Hot tub conman who cheated customers out of hundreds of thousands ordered to pay back just £10

Stuart Cox was a partner in Rugeley-based Spaserve which was used as a 'cash cow' to rake in advance payments from customers who were sold faulty hot tubs made cheaply in China or who never got their ordered product.

In an unopposed Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Stafford Crown Court, Cox was ruled to have benefited from the fraud to the tune of £171,786, but Mr Nick Burn, prosecuting, asked for a 'nominal' £10 payment.

He has been declared bankrupt the official receiver has first claim on his assets.

It comes just weeks after Foster was also ordered to pay back just £10 for the same reason.

Foster and Cox, both partners in the business, together with office manager Johnathan Husselbee were all convicted by a jury following a three-month trial.

However, the POCA application against Husselbee was withdrawn by the crown.

Mr Burn told the court: "It would not be appropriate to proceed further in his case. He had a different role. Cox and the other man have already been dealt with. Husselbee was a paid employee, who willingly participated in this, however he received a salary, was on PAYE and paid National Insurance, so to that extent it appears to the crown inappropriate to proceed."

Neither Cox, nor Husselbee was in court for the hearing.

Foster, aged 49, formerly of The Green, Milford near Stafford, now living in Lichfield, was jailed for three and a half years; Cox, aged 40, of Oak Way, Sutton Coldfield, 30 months, and Husselbee, aged 37, of High Street, Dosthill, Tamworth, two years. All had all denied fraudulent trading and conspiracy to defraud.

At their trial, the jury heard that instead of using customers' cash to fulfil all their orders, the bosses spent money on themselves, with lavish lifestyles, expensive cars and holidays.

The court heard the firm, based in Towers Business Park, Rugeley, took between £6 million and £8million worth of orders for 2,000 hot tubs over three-and-a-half years from April 2007 to October 2010.

But only in the region of 1,600 were ever delivered.

And of those delivered customers were left angry at the substandard spas and by the fact they had been duped of the country of manufacture.

Mr Adrian Keeling QC, prosecuting, said: "It was not run as a proper and honest business, it was run, first and foremost, as a source of income for these defendants. It was run as a 'cash cow' and a cash cow to be milked.