Investor wins £185k compensation over film scheme scam

The High Court has ruled an investor is due £185,000 compensation after judging the film scheme he backed to be a scam.

Investor Dennis Horner has won his claim against Trisha Allison, who promoted the scheme as a ‘unique low risk, high return investment proposition’.

According to the Mail on Sunday, up to 60 investors backed the scheme. They were told to reclaim the tax they had paid for the past two years and put the rebate into the film scheme, it said.

Judge Richard Seymour said the scheme ‘appears to describe a fairly uncomplicated fraud on the Revenue, with an “investor”, through Allison making an inflated claim for losses sustained in investment in the production of films – two and a half times the amount of his potentially available tax refund – and the proceeds being paid to a vehicle controlled by Allison [and her business partner] out of which 20 per cent was paid back to the “investor”.’