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Dr Who accountant jailed for BBC fraud

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7th Jan 2014
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Former BBC production accountant Oliver Ager has been jailed for two years on 17 fraud charges amounting to £80,000.

Ager, from Nailsea in Somerset, who worked on popular shows Dr Who and Casualty, pleaded guilty to the charges at Cardiff Crown Court this week.

He will serve half of his two-year sentence before being let out on licence, according to Wales Online.

The production accountant worked on 20 episodes of Dr Who in 2007 and 2008, and subsequently hospital drama Casualty for seven episodes between 2008 to 2012.

He was dismissed from his job by BBC Finance following allegations of fraud in October 2012.

According to Companies House, Ager was also director of an independent production company, Different Productions, from December 2011 until his dismissal by the BBC.

Ager has since repaid £30,000 of the £80,000 fraud from his pension fund but no order for the remaining sum has been made.

A spokesperson for the BBC said that the organisation has since reviewed its cash processes and ensured “that there is additional oversight to prevent a crime like this from happening again.

“When the BBC became aware of the serious allegations it contacted the police and began an internal investigation which let to Oliver Agers dismissal in October 2012,” they said.

Replies (18)

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By carl billingsley
08th Jan 2014 11:54

Dr Who Accountant

Could have been worse - he could have been E-X-T-E-R-M-I-N-A-T-E-D !

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By PPritchard
08th Jan 2014 12:07

Dr Who Accountant

Shame he can't travel back in time and undo his mistake...  :-)

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Replying to Red Leader:
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By FindingOutX15
20th Jan 2014 19:12

Good one!  It would have to

Good one!  It would have to be Dr Who, wouldn't it?

 

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By andrew.hyde
08th Jan 2014 12:23

If you can't do the time...

...don't do the crime.

Maybe his cell will be bigger inside.

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Replying to atleastisoundknowledgable...:
By plummy1
08th Jan 2014 12:29

Thanks for the laugh

andrew.hyde wrote:

...don't do the crime.

Maybe his cell will be bigger inside.

 

Thanks this made me laugh.

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By quanticoaccountants
08th Jan 2014 13:46

Seems to be a much tougher sentence than those dished out to MPs who fiddled their expenses

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By peter.rudd
08th Jan 2014 15:17

Quote out of context

When Christ referred to 'turning the other cheek' it was in the context of saying retaliating isn't right e.g. you have hit me so I will hit you back (a radical moving away from eye for an eye and hate your enemies as had been the teaching up to that point leading to lots of wars).

Christians actually believe in justice - if Mr Ager did the crime then he should pay the price which in my mind would be repaying as much of the cash as can be recovered as well as time in prison paying his debt to society when hopefully he will have time to come to a place of remorse (different to be sorry for himself) . The individuals at the BBC who's trust he abused may decide to forgive him but they will probably still think it right for him to pay the price - he has become a CASUALTY of his own greed and dishonesty.

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By brownbuchanan
08th Jan 2014 16:22

at least he did not sexually harass anybody and he must regret that he did not get a redundancy package.

how did he get the money out?without knowing this the article is meanless

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By Albasas
08th Jan 2014 16:26

I believe it was the great philosopher Homer Simpson who said: Christianity? Isn't that the religion with all the well meaning rules which don't work in practice? Same here then.

Anyway its all about being civilised and living your life right. Religion is a private matter. Given the temptations of this material world some are weak and fail. Before passing opinion on the convicted I would like to know more about the Case. The above doesn't shed much light on the specifics of the fraud only "17" counts of fraud and the curious:

" Ager has since repaid £30,000 of the £80,000 fraud from his pension fund but no order for the remaining sum has been made."

How exactly do you steal from your own pension fund? Was it a SIPP? Or a BBC pension fund?

"I'm more of a hangar and flogger.....and I think that people go off the rails more because they have personal problems at a psychological level."

Great! Can I store my imaginary light aircraft with you? Then again you might 'flog it'. The Humanist in you is at odds with the reactionary Daily Mail reader in you it seems. Lol! Oh well!  

 

 

 

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Replying to Cheshire:
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By nickselectaccounting
08th Jan 2014 19:36

Tax Charge

I hope he had to pay a 55% tax charge for an unauthorised withdrawal of his pension fund like the rest of us!!!

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By Albasas
08th Jan 2014 19:53

Out Of Unstable Bloodstock

Is there a proven direct link between financial fraud and child abuse? Looks like someone must have had his childhood piggy bank robbed by 'unstable' mum and dad for their seedy night on the cheap booze and pork scratchings, followed by a night in with the 'naughty nanny', then allusions of incest after chucking out time perhaps to boot. Well in order to come up with all that warped stuff, yes. This or something similar perhaps? You would make an excellent subject / patient. Your not part of the solution when your part of the problem.

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By P C Associates
08th Jan 2014 19:59

Dr Who Accountant

But are we not missing a big point. Shame OUR BBC did not have controls in place so he could not do it in the first place!!

I wonder how many other financial controls are still missing at the BBC ?

Or am i being naive?

Patrick

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By KrisKros
09th Jan 2014 13:15

How???

It seems the BBC are keeping the how behind closed doors. So we wont find out how this happened for some time.

 

It's a huge chunk of money (perhaps not relatively) to simply walk out the door. Certainly over a short time there should have been ample controls in place to prevent this. I hope it isn't as simple as sending Dummy fake invoices for Dummy services that were promptly paid out!

 

 

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By Albasas
09th Jan 2014 14:10

Looks like the person I was chatting with got banned.

The £30k taken from the £80k pension fund appears to relate to his own personal pension. Source: BBC. So yes still more questions than answers.

 

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By Ashlea
09th Jan 2014 14:11

After all the comments above, I only want to add one thing....

Why would you commit this fraud? Why do Accountants do it?

I am baffled, even with the various suggested reasons above. I just do not get why an Accountant would do this. If you want to be a low life scam artist then why not just scrounge off the State, you have gone this far, so you may as well go the whole hog as they say!!

Maybe they should call him DOCTOR NO!!

Enjoy prison, paid by us!! Cheers! :)

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By peter stanley
09th Jan 2014 17:16

Pension Fund

I believe that the comments re the repayment of £30k are due to the phrasing in the original article . I think that they probably meant that of the £80k that was stolen , £30k had been repaid by Ager who obtained this amount from his own personal  pension fund . I may well be wrong but this seems to be a more logical explanation . As to the reasons one can only speculate but greed , fear and ego spring to mind . But then again we do not know all the facts so who are we to judge . Thank you .

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By andrew.hyde
10th Jan 2014 13:10

Throw away the key!

I read somewhere that keeping somebody in jail actually costs more than sending them to Eton, where the annual fees are about £32K.

So the answer for people who go around robbing people is to send them to Eton.  Eventually they will become Chancellor of the Exchequer and never rob anyone again.

Oh, hang on...

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By HUGH W DUNLOP
11th Jan 2014 00:46

bbc

When are the BBC going to be jailed for their fraud in collecting fresh licence fees every year and giving us countless repeats and insane programmes?

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