends pay for cocaine and sex workers, as 'disgusting'.

Matthew Ravey abused his role as a business rates officer at Rochdale Council to create false insolvency documents for himself and friends in an attempt to avoid reimbursing payday loan companies he was in debt to.

His career at the council began in October 2013, and in June 2016, an employee looked into a business rates refund that Ravey had processed after noticing it by chance.

He had applied a period of empty property relief worth £4,208 on a company named Kinetic Security Products Ltd, despite records showing the company dissolved in 2014.

He created a new bank account associated with the business - it actually belonged to his co-conspirators Richard Rigby and Andrew FGoster.

When he was confronted by a fellow employee, Ravey initially claimed he was correcting an existing error.

When it was pointed out there was no error, he began denying he ever accessed the account.

An internal investigation was launched and it was found that Ravey had altered baking and addresses of other businesses to make 26 separate fraudulent transfers between January 2015 and June 2016.

Among he payments were were two transfers to Jason Hurst, who later admitted in a police interview to spending the money on cocaine and prostitutes.

In total, he stole £80,517 - with a loss of £76,308 for Rochdale Council alone/

Detective Constable Sarah Langley of GMP's Fraud Disruption Team said:

"It's clear from correspondence that Ravey imagined himself as some sort of criminal mastermind who'd concocted a fool-proof plan to get rich while avoiding his debtors.

"But frankly, the decision to use his employer's email address to orchestrate it was one of the many frankly bizarre factors in his ill-considered scam.

"After being confronted, he even tried to deny he'd done anything wrong - despite the paper chain from his computer clearly implicating him and his co-conspirators in his desperately flawed con job.

"Let's not forget this was public money. Everyone - not least taxpayers in Rochdale - should be disgusted by his actions."

Today (Wednesday 6 February 2019), the following three men were sentenced at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court:

Matthew Ravey (15/9/1990) of Weir Road, Rochdale pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud and one count of theft and was sentenced to one year and six months.

Michael Frames (12/11/1990) of Hurstead Road, Milnrow pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and was sentenced to complete 100 hours unpaid work.

Andrew Foster (03/09/1987) of Smithybridge Road, Littleborough pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and was sentenced to complete 54 hours unpaid work.

Richard Rigby (10/01/1990) of Windmill Court, Rochdale was sentenced at a previous hearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on 4 February 2019 to complete 64 hours unpaid work after pleading guilty to one count of money laundering.

Jason Hurst (03/04/1970) of Chorley Old Road, Bolton was sentenced at a previous hearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on 21 November 2018 to complete 100 hours unpaid work after pleading guilty to one count of theft.

Daniel Merriman (08/10/1991) of Hurstead Road, Milnrow was sentenced at a previous hearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on 8 January 2019 to complete 80 hours unpaid work after pleading guilty to one count of money laundering.