Council leader found guilty of fraud and tax evasion

Ashfield District Council leader Jason Zadrozny has been found guilty of fraud and tax evasion.

Zadrozny, of Stanton Hill, was accused of setting up a fake heritage group to defraud Nottinghamshire County Council out of thousands of pounds.

Prosecutors also alleged he failed to pay tax on four rental properties.

The 46-year-old, who served as an Ashfield Independents councillor on the county council, was found guilty of nine counts of fraud and four counts of tax evasion.

The verdicts came after a jury at Northampton Crown Court had deliberated for nearly 11 hours.

Zadrozny was told by the judge he will be sentenced on 27 November, and was "at risk of an immediate custodial sentence".

Thanking jury members for their "care and attention" during the trial, judge David Herbert KC added the council leader would be given unconditional bail until his sentencing hearing.

During the trial, jurors were told Zadrozny had set up the Ashfield Heritage Society in 2018 before applying for funding from Nottinghamshire County Council, which he then transferred into his personal account.

This included £7,500, requested three days after setting up a bank account for the society, which Zadrozny - who was a county councillor at the time - claimed was "to support heritage projects in Ashfield".

The council issued the funds and they were sent directly to Zadrozny, who deposited them in the account, before withdrawing them in cash in March.

Prosecutors alleged part of the money was used to buy a house with friends.

They said the fraud came to light in March 2021, when Catherine Mason, who was hoping to stand for election in Ashfield, was looking into the council's expenditure and investigated the setting up of the heritage society.

The county council launched an investigation and subsequently passed the details on to the police.

Zadrozny denied the offences and told the trial all the funds he had received were spent on the community.

He told jurors he gave the cash from the Ashfield Heritage Society to Tony Brewer - a former Ashfield District Council chairman who died from Covid in 2020 - to carry out the repair and maintenance of war memorials in the area.

The defendant told jurors his paperwork for funding applications was "terrible", adding: "I wouldn't be sitting in the dock if I filled it out much more clearly."

He also said the wrong address on the application form for the heritage society was "clearly an error" and he cannot remember why he wrote it down.

Jurors found him not guilty of three of the 12 counts of fraud.

Addressing Zadrozny, the judge said: "You have been convicted by the jury. Please understand in my mind is an immediate custodial sentence, given the nature of these offences. The breach of trust element makes them particularly serious.

"Please don't think because the sentencing is not today that it won't be an immediate custodial sentence."

Janine McKinney from the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Jason Zadrozny was placed in a position of trust by the people he claimed to represent. He used his role to get his hands on taxpayers' money to which he was not entitled.

"Zadrozny used his knowledge of the system, to target sources of funding that relied on trust and discretion to use for himself. His web of lies, greed and manipulation has unravelled in the face of the evidence."

A spokesperson for Ashfield District Council said the authority was aware of the verdict.

"The council will now follow the appropriate legal and democratic processes," they said.

"We will continue to deliver our services and undertake our responsibilities for residents, businesses and communities."

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