Staff Reporter

Prison warders only realised he was missing when they did an evening head count.

Woolley a 51-year-old company director originally from Stoke-on-Trent masterminded a 38 million VAT fraud involving the purchase and sale of mobile phones across Europe. Some of the proceeds of the fraud were laundered through a firm of solicitors in Leek Staffordshire.

In December 2002 Woolley was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for his part in the fraud – the heaviest sentence handed down for VAT fraud. He had served more than two years of his sentence when he absconded from Sudbury open prison in Derbyshire on February 23.

During the course of Woolleys confiscation hearing he listed the expensive properties and cars he had purchased at one point bragging I bought the Ferrari on a whim. Other assets included a Bentley and an Aston Martin and properties in the United States and Spain.

A spokesman for HM Customs and Excise confirmed that an international arrest warrant had been issued following Woolleys escape.

We obviously want to catch him and given that he has property abroad we are treating this as an international search he said.

Derbyshire Police which is leading the investigation said it had no plans for a public appeal for information.

Woolley is not deemed high-risk so we will not be releasing his picture to the national press. However his image has been distributed to police forces across the country said a spokesperson.

Despite the fact that Woolley remains at large Birmingham Crown Court ruled in his absence on Thursday last week. Woolley was ordered to hand over nearly 10 million of criminal profit or face a further four years imprisonment.

Judge Alistair McCreath sitting at Birmingham Crown Court gave Woolley 13 months to pay 9497704.02p or serve the additional time on top of his nine-year sentence for VAT fraud.

In a detailed ruling The judge said that Woolley had enjoyed substantial benefit from his dishonest enterprise and that he had regarded a sum equating to around a quarter of a million pounds almost as if it were loose change down the back of an armchair.

He also offered his personal thanks to Customs investigators for their enormous diligence in bringing such a complex case to trial.

See page 16

The axe falls heaviest on the customer services department where 430 staff will lose their jobs. The commercial and corporate departments will lose 260 staff while another 210 jobs will go in the technology and information services departments.(Cont P8)

The news came after One 2 One dismissed reports that the business review started at the end of October was bad news.

One 2 One said job losses will consist of compulsory and voluntary redundancies and natural attrition.

One 2 One is consulting with employees and employee consultative bodies and says job losses are not simply to cut costs but to make the best of resources.

The youths entered the store at around 5.30pm forcing two sales consultants and a customer into the stock room where they helped themselves to the 65 phones.

The staff and customer were verbally abused but there was no violence. Police apprehended the thieves a few hours later and recovered the phones.

The handsets would have been blacklisted but this is a real well done to the police and coup for us said a Carphone Warehouse spokesperson.

ET has purchased Philips 12000-square-metre GSM handset configuration and fulfilment facility which employs 600 people in Le Mans France. Part of the deal will see ET manufacture limited quantities of Philips DECT phone range. ET also becomes Philips preferred repair and return partner in Europe.

European Telecom group operations director Mark Jenkins told Mobile News:

We are not pulling out of distribution. We are just focusing more on the logistics and fulfilment side of the business as we stated last year. The facility will allow us to customise handsets for operators. We will take in the base transceivers mass-produced by Philips in China. We will add the external plastics customer software and any other branding requirements for customers.

We will be the partner betweenthe manufacturer and network. Manufacturers do not like to customise handsets. It is not their key competency. Their competency is designing and manufacturing large volumes. They are not good at dealing with small orders. Network operators are increasingly demanding customisation.

Jenkins says ET has no plans to become a manufacturer.

The production line will allow us to produce low-volume niche products. We have been configuring and repairing handsets for the last few years anyway. This gives us a more concrete platform for pan-European fulfilment and distribution.

Philips is a good partner for us. It has had a quiet year in the UK. It is launching a new range of products in Q1 and Q2 to the European market. It plans to sell four million handsets in Europe this year.

European Telecom last week had its shares suspended at 8p for failing to submit its half-year interim figures in time.

This breached the AIM rules. ET has promised to release its figures later this month.

Entries for the Awards should be sent by January 25 to: Mobile News Awards 134 Petherton Road London N5 2RT. Judges include Mike McComb (ex-Mobile Phone Store) Alan Haddon (GSM Suppliers Association) John Strand (Strand Consultants) and Amanda Fisher (ex-Motorola).

The convictions conclude a year-long investigation by trading standards officers into a faulty mains travel charger that exploded after a customer purchased it from a branch of DX Communications in Luton town centre last year (Mobile News January 22).

The customer contacted Luton Trading Standards which also found unsafe chargers at Ansertec a smaller retail outlet in Luton town centre. Ansertec bought the chargers from Essex accessory distributor Space Communications which claimed to have purchased the units from Elite.

European Telecoms accessory arm TAG supplied the faulty chargers to DX Communications. Luton Trading Standards dropped all charges against Space Communications.

I am relieved our name has been cleared. We co-operated fully with trading standards. It is now undisputed where the chargers originated from said Space managing director Darren Cooke.

We got our fingers burned buying third-party products. We only buy original products now because we feel confident they will have been tested added Cooke.

An Elite spokesperson said: We pleaded guilty and paid the fine immediately.

We continue to monitor competitors chargers against our own and these tests show that ours are among the safest on the market.

BTCellnet which rebranded all DX stores this year to BTCellnet stores said:

We had already terminated the use of the supplier before the incident happened. There was only one incident. We now stringently check for safety certificates. Customer safety is paramount to BTCellnet.

The Chinese-made travel chargers had false CE markings and failed independent tests ordered by Luton Trading Standards which found that people using the product were at risk from electrical shock.

Elite initially played down the claims made by Space but later ordered a recall and sacked its supplier. It signed a new contract with the company that supplied travel chargers for its Fone Range brand. Elite has also revised its product-testing procedures.

His job will be to head up Hutchison 3G sales activity including development of sales channels with distributors and dealers.

Before joining One 2 One Barton was managing director of Phones 4U and held executive positions at Cellnet and Talkland.

Said Barton: I am excited about the challenge at Hutchison 3G. I know and have a lot of respect for some of the people that work there. My departure from One 2 One was amicable. I cannot confirm exactly when I will commence.

I will probably spend some time doing a spot of gardening beforehand.

Hutchison 3G spokesperson Edward Brewster said Bartons start date had not been officially fixed.

Brewster also scotched rumours that Hutchison 3G was intending to buy Caudwells Phones 4U retail chain.

The Manx Telecom network of 28 base stations was built by NEC and Siemens and will be used by mm02 as a test-bed prior to roll-out in Western Europe.

Manx Telecom a subsidiary of mmO2 will develop and test multimedia 3G applications. A trial group of 200 customers will receive NEC 3G handsets capable of sending and receiving colour video and entertainment as well as high-speed internet and mobile commerce applications.

The new network covers 85 per cent of the islands territory. But mmO2 chief executive officer Peter Erskine took the froth off the breakthrough by admitting that mmO2 has delayed by six months the launch of its UK 3G network because of lack of dual-mode handsets compatible with both GSM and 3G.

This means mm02 networks in the UK Germany Holland and Ireland will not be ready with 3G until the first half of 2003.

Mm02 knows that it is also crucial that there are viable applications lined up for when 3G is (Cont P2) ready to fly. Data now represents 10.7 per cent of our service revenues.

With the launch of new devices and services and future developments we expect that to increase to 30 per cent within three years said Erskine.

The networks have a low opinion of independent dealers. They look upon us as individuals. They dont think of us as a collective. If we had a unified voice to represent us and raise our concerns the networks would have to take us more seriously said Hull.

If we were told why decisions were being reached we could either argue our case. Or understand their logic. The networks would get something back from us. Far too many of their high-up executives simply dont get out into the field. They have no idea what we are thinking or the pressures our businesses are under.

Mobile News is the only medium we have to express ourselves in the knowledge that people who matter in the networks will at least read what we have to say. Even if they dont act on it.

Networks need to share with us the logic of what they are doing. We need to promote an open (Cont P2) discussion so that we remove the need to churn customers. We could have a dialogue rather than always being faced with a fait accompli. An Independent Dealers Forum with teeth could meet regularly to discuss issues with the networks Hull said.

All Sony Ericsson account directors now report directly to UK managing director Philip Rambech who used to run Ericssons Asia region.

Im sad to be going its the end of an era Nash told Mobile News. Ive been asked to stay on to (Cont P2) Christmas to help with the transition. Im still looking within the Sony Ericsson global organisation for opportunities.

Globally there has been a massive streamlining. The Ericsson UK head count is down from 60 to 25. The business model in all markets doesnt have a role for a sales director any more. All my colleagues in other markets are going through the same thing.

The account management teams will still be looking after the channels and networks as well as distribution and retail. But they will be reporting directly to the MD. I always knew my role could be at risk.