LIVELINE Thread - (05/10/11 to 14/02/2012)

The former investment broker Tony Taylor has been jailed for five years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. He pleaded guilty to five charges involving fraud and the destruction of documents.
The 54-year-old head of the Taylor Asset Management Group of Companies which collapsed in 1996 admitted defrauding four small investors of over £363,000. He also pleaded guilty to the destruction of documents and records relating to his business.
Tony Taylor defrauded his own personal clients in a bid to keep his ailing companies afloat. These investors, who lost sums of between £30,000 - £100,000 were not in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today to hear Judge Elizabeth Dunne jail Taylor for five years. They have no hope of recovering the monies which for some of them would amount to life savings and retirement nest eggs.
Taylor had been a successful player in the insurance business working his way to the top over a 30-year period. His fall was equally rapid, and in court today investigating officer Kevin Monks revealed how Taylor instructed a staff member to shred 20 bags of documents the day before an inspection would lift the lid on his operation in August 1996.
Taylor himself fled the jurisdiction and was arrested in the South of England in 1999. Tony Taylor pleaded guilty to five charges that included fraudulent conversion of cheques for his own use, fraudulent trading and destroying company documents.