On the 14 October 2021 – Phil Gibbs, former LOFA Secretary was given a 27-month custodial sentence for Fraud by abuse of position – fraud act 2006 between 01/08/2013 and 31/12/2018.
Read the full story in The News: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/royal-navy-veteran-jailed-for-siphoning-charity-cash-in-ps117000-waterlooville-business-fraud-3423028
A LOFA statement issued today reads:
He had been made redundant in October 2018 as LOFA needed a greater marketing input, and there were some serious concerns and disciplinary actions relating to his poor financial reporting as requested by the previous Chairman Mark Osborne and Pravin Patel.
A former Secretary seconded in an interim term discovered suspicious paperwork which then prompted the launch of a full investigation. The board appointed an accountant to conduct a full forensic investigation going back several years and once the Fraud squad were involved there was an enormous amount of work carried out over many months to retrieve the facts and allow the Fraud Squad at Portsmouth to build a solid case. Phil Gibbs was calculating and conniving and had duped a professional company of auditors for over 6 years, there are suspicions his devious activity started even earlier than has been proved.
Phil Gibbs mis-appropriated a substantial amount of money from LOFA /SOLEX and even stole money allocated by the Board at LOFA to be donated to various charities, he was arrested in 2019 but still continued to evade the legal system until the overwhelming strength of the case was relayed to him by his council and finally led to him pleading guilty. The sentencing too was delayed by his actions before justice was finally served.
Pravin Patel (current Chairman) commented: "We are saddened and appalled that someone in such a position of trust could abuse the people and the organisation that had looked after him so well. We at LOFA have already ensured that the charities who were deprived of vital donations have been sent the funds allocated to them, the long fight to retrieve some of the money stolen from LOFA and SOLEX now begins."
