Chris Atkins (journalist)

Chris Atkins
Born Christopher Walsh Atkins
1976
Nationality British
Education Bromsgrove School[1]
Occupation Documentary film maker
Notable work

Christopher Walsh Atkins (born 7th May 1976) is a British film maker who was jailed for multimillion-pound fraud.[2][3]

Atkins has produced low-budget dramas.[4] In 2007 he directed the BAFTA-nominated documentary Taking Liberties, which criticised the Blair government for undermining civil liberties and featured Atkins' friend, David Bermingham, a banker extradited for fraud.[5][6] In 2009 Atkins directed Starsuckers, which criticised the media for unethical behaviour and tricked journalists into buying fake stories; part of the film was shown to the 2011 Leveson Inquiry, where he gave evidence.[7][8] Atkins then made Dispatches documentaries that tricked actors into endorsing fake products and tricked private detectives into investigating complicit individuals.[9][10] In 2013 he produced and directed an episode of Panorama which alleged that charities such as Comic Relief had made unethical investments.[11]

In part of an operation involving over 100 officers from HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service and many arrests, Atkins was arrested in 2012 while living in a £3.5 million house in Hampstead, and released on bail.[12][13] In 2016, he was found guilty on two counts of "Conspiracy to Cheat the Public Revenue, theft and fraud", sentenced to five years in jail and disqualified from acting as a company official for 12 years.[14] The trial found that he had operated the fraud for years, circulating money and creating false invoices to establish a "web of lies" to give the appearance of having spent £5.7m on Starsuckers and another film that was never made, in order to obtain public money as relief.[15][16] Atkins had worked with accomplices and had boasted about obtaining £115,000 of taxpayers' money from Taking Liberties without any checks, and that he is a "known player."[17] The judge said he didn't see why Atkins had tried to use his evidence to the Leveson inquiry to reduce his jail sentence: “what you did say was at the time not accepted by some parties as accurate,” the judge said.[18]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "Bromsgrovian News Review" (PDF). Lent 2008. p. 20. Retrieved 5 August 2013. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ↑ http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/hm-revenue-customs-hmrc/pressreleases/film-tax-scheme-fraudsters-jailed-for-more-than-36-years-1463691
  3. ↑ https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/r-v-walsh-atkins-and-slater.pdf
  4. ↑ Wheeler, Brian (2007-06-01). "Taking liberties?". BBC. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
  5. ↑ http://londonist.com/2007/06/interview_chris_atkins_director_tak
  6. ↑ Reynolds, Nigel (2007-02-05). "New film 'exposes Orwellian Labour'". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  7. ↑ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article3990975.ece
  8. ↑ Starsuckers celebrity hoax dupes tabloids, The Guardian, 14 October 2009
  9. ↑ Greenslade, Roy (2013-08-05). "Coronation Street Twitter sting claims: Channel 4 to air Dispatches film". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  10. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/chris-atkins/watching-the-detectives_2_b_1514110.html
  11. ↑ "Panorama, All in a Good Cause". BBC. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  12. ↑ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/film-director-who-attacked-press-ethics-jailed-for-fraud-f0sjmrd2f
  13. ↑ http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/hm-revenue-customs-hmrc/pressreleases/film-tax-scheme-fraudsters-jailed-for-more-than-36-years-1463691
  14. ↑ http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/hm-revenue-customs-hmrc/pressreleases/film-tax-scheme-fraudsters-jailed-for-more-than-36-years-1463691
  15. ↑ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/celebrity-hoax-film-makers-go-on-trial-for-tax-fraud-cz3f3xhrx
  16. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/01/film-producers-jailed-for-audacious-22m-film-tax-scam
  17. ↑ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/film-director-who-attacked-press-ethics-jailed-for-fraud-f0sjmrd2f
  18. ↑ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/film-director-who-attacked-press-ethics-jailed-for-fraud-f0sjmrd2f

External links

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