Feb.02, 2010

A consultant has appeared in court to deny money laundering more than £200,000 taken from a housing association which had properties in Reading.

Dr Paul Campayne, 46, is alleged to have created “frivolous invoices” for treasury management work he claimed his firm Cappa Consultancy completed for the Ujima Housing Association.

The “principal instigator” of the alleged scam was the housing trust’s chief financial officer George Avwunu who is still at large, Southwark Crown Court heard.

A warrant was issued for his arrest by the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on November 18.

His wife Rosalinda Avwunu also stood in the dock last Friday to deny receiving some of the funds intended for her husband through her own personal bank account.

Scandal-ridden Ujima Housing Association made a £28 million loss in 2007 and was taken over by London & Quadrant Housing Trust in January 2008.

Ujima owned 5,000 homes in London, Slough and Reading. Predominantly serving the black community, it had 31 sheltered flats for the elderly in Asantewa House in Fobney Street, in the town centre, and 100 other homes in Reading.

It is alleged Campayne and Avwunu were involved in laundering the housing association’s funds between April and September 2007.

Richard Milne, prosecuting, said: “George Avwunu was the chief financial officer. In the course of the period just over £200,000 passed into the bank account of Dr Campayne and Cappa Consultancy.

“The Crown’s case is that in effect Dr Campayne agreed to pay that money back to George Avwunu, in other words laundering it, with frivolous invoices.

“It is right that some work was done, a very small amount of work was done, some £13,000, from these invoices of £200,000.

“The type of work was treasury management, nothing whatsoever to do with a housing trust.

“It is the Crown’s case that George Avwunu was the principal instigator of the criminality, using Dr Campayne and thereafter his wife to launder the proceeds, with the knowledge or at the very least suspicion.”

Campayne, of The Drive, Coulsdon, Surrey, faces five charges of transferring criminal property between his firm Cappa Consultancy and Southwell Investments Ltd.

He faces a further two charges of transferring funds from an account in his name to the account of Mrs Avwunu.

In the seven transactions between April 30, 2007, and September 17, 2007, a total of £200,000 was laundered, it is claimed.

Rosalinda Avwunu, of Smithams Downs Road, Purley, faces two charges of entering into an agreement to accept funds into her account, knowing them to be the proceeds of criminal activity by her husband.

The pair stood together in the dock to deny all the charges.

They were both released on unconditional bail for a hearing on November 5.

A trial date was set for January 17, next year.