Three directors have been sentenced to a combined 15 years and nine months in prison for orchestrating a seven-year £70m investment fraud duping more than 3,000 people – many of them pensioners – out of their savings.
Matthew Pickard was sentenced to six years in prison for fraudulent trading while Stephen Greenaway was sentenced to five years and three months. Paul Laver was sentenced to four years and six months in prison. All three were also disqualified from acting as directors for ten years. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) told Southwark Crown Court that its investigation into Ethical Forestry uncovered how the former directors ran a Bournemouth-based call centre, cold-calling and persuading members of the public to withdraw and invest funds from their pension schemes in a tree-planting opera...
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