Eight schools lost £350,000 after trips cancelled

Marcus Buckley-Bennion was given a 16-week suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay compensation at Lincoln Crown Court

Eight schools lost more than £350,000 after trips were cancelled when a travel company director failed to tell them his insurance had lapsed.

Marcus Buckley-Bennion's firm lost its Atol cover in 2016 after taking deposits from a number of schools, Lincoln Crown Court was told.

The 64-year-old was given a 16-week suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay £35,200 in compensation.

He was also banned from being a company director for four years.

In total eight independent and grammar schools suffered losses of £358,007.

They included Bourne Grammar School and Stamford High School in Lincolnshire which each lost £44,736 and £97,422 respectively.

Kimbolton School near Huntingdon suffered the biggest loss of £108,500 and Shiplake College in Henley-on-Thames lost £29,250.

The LVS independent school in Ascot also lost £29,449.

The court heard that Buckley-Bennion had spent many years organising successful school trips with suitable Atol cover as a director of Dukes Sport Travel, based in Lincolnshire.

The Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (Atol) scheme protects customers who book a package trip that includes a flight.

However, Buckley-Bennion was reliant on Atol certification held by another company of which he was not a director.

That certification lapsed on 30 September 2016 when it was not renewed by the Civil Aviation Authority, the court was told.

Bourne Grammar School in Lincolnshire lost £44,736

Noel Philo, prosecuting, said that Atol cover was still in place when a number of schools made bookings for trips in the autumn of 2015 and 2016.

Passing sentence Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight said she accepted Buckley-Bennion had not set out to deceive anyone as Atol was in place when the bookings were made.

But the judge told him: "Between the start of October 2016 and the end of March 2017 you indicated to various people that you had a Atol certificate. At that point that wasn't true.

"The schools were left without trips they had at least paid a deposit for," the judge added.

Buckley-Bennion, of Normanton Road, Crowland, Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty to wrongly indicating he was the holder of an Atol certificate at an earlier hearing.

He gave a no-comment interview to police and denied any dishonesty in a prepared statement.

The Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence on eight fraud charges which Buckley-Bennion had denied and not guilty verdicts were entered.