BES Utilities and Fleetwood Town Football Club owner Andy Pilley has failed in an appeal to overturn his conviction for fraud in 2023.
Pilley claimed he had undiagnosed ADHD at the time of his trial, causing him to make a poor impression on both judge and jury.
However the appeal court judges Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mrs Justice O’Farrell and Judge Andrew Menary KC, dismissed the challenge, stating: “There is no arguable basis upon which this appeal could depend.”
Pilley’s legal team claimed his conviction at Preston Crown Court was “unsafe” as the businessman had experienced “disadvantage through difference” as a result of his condition, which wasn’t recognised at the time of the trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service opposed the appeal during a two-day hearing in London.
National Trading Standards said in May 2023 that Pilley’s fraud related to a “web of interconnected companies that misled innocent small businesses” nationwide.
They continued that Pilley and others “were responsible for targeting small business owners and deceiving them into signing long-term energy contracts between 2014 and 2016”.
Pilley appeared in person at Preston Crown Court and the judge handed down a 13 year sentence. He was also disqualified from being a director for 13 years.
On passing sentencing, Judge Knowles KC, said Pilley had built a “salesforce of cold-calling liars and manipulators duped very large numbers of honest and decent proprietors” into “long and expensive contracts” for energy supplies.
Sparing no mercy he said Pilley and his associates “devised and enforced an elaborate pretence that the sales team were independent of the supply companies”.
Pilley who served jail time for four months in 1998 for conspiracy was told he could have chosen a different path but … “Instead it is a sordid tale of squalid lies, greed and fraud,” he said.
Pilley’s barrister Jonathan Laidlow pleaded with the judge for leniency and claimed Pilley was “fundamentally a good man who has led and is capable of leading a productive and worthwhile life.”