Michael Stanley’s Layezy Racing

[Matron]

Interesting article in The Times:

“A former police officer has been charged with defrauding thousands of members of a horse-racing betting syndicate in Kent.

Michael Stanley, 67, who served as a sergeant in the Kent force, has been charged on five counts of fraud in connection with the “alleged misuse of his clients’ money”.

He founded Layezy Racing principally as a horse-racing syndicate in 2010. Members paid an annual fee that gave them shared ownership of a number of horses, which they were then invited to watch race at meetings.

However, attached to it was a betting syndicate, which by 2019 had expanded to about 6,000 members, predominantly from Kent and Essex.

After newspaper revelations led to the collapse of the scheme in January 2019, Stanley filed for bankruptcy, claiming to owe £22 million. In the High Court in 2020 it emerged that £158.7 million was owed to creditors.

A statement from Kent police on Tuesday confirmed that a five-year investigation had now reached the point where Stanley, who was first arrested in August 2019, has been charged.

“The statement said Stanley, from Walderslade, is accused of defrauding members of the Layezy Racing group between 2013 and 2019. Police described it as “a complex investigation by detectives from the Kent and Essex serious crime directorate”.

He has been charged with one count of dishonestly making false representations to members of the Layezy Racing syndicate contrary to Sections 1 and 2 of the Fraud Act 2006, one count of knowingly running a business for a fraudulent purpose contrary to Section 9 of the Fraud Act 2006 and three counts of knowingly running a business for a fraudulent purpose contrary to Section 993 of the Companies Act 2006.

Stanley has been bailed to appear at Sevenoaks magistrates’ court on March 7.”

Courtesy of The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ex-police-officer-charged-over-betting-syndicate-fraud-rh25tkgwb

[Author]

Posts