THREE company directors who falsely claimed nearly £220,000 in VAT by pretending to sell a London hotel they did not own have been sentenced.

Stephen Nathan, 63, of The Manor, Regents Drive, Chigwell, raised an invoice from his company Pure Energy and Power Plc for the sale of a lease on a Bloomsbury hotel in 2005.

Robin Reichelt, 60, of High Beech Road, Loughton, and John Gibbs, 62, of Bow Road, Maidstone, then claimed to have bought the hotel through their company A2Z Properties Ltd - and proceeded to claim back £218,750 in VAT from the phoney transaction.

Pure Energy and Power Plc went into liquidation and A2Z Properties Ltd ceased trading shortly afterward.

An investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) subsequently uncovered a trail of false invoices and a fictitious credit note used to fake the VAT repayment claim and all three men were charged with conspiracy to cheat the public revenue in January 2010.

Nathan and Reichelt were found guilty at Southampton Crown Court on July 7 last year. Nathan was sentenced to four years and five months behind bars and disqualified from being a director for 15 years, while Reichelt was jailed for three years and nine months and banned from acting as a director for ten years.

Sentencing the pair, Judge Peter Ralls said: "This was a brazen professional crime committed by two well qualified businessmen and carried out in a cold and calculated way.

"The level of dishonesty and consistent lying was breathtaking.

"The investigating officers should be congratulated on a very thorough, painstaking and proper investigation."

The jury could not agree a verdict on Gibbs at the original trial, but he admitted his guilt before his retrial and was sentenced to a one-year suspended jail sentence on October 26.

He was also given a six-month supervision order, 200 hours of community service and banned from becoming a director for 10 years.

Reporting restrictions prevented coverage of the case until Gibbs' sentencing last week.

John Cooper, assistant director of criminal investigation at HMRC, said: "This was a sophisticated and blatant fraud committed by three criminals who tried to beat the system but were caught.

"Frauds of this nature mean that our investigations are increasingly complex, but we are committed to pursuing those responsible so that they can be prosecuted and the money stolen from the British tax payer recovered."