An Aberdeen fish firm boss who “never got around” to paying almost £300,000 in taxes has avoided prison due to ill health.
Raymond Esslemont, 71, spent years deducting income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NIC) from employees at his firm Raysalmon, but did not pass the money on to HMRC.
Esslemont, who is “all but bed-bound”, also failed to pay his own income tax and NIC, bringing the total figure evaded to £295,599.97.
The pensioner, of Margaret Place, Aberdeen, previously pled guilty to two charges of tax evasion and two charges of being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of paying NICs.
300 hours of unpaid work
He had been warned he could face a prison sentence but, after hearing a lengthy plea for “mercy” from his solicitor, Sheriff Morag McLaughlin opted to hand him 300 hours of unpaid work.
Defence agent Liam Mcallister said his client, who appeared in a wheelchair, supported by his family, is “wholly reliant” on his wife and daughter.
He provided the court with a “list of medical and clinical support that Mr Esslemont receives on a monthly, weekly and daily basis”, adding: “It’s clearly very detailed and it’s a lot.”
Raymond Esslemont ‘will only decline’
Mr Mcallister said: “Mr Esslemont still requires to be cared for to such an extent that the burden placed on the prison, and how that will be carried out logistically in the prison, seems to me almost impossible given the extent of care that his wife provides him on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis.
“We’re at a stage where Mr Esslemont is not going to improve. He will only decline and deteriorate as he has done over the last year quite drastically.
“The court has to punish Mr Esslemont for his outrageous decision-making over the years, for his burying his head in the sand and for the position he’s placed his wife and family in.
“He has to live with that, but there has to be, I’d submit, a degree of compassion.
“It’s not often I can stand before the court and say sending someone to prison is the equivalent of a death sentence, and I’m not saying that today, but he is chronic and is going to get worse.
‘It is an offence of the utmost culpability’
“I ask for the court’s effective mercy in that his final time is with his family in his home.”
Mr Mcallister said the case was “unique” and described his client as “a very, very unwell man”.
He added: “In all the circumstances, I ask the court to deal with this case as compassionately as it can.
“He’s not doing anything other than going back to that property to be housebound for the rest of his life and to be cared for by his family.”
Fiscal depute Tom Procter previously took the court through a detailed narrative of the offences, which occurred between 2006 and 2019.
Turning to the circumstances of the offence, Mr Mcallister said: “He thought he could get himself into a position where he could fix the problem.
“He thought if he bought himself some time, he could then put some money aside to deal with it all.
“He didn’t want to lay people off to do that.
“He continually buried his head in the sand.
“It was in no way sophisticated. It was as basic an operation as the court could imagine.”
Jail would be ‘inordinate punishment’
Sheriff McLaughlin told Esslemont: “This offence would, in all normal circumstances, merit a significant custodial sentence.
“It is an offence of the utmost culpability.
“It caused harm for you, harm for your family and harm for those who worked for you.
“I note also that you lost your home and everything else you might otherwise have had to enjoy in your retirement because of the bankruptcy.
“After a lot of anxious thought, I have reached the view that, in the particular circumstances, I can deal with this otherwise than by a custodial sentence.”
The sheriff said jailing Esslemont would be “inordinate punishment not only for you but for your family to have you incarcerated in the last stages of your life”.
She instead imposed a three-year supervision order and 300 hours of unpaid work.
Sheriff McLaughlin also imposed a 12-month curfew.
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