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| Sainsbury's potato bribe scam: Three jailed | Sainsbury's potato bribe scam: Three jailed |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| Three men have been jailed over a scam that saw Sainsbury's supermarket overcharged by nearly £9m. | Three men have been jailed over a scam that saw Sainsbury's supermarket overcharged by nearly £9m. |
| Two directors at a potato supplier showered the supermarket's potato buyer John Maylam with gifts and hospitality in return for lucrative contracts. | Two directors at a potato supplier showered the supermarket's potato buyer John Maylam with gifts and hospitality in return for lucrative contracts. |
| Maylam, 45, from Kent, was jailed for four years at Croydon Crown Court. | Maylam, 45, from Kent, was jailed for four years at Croydon Crown Court. |
| David Baxter, 50, from Shropshire, was jailed for 30 months and Andrew Behagg, 60, from Cambridgeshire, received a three-year sentence. | |
| Judge Nicholas Ainley said it was "very nearly as serious a case of corruption as I can imagine" that involved Sainsbury's "being bribed with its own money". | |
| A four-year police investigation revealed that £4.9m was paid to Maylam using cash from the scam. | |
| The total amount the supermarket says it was overcharged by was £8.7m. | |
| 'Outrageous extravagance' | |
| Maylam, of Bearsted, Maidstone, admitted corruption and acquiring criminal property. | |
| Behagg, from Chatteris, was convicted of corruption by authorising payments to Maylam. | |
| He was working as a finance director at potato supplier Greenvale at the time. | |
| Former Greenvale director Baxter, of Hinstock, near Market Drayton, also pleaded guilty to corruption and acquiring criminal property. | |
| Sentencing to the men, Judge Ainley told them: "There will be many who find the details of frankly outrageous extravagance this case offers fascinating. | |
| "But what must be remembered is that this is a case of bribery and corruption. But not just that - this is a case of corruption involving theft on a huge scale. | |
| "Corruption because Greenvale wanted to keep the Sainsbury's contract - a contract for 45% of Sainsbury's potato contract worth about £40 million - and they offered Maylam, the Sainsbury's buyer, all the lavish entertainment he wanted, over £1 million of it." |