Former Wolverhampton Beatties owner denies £60 million fraud
The former owner of the Beatties building in Wolverhampton denied four charges in connection with an alleged £60 million.
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Pragnesh Modhwadia, the former boss of SSYS Beatties Ltd which bought the former department store building in Victoria Street in 2019, appeared at Southwark Crown Court today (Thursday).
The charges relate to the collapse of law firm Axiom Ince, where Modhwadia was chief executive.
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The 42-year-old solicitor denied two counts of fraud by abuse of position, one count of conspiracy to use a false instrument, and conspiracy to conceal, destroy or dispose of documents knowing they would be relevant to an investigation.
Fellow director Shyam Mistry, 35, denied the same charges.
Chief financial officer Muhammad Ali, 42, chief technology officer Rupesh Karawadra, 40, denied two charges of conspiracy, and vice-president of IT Jayesh Anjaria, 46, denied conspiracy to conceal or destroy evidence.
Ali denied two counts of fraud by abuse of position and a third count of conspiracy to use false instruments at an earlier hearing.
The five men appeared at Southwark Crown Court this morning for a case management hearing before His Honour Judge Baumgartner, recorder of Westminster.
A previous hearing was told that more than £60 million had been taken out of client funds at the law firm, which had an office in Birmingham.
Modhwadia's company SSYS Beatties bought the landmark Art Deco style building for £3 million, after parent company House of Fraser was taken over by retail tycoon Mike Ashley. The company moved to smaller premises in the Mander Centre, and renamed the store Frasers.
Modhwadia announced ambitious plans to turn the building into a mixed use development, comprising 300 flats, with retail use at ground-floor level. But receivers were called in at SSYS Beatties shortly after the collapse of Axiom Ince.
The building has since been bought by the Middlesex-based Eden group for £6 million, which is due shortly to begin work redeveloping the building.
The trial is listed for February 2027.
It had been anticipated that the trial would take eight to 10 weeks, but the court was today told that might have been an underestimate.
The hearing was told there were 260,000 pages of exhibits so far. A further case management hearing is expected in October this year. All five defendants have been released on conditional bail.
