Businessman Michael Chinn and another South Holland man have been jailed after witnesses were offered £5,000 each not to testify against Chinn in a glassing case.
Chinn used a business associate to offer £5,000 each to the victim of the glassing and her friend in a bid to persuade them not to turn up at court to give prosecution evidence.
Chinn (38), of Old Fendike Road, Weston Hills, denied doing acts intended to pervert the course of justice between October 1, 2010 and November 8, 2011. He was found guilty by a jury at Lincoln Crown Court. He has already previously served 15 months for the original wounding offence.
Luke Arons (32), of Monkshouse Lane, Spalding, who acted as the go-between by approaching the witnesses, admitted perverting the course of justice. He was jailed for 11 months and ordered to pay £700 costs.
Recorder Gareth Evans QC, in passing sentence, described the female witnesses as “very eager and enthusiastic young women who were eager to get money to go shopping”.
The recorder added: “It started off, in all probability, with the girls asking for money. What was dangled in front of them was a promise of money that I am satisfied was never paid.”
Chinn was ordered to pay £3,500 prosecution costs with the judge telling him: “You are a wealthy man. You decided to have a trial. I suspect the costs are what you would pay for the rear mudguard for one of your cars.”
Mohammed Latif, for Chinn, said: “He is a working class boy that made good through hard work. The witnesses were well aware of the fact that this defendant is a man of some substance and there was an opportunity for money to be made.”
A jury was told that mother of two Cheri-Leigh Lincoln, a friend of the glassing victim Meghan Davis, was contacted by Arons and offered money if both women “disappeared” when Chinn’s trial took place last year.
But they gave evidence against him and he was convicted.
Arons, who was also to have been a witness, did not attend but claimed he simply mixed up the dates.
Alistair Munt, for Arons, said his client did not deliberately evade attending court to give evidence.
“What he is guilty of is acting as a go-between for Mr Chinn. He was acting as a broker between him and the girls.”
The bribery investigation began after anonymous phone calls were made to the court during the wounding trial alleging Chinn had paid cash to the two women.
Mr Huston said: “Cheri-Leigh Lincoln was approached by Luke Arons who told her that the defendant Michael Chinn would give her and Meghan Davis money if they did not appear at court.”
He added that one text Arons wrote to Lincoln: “I’ll get him to let you have a couple of grand each to go away and have the rest after the trial”.
He said: “They were to be paid so their evidence would not be heard. Cheri-Leigh Lincoln was tempted because the sums of money were so large but ultimately she refused to go along with the scheme.”
Chinn did not give evidence but told police: “I’m the victim of a blackmail plot. They were after me for money.”
The original court hearing arose out of an incident in October 2010 at Spalding’s Loaded nightclub when Chinn threw a beer glass across a crowded dance floor hitting Meghan Davis on the head leaving her with blood pouring from a wound.