Founder of London Fields Brewery cleared of tax evasion

The founder of London Fields Brewery, Julian De Vere Whiteway-Wilkinson, a former drug dealer, has been cleared of cheating the taxpayer out of more than £700,000 after a jury acquitted him on four charges of fraud brought against him by HMRC, according to reports by the Daily Mail.

Jules de Vere Whiteway-Wilkinson

Whiteway-Wilkinson founded London Fields Brewery in 2011, after he was released from jail having served half of a 12-year term for drug dealing.

As of 2015 he was facing a possible eight-year ‘default’ sentence if he failed to pay back a £3.2m confiscation order, relating to his initial conviction. He escaped jail by arguing that he would be better able to pay off the debt if he was able to make a go of his business.

While London Fields Brewery was proving a success, the business ran into trouble after an investigation by HMRC in 2014 resulted in Whiteway-Wilkinson being accused of evading the taxpayer out of a suspected £1 million and charged with three counts of cheating the public revenue and one count of fraudulently evading income tax.

HMRC’s case against Whiteway-Wilkinson reached court this week, shortly after it was announced that Carlsberg UK had acquired London Fields Brewery, with plans to operate the business in a joint venture with New York’s Brooklyn Brewery.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Whiteway-Wilkinson told jurors he intended to pay the cash to HMRC but had not been able to do so while he was still subject to the confiscation order, relating to his previous convictions for drug dealing.

Andrew Campbell-Tiech QC, for Whiteway-Wilkinson, argued that the prosecution had to prove not that Whiteway-Wilkinson had not paid his tax, but that he had never intended to pay. He also accused HMRC officers of failing to maintain communication with Whiteway-Wilkinson, or give him sufficient warning before moving to shut down his business, claiming that its officers had “set out to destroy” the business.

The jury ultimately returned a not guilty verdict on three counts of tax evasion, clearing Whiteway-Wilkinson of cheating the taxman out of £727,203, and a further count of “being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of income tax” by HMRC.