JOHN Hanson joined the Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide Committee in 1984 and, in his defence read out in Nottingham Crown Court on Friday, he described his appointment as secretary a few years later as “one of the happiest days of his life”.
He said he “felt like he had become a somebody in Ashbourne.” As secretary and treasurer Hanson was solely responsible for all the game’s financial accounting for nearly 30 years.
He was tasked with compiling the game’s accounts and paying bills such as insurance.
Hanson was held in high regard by his fellow committee members and, when he told them there were significant funds in the cash reserves they had no reason not to believe him.
When questioned about the game’s financial health he told committee members there was nothing to worry about and that it had “significant cash reserves” — but this was actually a lie.
Prosecutor Graham Huston told Nottingham Crown Court on Friday Hanson had also assured members the game was covered by a fully paid-up public liability insurance policy but this also wasn’t the case.
In 2003, shortly after Hanson’s firm Eddowes Simm and Waldron had begun to run into financial difficulties, Hanson put forward a report that the overall assets of the game stood at £23,331.56 with £10,000 invested in Barclays Bank, Egg Plc and Barclays Bonds.
However investigations by prosecutors found this was completely false — and it has now been revealed only one account existed, at Barclays Bank with an opening balance in 2003 of £1,996.86 and a closing balance of £2,122.60.
In 2004 this balance had ebbed away by nearly £2,000 to £222.94 and Hanson put another report before the committee claiming there was nearly £27,000 in the kitty.
By the following year the bank account had slumped to just £7.55 but Hanson once again lied to the committee members who were convinced there was now more than £30,000 in the game’s funds.
The committee was told in 2005 that an audit had been carried out on the game’s funds, but when prosecutors contacted the accountants they found no evidence of an audit being made.
But it was in 2007, the year Hanson left the committee, that funds took a nosedive in to the red — which was once again covered up by the treasurer.
Hanson told members of the committee that £5,505.83 had been transferred from the game’s “reserves” but in fact the figures in the record had been overstated to show this figure as a loss.
Prosecutors could not find any evidence that Hanson had stolen the missing funds, although a number of cash withdrawals made from the committee’s bank account do not appear to relate to the game.
More worryingly was the issue of the game’s public liability insurance, which Hanson insisted was always signed and sealed but, in reality it had not been bought at all.
Instead, figures were put in front of the committee to represent insurance payments of between £4,000 and £6,000 but these turned out only to be providing cover for his unauthorised withdrawals.
Not only had Hanson not insured the game for five years, he lied in planning meetings by promising authorities the game had millions of pounds of cover in place — if the truth had been known, Shrovetide would not have been supported in any way.
But the Shrovetide game was not Hanson’s only victim. He desperately tried to keep Ashbourne’s Simm, Eddowes and Waldron, which he ran with partner Christopher Green, afloat and Hanson started using customers money to pay bills.
Hanson was found to have misappropriated more than £170,000 — some of which was set aside from his cousin’s house sale to pay for her care costs in a Derby nursing home.
Money also came from funds he helped move during a client’s property deal and even from the estate of Margaret Joan Walker, who had appointed Hanson as an executor of her will.
In total Hanson pleaded guilty to 15 financial crimes, including false accounting, fraud and transferring criminal property.
However his sentence reflected the fact that none of it could be seen as taken to “line his own pockets”.
