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Dorset men jailed over tree-planting investment scam

Three men have been jailed over a tree-planting scam that cost 3,000 investors their workplace pensions.

Matthew Pickard, 55, Stephen Greenaway, 46, and Paul Laver, 47, bought luxury cars and holidays from the profits of Bournemouth-based Ethical Forestry Ltd, which promised forestry investments in Costa Rica.

The firm took £70m from small investors before it collapsed in 2015, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Pickard was jailed for six years. Greenaway and Laver received sentences of five years and three months and four and a half years respectively.

Judge Alexander Milne KC said it was “hard to overstate the impact of the company’s collapse”.

He added: “Directors of companies are entitled to receive remuneration, shareholders’ dividends.

“This was neither. This was plunder.”


BBC News

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