A BUSINESSMAN previously jailed for selling off thousands of pounds worth of company mobile phones has been ordered to pay back £198,000.

Warren Clays, of Mold, appeared at a financial hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act at Mold Crown Court via a live television link from prison.

Judge Niclas Parry made an agreed order that his criminal benefit was £192,811.

He made a confiscation order of £198,000 which will be used as compensation to his former employer.

Judge Parry said if the sum was not paid Clays would serve an additional two years imprisonment.

He was formally given three months to pay but Stephen Edwards, defending, said police already held funds in excess of the compensation figure and it could be paid immediately.

On Monday co-defendant David Bradshaw, of Shot Tower Close, Boughton, Chester, had a criminal benefit of £138,000 and a £98,000 confiscation order was made in his case.

The money will compensate Control Group Services Ltd based at Sealand – the British arm of an American company providing security and cleaning services to out-of-town shopping centres.

In February the court heard how Bradshaw, despite earning up to £120,000 a year, set about ordering mobile phones which were not needed and sold them on.

Bradshaw, who sold a company car and kept the £15,000 proceeds, was jailed for four years.

He was also banned from being the director of a company for the next five years after Judge david Hale told him he was not fit to be a director.

Company secretary Warren Clays, 39, who earned £50,000 a year after climbing up the ladder despite leaving school with no qualifications, was jailed for 32 months.

Clays had not spent the money he had received and it was all still available in a bank account, the court heard.

The pair sold more than 300 mobile phones for £90,000 but the company also faced a further £33,000 bill by being responsible for monthly contracts for mobiles they did not have.

Judge Hale said the two had “disregarded the ordinary standards of management and honesty” which had done “immense harm” to the British part of the company.

Both admitted conspiracy to defraud going back to 2014.